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Literacy In Higher Ed Isn T Dying It S Evolving Opinion Deseret News

Leo Migdal
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literacy in higher ed isn t dying it s evolving opinion deseret news

There is a common misconception about college; it’s not the parties, lectures or even tests. It’s that people actually do assigned readings. Typically buried in the “required content” section, textbooks and assigned readings stay relatively untouched for most students. Recent articles from news outlets, such as The Atlantic’s “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books,” paint a grim picture for the future of America’s literacy and comprehension. However, as a current university student, I have a different story to tell. We’ve reached a point where students no longer care to read their textbooks.

This is why 30% of students reported reading their textbooks compared with 85% of faculty expecting students to read the textbook. The disconnect between academics and their pupils is growing due to a lack of understanding on what a student needs in order to learn and absorb information. New forms of media such as podcasts, videos or articles should not be considered as less valuable than a book or textbook. Visual learning is in itself a form of comprehension, and data shows that the majority of students are visual learners. In order to understand students' needs and how they can best learn, we have to accommodate, not criticize. The use of tools that emphasize speaking and listening over reading don’t signal the end of literacy; they signal a change in how students want to learn.

This is why academics who talk about a rise in shallow reading, the practice of students reading to gain information fast and efficiently, need to understand where students are coming from. The issue is college students are designed to be that type of learner, the fast learner. In order to keep up with massive textbooks assigned daily or weekly, the college student has no choice but to revert to the shallow reader. When in reality, faster learning is not better learning. The difference in expectations and reality between the student and the professor can be seen in data. According to the 2018 Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, 97% of professors think it’s “important” or “very important” that students come to class having finished their reading, however, a minuscule 3% believe that students...

The straightforward takeaway that many have mistaken as the death of books and literacy is simply a caricature of the truth. The modern college student prefers information that is efficient and respects their time, which long readings have notoriously not done. While higher education is meant to be both mentally and academically challenging in order to grow skill, forms of media that fail to help students learn quicker should not be the primary content we... Students that prefer to be assigned Youtube videos do so because it opens up flexibility for studying and takes less time. Years ago, as a young academic, I found myself seated in an antebellum inn in Oxford, Mississippi. A fire crackled quietly in the hearth, and across from me sat William F.

Buckley Jr. — founder of National Review, author of “God and Man at Yale,” and one of the great minds of our time. As we spoke at length about the decay of higher education, Buckley lamented that Yale had abandoned its soul. “They’ve kept the Latin,” he said with a wry smile, “but they’ve lost the light.” He was, of course, speaking of Yale’s motto: Lux et Veritas — Light and Truth. I would add this: Yale’s seal doesn’t only include Latin. It also bears Hebrew script—Urim and Thummim— symbols drawn from biblical tradition, meaning “lights and perfections.”

When a university abandons Lux et Veritas, it doesn’t just lose tradition. It forfeits transcendence. Buckley told me that universities were drifting not only from faith, but from intellectual seriousness, from moral purpose, from the courage to say some things are true and others are not. That night shaped me. It reminded me that ideas are not abstractions — they are anchors. And liberty requires more than license.

It requires character. Editor’s note: This is part of a Deseret Magazine series examining the question: What happened to the promise of college? Higher education finds itself under a harsh spotlight. Politicians accuse colleges and universities of ideological bias, irrelevance, financial irresponsibility and cultural insularity. Abrupt federal funding freezes and threats to international student enrollment are generating fear and lawsuits. Republicans appear now to be the main critics of higher education, but Democrats in years past have also raised plenty of complaints.

Understandably, many within higher education have responded defensively, seeking to protect their institutions during what feels like a moment of existential crisis. But let’s acknowledge a crucial truth: American higher education has always faced deep scrutiny, often during times of national unrest, and it has always responded best by reforming, not retreating. During the Revolutionary War, colonial colleges were disrupted or shut down, sparking early debates about whether they should serve the British crown or the emerging republic. Many of the nation’s Founders, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, played key roles in founding or reforming colleges during America’s formative years. Jefferson requested that his gravestone commemorate his role as the “Father of the University of Virginia,” notably omitting his role as our nation’s third president. That underscored how deeply he valued education as part of his legacy.

During the Civil War, enrollments plummeted, campuses were commandeered by armies, and leaders questioned whether the classical curriculum could meet the needs of a fractured and industrializing nation. Yet even amid these challenges, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land Grant Act into law on July 2, 1862. That set in motion a system of new public universities, focused on agriculture, engineering and related fields, that would significantly accelerate our nation’s role as a global leader in higher education. Illustrations by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff This month, average reading scores for high school seniors — released by the Nation’s Report Card — fell to their lowest level since 1992. It was the first time that 12th graders had taken the test since the COVID pandemic, and the results showed a widening gap between the highest- and lowest-achieving students.

While it may be tempting to chalk up the decline in reading skills to COVID learning loss, the scores continue a slide that predates the pandemic, according to Martin West, academic dean and a... “American students’ literacy skills peaked in roughly the middle of the last decade and have fallen significantly since that time,” he said. In this episode of “Harvard Thinking,” host Samantha Laine Perfas, along with West and other guests, discuss what might be driving the decline and possible strategies for reversing it. West brought up one theory, sparked by a recent report that showed a dwindling number of teens are reading for pleasure. “What could be driving that trend?” he asked. “I don’t think we have smoking gun evidence that the rise of screen-based childhood is a direct contributor to the literacy trends that we’re seeing.

But I’m willing to put it very high on my list of potential suspects.” You have /5 articles left.Sign up for a free account or log in. According to a 2021 Pew Research survey, roughly a quarter of American adults—including 38 percent of Hispanic adults, 25 percent of Black adults and 20 percent of white adults—say they haven’t read a book... This is even true of 11 percent of adults with a bachelor’s or other advanced degree. These figures are nearly triple those reported in 1978. There’s also been a sharp decline in bookworms.

Two in five adults told a 1978 Gallup survey that they had read 11 or more books in the past year. The 2021 Pew figure was just 28 percent. Of special concern to academics are reports that college students, according to the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, are increasingly unwilling to complete assigned reading.

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