Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More

Most Colleges Aren’t Like Derek Bok’s

Reviewed by Vincent Tinto

Derek Bok.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005

Few people have been as concerned with the state of higher education in the United States as Derek Bok. Our Underachieving Colleges bears testimony to that concern. It is a thoughtful and carefully crafted book that speaks eloquently of the issues of student learning in college. After a review of the evolution of U.S. colleges and the debate about the purposes of higher education, Bok describes eight outcomes that he believes are central to any conception of the purposes of higher education: communication skills, critical-thinking skills, development of moral reasoning or “building character,” preparation for citizenship, the ability to live with diversity, preparation for a global society, the acquisition of a breadth of interests, and preparation for a career. Bok then turns to a detailed consideration of the likelihood that different policies would achieve the goal of enhanced student achievement and improve the quality of higher education.

But for all its virtues, Our Underachieving Colleges is not about all colleges, only some. Perhaps unavoidably, it is about the colleges and universities with which the author is most familiar, namely, four-year colleges and universities that are primarily residential and whose students predominantly attend full time. But those institutions and those students are not the majority of postsecondary institutions or students who attend postsecondary education in the United States. Most institutions are either nonresidential or fewer than four years. Furthermore, the great majority of students in those institutions do not reside on campus, nearly two-thirds do not attend full time for the entire year, and a large percentage work—more than a third for more than thirty-five hours per week—and have other obligations beyond the campus. More important, a sizable proportion of students begin with substantial remedial academic needs. Their learning needs are not the same as the students about whom Bok writes.

This is not to say that the goals of higher education Bok encourages would not apply to those institutions and those students. Nor is it to say that the issues of student learning, assessment, and pedagogy are not relevant to those institutions. But the policies Bok advocates in the final chapter, “Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education,” do not play as well in those institutions as they might in the institutions with which he is familiar.

Consider the public community colleges of our nation. As contrasted with students in the colleges and universities whom Bok writes about, most community college students—especially those from low-income backgrounds—do not have the privilege to spend as much time on campus. The only time they are on campus is typically when they are in the classroom or laboratory. For those students, the only place they meet faculty and their peers and engage in formal learning is the classroom. If we cannot address the issues of student learning Bok raises in Our Underachieving Colleges in the classroom, we would be hard pressed to address them elsewhere. Thus the challenge of student learning in the community college falls primarily on faculty. But unlike faculty at most four-year colleges and universities, community college faculty do not have the luxury of teaching only one or two classes a semester or quarter. The great majority teach five or six classes each term and as many as four or five preparations. This does not mean that community college faculty are not concerned with pedagogy, assessment, or student learning. They are perhaps more concerned than faculty at many of the larger research universities that are the object of Bok’s concern. Rather, it means that they do not have the luxury of spending as much time on these matters as many faculty in the four-year sector can, if they choose to do so. And as Bok admits, many faculty, especially in the large research universities, choose not to do so.

However, the issues of student learning are even more pressing in U.S. community colleges than in four-year colleges and universities. Why is this the case? Two-year colleges serve a disproportionate number of academically underprepared low-income students, an increasing number of whom are not native English speakers. Therefore, while it is undeniably true that every student’s education is of equal concern, it is also true that our future as a diverse democratic society depends on our capacity as a nation to ensure as best we can that low-income students in general and community college students in particular are educated in ways that not only advance their growth and occupational attainment but also enable them to transfer, should they so wish, to the colleges and universities about which Bok cares so deeply.

We need a national effort that provides community colleges and the faculty who teach students in those colleges with the resources they need to address the substantial learning needs of students and to enable faculty to acquire the skills to help their students learn in the settings in which they meet. And we must do so before faculty are overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task in front of them. It is for that reason that we should applaud the action taken by Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler, Arizona, which now requires all new faculty to take a year-long training program that focuses on pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum. Chandler-Gilbert, like other community colleges, understands that student achievement does not arise by chance or from the good-will of faculty alone, but it requires intentional, proactive, and structured programs. It is a pity that most universities of which Bok speaks do not understand that as well.

All this is not so much to criticize Our Underachieving Colleges as it to ask its author to give as careful and caring consideration to two-year institutions and the students they serve as he does to the institutions to which he speaks.

Vincent Tinto is Distinguished University Professor in Higher Education at Syracuse University. He has written widely on issues of student success in higher education, in particular on the effects of innovative programs—such as learning communities—on student success, especially among low-income and underserved students. He can be reached by e-mail at vtinto@syr.edu.

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