Higher education should take three steps to pierce the ideological bubble of wokeness, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.
“Universities have become insular and homogenous, estranged not just from those who finance them but from those who support their purpose in general,” Professor Ryan Owens (pictured) wrote recently at the Washington Examiner. “As a result, educational quality suffers and scholarly innovation declines. It is time to reflect on how we can improve.”
University officials have ignored the development of critical thinking and public speaking skills in favor of “ideologically left-leaning agendas and identity politics,” he wrote.
Universities should require students to take a course on free speech and the First Amendment, hire administrators who are not exclusively tenured faculty and “provide more credit for on-the-job learning.”
He wrote further:
Academia is prioritizing wokeness, while the workforce wants practical skills. Why not make the final year or semester of courses actual on-the-job learning? Students who know the profession in which they want to work could earn course credit to work at firms or businesses. They might learn some marketable skills. Businesses could “test-drive” students as hires. Perhaps such learning would even allow students to graduate earlier if they could arrange their schedules accordingly.
“The insularity and ideological homogeneity of universities today are strangling the virtue of higher education and leaving us with its vices,” he wrote. “We need to protect higher education and help it meet its potential.”
IMAGE: WISN 12 News/YouTube
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