by Andrew Delbanco (Get the Book)Undergraduate education, the Washington Post recently opined, is on the verge of a radical reordering. As a seasoned professor, Delbanco scrutinizes the college world, which poised for such dramatic realignment. It is a world that has long since lost the spiritual purpose of the religionists who founded the nation's flagship universities as institutions for preparing devout students as clergymen. To renew higher education in an age of secular pluralism, Delbanco summons his colleagues to a defense of the university's role in fostering humane and democratic impulses. This defense will require administrators and faculty to resist the hyper-specialization of modern research and the mercenary mentality of careerism. It will also require them to meet new competition from Internet schools and to cope with new pressures from cash-strapped lawmakers. Nor does the challenge end once students show up on campus, for this generation of enrollees often lack basic academic skills yet still expect high grades. Delbanco's agenda for reform curricular, pedagogical, financial, and technological will stimulate a much-needed national dialogue. --Library Journal
