Monday, May 14, 2007

Free Exchange and Shakespeare   [Mark Bauerlein]

ACTA's report on the decline of Shakespeare in English major curricula adds more distressing evidence of the trend toward pop culture and multiculturalist/theoretical contents in the classroom. But another illuminating thing about the report is the response it has gathered from higher ed groups.

One of them is Free Exchange on Campus. Free Exchange pledges to oppose anybody who has ideological designs on higher education, particularly the Academic Bill of Rights folks, and it has a daunting list of coalition members, including AAUP, ACLU, American Library Association, and National Education Association.

Free Exchange has made several responses to ACTA's Shakespeare report, and they follow a familiar line among higher ed defenders. First, it condescends—"Who are you to criticize us? You don't know anything about what we do." And second, it quibbles over the data. Here's an opening paragraph of one of them:

So it was with great expectations that I read the American Council of Trustees and Alumni's recent report, The Vanishing Shakespeare [.pdf], which has been generating a lot of press of late.  Not that I was expecting a scholarly manuscript or a scientific study by any means, but I was looking forward to a spirited and well-reasoned defense of the Bard's importance to the study of English literature.  But alas, poor reader, it was the ACTA we knew well, producing yet another report with a sloppy methodology, a list of non-problems, and a barely disguised political agenda.  In other words, it's much ado about nothing.  

This is the tone of a comfortable insider. It drips with superiority, and slides smoothly from noting problems in the report to stating that the curricular issue is no problem at all. It also mischaracterizes the thesis. ACTA never aimed to produce a "spirited and well-reasoned defense of the Bard's importance." It wanted to tally English major requirements.

Next, we get to the methodology:

In their report, ACTA surveyed the U.S. News & World Report's list of the top 25 national universities and top 25 liberal arts colleges, the universities of the Big Ten, three public universities in both California and New York (one of which was included in the USN&WR list), and universities in the vicinity of the District of Columbia (their sampling is explained on page 3 of the report).  From this sample, we can draw meaningful generalizations about... well, about the sample.  As we've noted before, ACTA ignored the thousands of colleges and universities that aren't "elite" institutions or located on the coasts or in the Midwest.  Basically, the higher education institutions attended by most Americans are conspicuously absent in this particular study.  Is Shakespeare really vanishing from the English curriculum in colleges?  It's hard to tell from this narrowly constructed sample.

Similarly, the criteria for determining whether Shakespeare is "required" is also narrowly defined.  Basically, Shakespeare is only counted as required if a department requires a course solely on the Bard.  We're not privy to knowing how many other required courses may require Shakespeare (say, an introduction to British literature course, which still seems to be a necessity in most English departments).  Again, this is not to say that Shakespeare is not "vanishing" from the curriculum, but from this criteria, the bold claims made by ACTA simply don't follow.  In the absence of any sort of justification for their sampling methodology or their determinant criteria, a reader is left to wonder how widespread this "problem" actually is, or whether ACTA left inconvenient and contradictory data out of their report.

The choice of 70 schools as, for the most part, ranked by quality sounds to me like a good place to begin a larger study of English curricula. Of course, it's a partial list, but it does compare to an earlier study from the mid-90s by ACTA, which found that 23 schools required a Shakespeare course. This time, ACTA found that eight of those 23 had dropped the requirement, a significant fact in itself.

But the writer ignores it. Instead, he or she accuses ACTA of ignoring all but the "elite" programs, complaining that it's a tiny picture of higher education in the United States.

Well, even if we accept that point, the responsible step is for Free Exchange to supply some data of its own. It has a coalition whose resources make ACTA's look downright puny. ACTA's sample doesn't invalidate the issue, as the author suggests. The sample should be a starting point for further study, and if Free Exchange cares so much about education, it should act accordingly. Besides, the assumption that these 70 schools are trend-setters in curricula for the rest of the country sounds reasonable to me, and from what I've seen of the schools included, they're only too happy to claim their exemplary status.

But instead of adding more data and evidence to the issue, Free Exchange goes after the messenger. Here are the final paragraphs:

As I mentioned earlier, there are many, many reasoned arguments as to why the Bard should be given a privileged place within the curriculum.  ACTA's reason for his inclusion boils down to "because it's always been that way" and "because we said so," reasons which would be unacceptable to anyone teaching basic argumentation.

Let's be clear: ACTA isn't concerned with the quality of education that English majors are receiving at colleges and universities across the country.  Fitting Vanishing Shakespeare into the broader context of the ACTA agenda, it becomes clear that this is another attempt to impose their ideology on academia.  Threatened by the expanding definition of what is considered art and the fact that scholars believe that literature is a reflection of the society in which it is produced - sometimes an unflattering reflection, to be sure - ACTA attempts to usurp the professional work of a dedicated and highly-competent English faculty with a one-size-fits-all standardized curriculum which reflects the priorities and agenda of a narrow stratum of society.  Rather than allowing for the free exchange of ideas to be reflected in higher education curriculum, ACTA would impose their narrow view of what great literature is. 

The author mentions "many reasoned arguments" for Shakespeare's centrality, but he or she doesn't supply any.  Instead, ACTA becomes the issue, and slimy tactics take over. The response refers to "basic argumentation" while the  ironies pile up.

It says that ACTA is trying to "impose their ideology" on academia, while never acknowledging the ideology of people who have shuffled Shakespeare aside.

It claims that ACTA is "Threatened" by definitions of art, but the defensiveness of the response sounds a lot more anxious than the assertiveness of the Shakespeare report.

It invokes the cheap insider tactic of competence, contrasting the interloping acts of ACTA hacks with "dedicated and highly-competent English faculty."

It identifies a "narrow view of what great literature is" with narrow-mindedness and ideological intent, adopting the watery notion that inclusivity is always better than exclusivity.

And it aligns ACTA with a "narrow stratum of society," never recognizing the much narrower stratum of its own members, college professors.

This is a way to bully and ridicule ACTA and other outside, traditionalist critics of higher education out of the room and off the radar. Free Exchange on Campus pledges to maintain an open marketplace of ideas, and it does—unless it disagrees with what you have to say. Free Exchange is not about free exchange. It's about circling the wagons and ensuring professional privilege and sanctifying progressivist ideology. And its sarcastic title would be laughable if the work it does weren't so damaging.

05/14 09:30 AMShare