This is a rare report from outside of the tri-state area, and a very negative one at that. It insists that the newly instated open admissions policy at CUNY is resulting in “semi-illiterate” students on campus and a general destruction of academic standards.
The article cites both the lack of training that these students have in the humanities (specifically reading and writing English) as a major blow to the university’s status, and the two concerned professors that they cite are both in humanistic disciplines (history and Classics). They claim that “there are indications that this college is finished as a learned institution” and that “open enrollments [are] a political device for conferring a college degree without giving a college education.” The article almost self-consciously defends its use of only two faculty opinions as sources, claiming that others are too afraid to speak out.
This article essentially argues that the protests have destroyed the liberal arts and humanities at CUNY rather than expanding them, and that what happened at CCNY is a warning sign for other liberal arts institutions.
“But such absence of criticism [from professors] cannot deflect national academic attention from what is happening at CUNY and particularly at CCNY. In the months and years ahead the cost to higher education of egalitarianism run wild may be incalculable.”
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