The aftershocks from the January release of a book by Asst. Sociology Prof. Josipa Roksa and New York University Prof. Richard Arum are still reverberating throughout the world of higher education. "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" includes data acquired from administering a standard aptitude test known as the Collegiate Learning Assessment to approximately 2,300 students at 24 four-year universities. The results show that a stunning 45 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" during their first two years of college and that 36 percent remained statistically unimproved at the time of their graduation.
An accompanying survey links this disappointing situation to a trend shifting away from the liberal arts-based method of instruction that traditionally has characterized many American universities. Of the sampled students, 32 percent did not take any classes involving more than 40 pages of reading per week during the previous semester, and a full 50 percent took no classes requiring more than 20 pages of writing during the course of that semester. The authors conclude, therefore, that students "majoring in traditional liberal-arts fields
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