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American higher education finds itself in the grip of two conflicts of purpose. One engulfs the professional schools. Recent scandals in once-trusted professions, for example in finance, law, and health care, have shaken public confidence in them, and many critics of the professions worry that these scandals have occurred at least in part because professional education has become detached from the public purposes that ought to be at its center. Some professional schools have attempted to address this concern by adding courses in professional ethics, but this is an incomplete answer to a more radical challenge: how to inculcate among future professionals the ability to approach new situations with a full appreciation of the standards of behavior expected of them.
Meanwhile, a second, less-visible conflict is emerging in the arts and sciences, where faculty members increasingly find themselves asked about the practical relevance of their teaching. Many respond by claiming that the arts and sciences cultivate critical thinking, an intellectual skill that is central to modern living, but this too is an incomplete answer to a more radical challenge. What college graduates need is not only the ability to stand back from experience in order to analyze it but also the capacity to engage experience meaningfully, using analytic tools, theory, and knowledge.
William M. Sullivan is a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where he co-directs the Preparation for the Professions Program, a multi-year study of professional education in five fields. He is a co-author of Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, as well as author of Work and Integrity: the Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in American Life. Formerly a research scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Matthew S. Rosin is currently a senior research associate at EdSource, an independent education-policy research agency focusing on K-12 issues in California. His books include Obsoleting Culture and A New Agenda for Higher Education (with Sullivan).
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