Center for Faculty Development and Innovation

Universities, since the mid -1990s, have become increasingly profit-oriented with significant consequences, according to Mark Edmundson in his book, Why Teach?  In Defense of a Real Education.  Along with student and parent interest in return on investment in a job that leads to employment, universities who focus too much on these values run the risk of creating processes that lead professors, and thus students, away from meaningful transformation.  Edmundson believes that it is critical that students find inspiration and develop curiosity through an introduction to the great thinkers and academic rigor.  Citing his own indoctrination into a love of ideas through Malcolm X, Wordsworth, and Freud, Edmundson argues that professors are instrumental in helping students fight conformity and find meaning.