The Good of This Place: Values and Challenges in College Education

Description

This eloquent collection of essays and speeches by Richard H. Brodhead addresses issues of importance to institutes of higher learning and to those who participate in them. As the popular Dean of Yale College from 1993 to 2004, Brodhead was involved in every aspect of undergraduate education—curriculum, faculty appointments, and student life—and occupied a unique position from which to ponder the ways that college can prepare young people to lead fulfilling lives. One of Dean Brodhead’s responsibilities was to welcome new students to Yale at the annual Freshman Assembly, and this book presents his engaging remarks as he simultaneously reassured and challenged them. The later sections of the book range through various concerns of the contemporary university, from free speech and diversity issues to sexual harassment policy, residential education, the assessment of academic programs, and the complex and competing goals of college admissions. At once reflective, witty, and wise, this book speaks to students and educators alike, to all who hope to become—or shape others to become—thoughtful and constructive members of society. Contents Preface Words For New Students Welcome Home The Freedom Of This Place A More Exemplary Life Begun 2000 and You What Is Fitting The Way to Worry Hazards of Success What Country, Friends, Is This? Of Preparation for an Unknown World Learning by Choice and by Chance Words at Midterm Aspects of Education On Administration An Anatomy of Multiculturalism On Residential Education On Sexual Harassment Two Writers’ Beginnings: Eudora Welty in the Neighborhood of Richard Wright At the Millennium: An Agenda Going Forward Taking Democracy to School Free Speech and Its Discontents The New Internationalism: Globalizing Comparative Literature Official Business Remarks on the Tercentennial of Yale University Selections from the Report on Yale College Education Forms of Farewell Baccalaureate Readings Singing in the Prospect of Time Remarks on Accepting the Presidency of Duke University