I was not too impressed with this book. Maybe it is because I am an experienced teacher, and I have been in higher education long enough to see the points Bok is making about complacency in academia and the entrenched conservative ways that prevent change. After reading for a while, you can easily end up despairing at a system that pretty much refuses to change while the rest of the world is at the gates besieging them. Some of what he writes I have seen elsewhere in bits and pieces. The fact is that the graduates of our colleges are underachieving, and they are doing so where it matters. Lack of moral values, critical thinking skills, communication skills, civic responsibility, so on. They are just not learning it in college, and yet college should be the place to be learning all this and more in order to become a well-rounded person and a productive citizen able to participate in society. Indeed, reading this book may drive some to despair, but maybe someone will actually read it and think of ways to gradually bring about some change. At least, I'd like to think so.
