Dr. Kohorn introduced the speaker for the evening, Professor Donald Kagan, who has had several named chairs at Yale, has been the Dean of Yale College, the Director of Athletics, has written extensively and received many awards, most recently the National Humanities Medal for 2002 presented by the President of the United States at the White House -- A veritable "legend in his own time". The talk was entitled," Higher Education: Then and Now".

In looking back at how things had changed Professor Kagan said that as an older person one would expect his perspective to be that things were better then. However, he felt they really were and went on to explain why he thought so. He explored different areas of the academic arena describing the changes that had occurred in each. When he started teaching in the 50's the average teaching load was 5 courses each semester, as opposed to 1 or 2 nowadays. Sabbatical leaves were granted every 7 years as opposed to every 6th semester now and salaries were much lower than they are today. So faculties now work less, get more time off and get paid more but have much less contact with their students. As far as courses were concerned they were much broader and not as specialized as they are today.

  The faculty used to spend time discussing what needed to be taught, requiring breadth and depth of the teachers. Today there is little collaboration and the emphasis is on focus and specialization. He said that the definition of education was to "draw a person out of their narrow environment", but today the focus was more on the student. He felt this was educationally restrictive and the consequence divisive. He quoted Carl Becker who said " a professor is someone who thought otherwise". Specialization and inward focusing promoted "political correctness" and therefore it belied this definition.

  Turning his attention to administration Professor Kagan said that the growth in that area was unbelievable. The University is now about "what it costs." Government regulations and oversights have certainly fed into that growth. He felt that hiring used to be better and fairer. Today, gender, race and politics intrude because there is so much discrimination. He said that today there was tremendous fear of being branded a bigot and that political correctness was more successful than McCarthy!

  In the area of instruction Professor Kagan said that the Social Sciences were dead, that obscurantism had wrecked the study of literature and in fact had had the same effect on History. The goal of instruction was to produce a well-rounded individual. He asserted that a liberal education has status and produces individuals with style and manners. Today's relativism borders on nihilism and the mores seems to be " do your own thing but expect the highest moral standard of others". He said that today cultural values are taken for granted and there is great ignorance as well as disinterest in the past. Individualism and isolationism are reinforced by our educational system.

  Looking to the future Professor Kagan said that there should be a common core that some information is intrinsically valuable, that the past contains wisdom that is useful today and that we need to have mutual respect. Freedom requires good laws but the freedom of speech is of essence. Basically, political correctness inhibits freedom of expression but we should be respectful rather than afraid of other people's point of view. A lively discussion followed this provocative and stimulating presentation.