[Alumni-chat] (no subject)

[David Apter]

Dear Lesley A. Pownall Bahr,

Since you ask let me send you something I tried 
to circulate for starters a while back even 
though it got nowhere.  Even if it is probably silly to try again here goes.

>A good deal of what made Antioch different in my 
>day (immediate post-war two) is now pretty wide 
>spread throughout the American university 
>system.  My teaching experience, Northwestern, 
>University of Chicago, Berkeley, Yale has been 
>comfortable for the most part because of the 
>universalization on these very diverse 
>university campuses of the very virtues that 
>once set Antioch apart.  Think Yale fifty years ago.....
>
>Which suggests that much of what was unique 
>about Antioch, although certainly not 
>everything, is well, no longer unique.  Students 
>everywhere do work, take time off, travel.  An 
>amazing proportion contribute to local self help 
>projects in the community.  Many hold jobs part 
>time.  If so what does this tell us about 
>opportunities for Antioch?  Can there be an 
>interesting and legitimate role for an Antioch 
>of the future given the range of institutional 
>alternatives?  These are questions that inspires 
>me to play with some ideas based in part on my 
>Antioch experience as well as in more conventional institutions.

As I see it the more general problem is 
this.  One of the difficulties facing those who 
would design a suitable educational curriculum, 
(one that would be attractive to students making 
choices), is the problem of learning, absorbing, 
interpreting.  To really understand the materials 
imposed on most students today given the 
extraordinary build up of essential and required 
knowledge, has made a good deal of higher 
education a strategy game, the markers of which 
are grades, recommendations, etc. This is 
perfectly understandable given sheer volume of 
what it is necessary to know.  Not only do such 
conditions impose extraordinary burdens on 
students and faculty alike but choosing and 
selecting often means loss of what has been known 
- so that it is often the case, especially in the 
social sciences, that the wheel gets reinvented 
again and again, even though the discourse 
shifts.  One way of dealing with the problem has 
been the increasingly widespread use of 
interdiscplinary courses something which for a 
variety of reasons seems to make particular sense 
at Antioch.  However, (and even though I have 
recently won an international prize for 
interdisciplinary research and yield to no one in 
support of it), I doubt that that is in itself 
more than a question begging solution.  Mostly 
such courses are just just watered down, thin 
stuff from several disciplines. If so, what might 
be needed for enrichment?  What is required to 
stimulate the tension and even passion that might 
make learning truly interesting and educationally 
more inspiring and not subject to short cuts and beat the system strategies?

>Here are some ideas off the top of my 
>head.  Suppose instead of simply restoring the 
>work study program a new program was 
>established, one that focussed on field 
>research.  My own experience of such projects is 
>in the social sciences, but the physical 
>sciences, the arts and humanities are if 
>anything even more rich in 
>opportunities.  Suppose that aiming to do that 
>field work well would become the center piece of 
>an Antioch education. Suppose that by mobilzing 
>the necessary back-ground knowledge one placed 
>considerable emphasis on learning theory design, 
>organizing what one learned and might do 
>research on into a framework that would make the 
>research theoretically interesting and 
>empirically doable.  If that kind of structure 
>was to form the backdrop and substance of the 
>Antioch experience then a junior year might be a 
>field study year, whether in this country or 
>abroad, and in whatever specialty a student 
>finds attractive and stimulating.  Suppose too, 
>that one's senior year would involve both 
>reflection on the wider implications of what was 
>learned before field work and experience of 
>doing it in terms of the empirical 
>generalization of the findings or the larger 
>philosophical, moral, ethical, or artistic 
>implications of what has been accomplished. My 
>point would be to focus early, organize 
>knowledge in terms of learning by doing, with 
>some of the doing being real field work.  And 
>just think how far ahead students would be if 
>and when they a) entered the job market, or b) went on to graduate school.
>
>Of course I myself can immediately voice 
>objections.  Would students have to choose 
>before they were capable of it?  Would such a 
>focus or emphasis exclude too much from a 
>balanced educational program?  Would such an 
>emphasis generate early professionalization at 
>the expense of intellectual curiosity?  And 
>above all who would pay for it?   There are lots 
>of others.  But the central idea behind this 
>suggestion is that institutions of higher 
>education rarely confront the fact that in a 
>world so complex, and so multiiple, and where 
>the sheer building up of essential theory and 
>knowledge is so overwhelming, there is a growing 
>need is for quite new strategies of learning 
>rather than strategies of survival - or just 
>moving the knowledge chips around in the same board game and calling it reform
>
>Antioch's near demise tells us something about 
>how far ahead it once was, and how much higher 
>education caught up.  It also suggests 
>opportunities for a next round that an Antioch, 
>or some other experimental college of the future 
>might entertain.  What I envisage would be 
>intensely serious, requiring committed students 
>and faculty, around ideals not only of learning 
>but of knowledge as experience - all of which is 
>in keeping with Antioch's tradition.


These are only a few thoughts to throw into what 
I hope will be a very diverse hopper.

David E. Apter
Henry J. Heinz II Professor Emeritus of 
Comparative Political and Social Development
Yale University



At 12:00 AM 11/4/2007, you wrote:

>Thank you for your words, David Apter.
>Any academic imagination, you care to share?
>
>We have just returned from the first meeting of 
>Minnesota Alumni.  Catherine Jordan presented 
>the recent Alumni Board negotiations with 
>Antioch University BoT and Administration--and 
>the AB fund raising efforts and goals.  There is 
>much work ahead.  Frank Adler also called for a 
>strong academic vision and pulling on the 
>academic expertise within the alumni community 
>to begin development of a vision.  Drawing on 
>the alumni expertise could also serve as a 
>symbolic bridge between the "old' and "new" 
>Antioch College.  Your name was mentioned as one such alumnus.
>
>There is a Vision forum on Antiochians.org.  You 
>have to sign-up by going to forums.  Once you 
>are logged in you can scroll down to Vision.  I 
>hope to read more of your ideas in the near 
>future.  What needs to be done first in this new start?
>
>Lesley A Pownall Bahr
>Minnesota
>
> > Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 21:45:26 -0400
> > To: alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu
> > From: david.apter at yale.edu
> > Subject: [Alumni-chat] (no subject)
> >
> > This reprieve brings temporary relief to those for whom Antioch
> > remains special. But if it is to be more than that and to restore
> > Antioch to something like its earlier luster, it will require a great
> > deal of academic imagination along with some hard thinking about what
> > to learn, how to learn it, and why what is to be learned should be
> > learned.  Otherwise it will do little good to simply keep the place
> > going.  I hope the powers take this moment for what it is, an
> > opportunity for a fresh look as well as a new start.  Properly done
> > my hunch is that there will be money out there for an exciting
> > program and lots of good will as well.  Good luck.
> >
> > David E. Apter "50".
> >
> >
> >
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