Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading William Deresiewicz’s book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite & the Way to a Meaningful Life (The Free Press, 2014).  Deresiewicz was an English professor at Yale University until 2008 and now writes for major journals including The Nation and The New Republic.  Excellent Sheep is a dark and sad commentary on the students, faculty, administrators, and the educations offered at America’s elite universities such as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. He is highly critical of admissions processes that favor legacy applicants and individuals who benefit from their parents wealth to buy their children’s way into an elite school; careerism that funnels so many students to finance and consulting; and college administrators who applaud and compliment their students as the best in the world. Here are several excerpts:

“The fact is elite schools have strong incentives not to produce too many seekers, and thinkers: too many poets, teachers, ministers, public interest lawyers, nonprofit workers, or even professors – too much selflessness, creativity, intellectuality, or idealism…Career service offices have nothing to say to students who are interested in anything other than the big four of law, medicine, finance and consulting.” p. 71

He cautions against the commoditization of higher education and careerism:

“Increasingly anything you learn is going to become obsolete within a decade…the most important kind of learning is learning how to learn” p. 152 and he quotes Woodrow Wilson: “We want one-class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class…very much larger…to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific manual tasks.” p. 166

He exposes community service at some of these institutions as elitism at its worst:

“The whole idea of service as embodied in organizations such as Teach for America is inherently condescending. You do for others – those poor, unfortunate others – what you don’t think they can do for themselves. You swoop down and rescue them with your awesome wisdom and virtue” p. 216

In sum, Deresiewicz misses very little to be critical about. A New York Times review by Anthony Grafton, a professor at Princeton University, while highly complimentary also points out that not all students, faculty, and administrators in elite schools fall into the patterns outlined in the book. I found Excellent Sheep… an insightful read and important commentary on American higher education. I highly recommend it.

Tony