Derek Bok

Education, and I regret to say this as an educator, but there's no indication that education has a direct effect on happiness. ”

I suspect that no community will become humane and caring by restricting what its members can say. ”

For some students, especially in the sciences, the knowledge gained in college may be directly relevant to graduate study. For almost all students, a liberal arts education works in subtle ways to create a web of knowledge that will illumine problems and enlighten judgment on innumerable occasions in later life. ”

As countries embrace mass higher education, the cost of maintaining universities increases dramatically relative to an elite system. ”

Most high governmental officials who speak of education policy seem to conceive of education in this light - as a way to ensure economic competitiveness and continued economic growth. I strongly disagree with this approach. ”

Teaching methods are often inadequate for the goals faculties are trying to achieve. Important courses such as expository writing and foreign languages are frequently taught by untrained graduate students and underpaid adjunct teachers. ”

Doctoral training is devoted almost entirely to learning to do research, even though most Ph.Ds who enter academic life spend far more time teaching than they do conducting experiments or writing books. ”

Critics of American colleges typically attribute the failings of undergraduate education to a tendency on the part of professors to neglect their teaching to concentrate on research. In fact, the evidence does not support this thesis, except perhaps in major research universities. ”

Good teaching is creating really interesting generalizations out of war stories. ”

The University has a moral obligation to provide equal opportunities to women, minority persons and all other groups who work or seek to work at Harvard. ”