Excellence Without a Soul: Does Liberal Education Have a Future?

We all know that higher education has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Historically a time of exploration and self-discovery, the college years have been narrowed toward an increasingly singular goalandmdash;career trainingandmdash;and college students these days forgo the big questions about who they are and how they can change the world and instead focus single-mindedly on their economic survival. In The Purposeful Graduate, Tim Clydesdale elucidates just what a tremendous loss this is, for our youth, our universities, and our future as a society. At the same time, he shows that it doesnandrsquo;t have to be this way: higher education can retain its higher cultural role, and students with a true sense of purposeandmdash;of personal, cultural, and intellectual value that cannot be measured by a wageandmdash;can be streaming out of every one of its institutions.

The key, he argues, is simple: direct, systematic, and creative programs that engage undergraduates on the question of purpose. Backing up his argument with rich data from a Lilly Endowment grant that funded such programs on eighty-eight different campuses, he shows that thoughtful engagement of the notion of vocational calling by students, faculty, and staff can bring rich rewards for all those involved: greater intellectual development, more robust community involvement, and a more proactive approach to lifelong goals. Nearly every institution he examinesandmdash;from internationally acclaimed research universities to small liberal arts collegesandmdash;is a success story, each designing and implementing its own program, that provides students with deep resources that help them to launch flourishing lives.

Flying in the face of the pessimistic forecast of higher educationandrsquo;s emaciated future, Clydesdale offers a profoundly rich alternative, one that can be achieved if we simply muster the courage to talk with students about who they are and what they are meant to do.

andldquo;There are all sorts of books offered about how to improve higher education, energize students, incentivize teaching, and so forth. But Clydesdaleandrsquo;s focus on vocation as a fundamental impetus for directing the studentandrsquo;s course in college and beyond makes his book stand out. It is a simple notion that can be generalized to all of higher education, and he offers a bevy of programmatic initiatives that are as feasible as they are sensible.andrdquo;

andldquo;At this time of increasing doubt and uncertainty in higher education, Clydesdale has given us a shining path forward. The Purposeful Graduate is well reasoned yet passionate in its recommendations. It is also a good read, filled with compelling stories of young people searching for meaningful vocations in our complex world. I recommend it to anyone who cares about the future of higher education in this country.andrdquo;

A Harvard professor and former Dean of Harvard College offers his provocative analysis of how America's great universities are failing students and the nation

America's great research universities are the envy of the world—and none more so than Harvard. Never before has the competition for excellence been fiercer. But while striving to be unsurpassed in the quality of its faculty and students, Universities have forgotten that the fundamental purpose of undergraduate education is to turn young people into adults who will take responsibility for society. In Excellence Without a Soul, Harry Lewis, a Harvard professor for more than thirty years and Dean of Harvard College for eight, draws from his experience to explain how our great universities have abandoned their mission. Harvard is unique; it is the richest, oldest, most powerful university in America, and so it has set many standards, for better or worse. Lewis evaluates the failures of this grand institution—from the hot button issue of grade inflation to the recent controversy over Harvard's handling of date rape cases—and makes an impassioned argument for change. The loss of purpose in America's great colleges is not inconsequential. Harvard, Yale, Stanford—these places drive American education, on which so much of our future depends. It is time to ask whether they are doing the job we want them to do.

American higher education is more expensive than ever and the rewards seem to be diminishing daily.and#160; Sociologist Tim Clydesdaleand#8217;s new book, however, offers some rare good news: when colleges and universities meaningfully engage their organizational histories to launch sustained conversations with students about questions of purpose, the result is a rise in overall campus engagement and recalibration of post-college trajectories that set graduates on journeys of significance and impact.

and#160;

The book is based on a study of programs launched at 88 colleges and universities that invited students, faculty, staff, and administrators to incorporate questions of meaning and purpose into the undergraduate experience.and#160; The results were so positive that Clydesdale came away from the study arguing that every campus (religious or not) should engage students in a broad conversation about what it means to live an examined life.and#160; This conversation needs to be creative, intentional, systematic, and wide-ranging, he says, because for too long this core liberal educational task has been relegated to the margins, and its attendant religious or spiritual discourse banished from classrooms and quads, to the detriment of higher educationand#8217;s virtually universal mission: graduates marked by thoughtfulness, productivity, and engaged citizenship.

Harry Lewis, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Harvard College professor, has been on the Harvard faculty for thirty-two years. He was Dean of Harvard College between 1995 and 2003 and chaired the College's student disciplinary and athletic policy committees. He has been a member of the undergraduate admissions and scholarship committee for more than three decades. Lewis lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Acknowledgments

Preface

1 Purposeful Paths

2 Contexts

3 Matters of Design

4 Students

5 Faculty and Staff

6 Strategies and Ecologies

7 Larger Lessons

Appendix 1: List of Participating Institutions in the Lilly Endowment Inc.and#8217;s Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation Initiative, 2000and#8211;2009

Appendix 2: Methodology

Appendix 3: Interview and Survey Questions

Appendix 4: Visited Campuses, Program Participation, and Postaward Continuation

Appendix 5: Resources for Purpose Exploration Programming

Notes

Index