Thank you, Karen! It's sad when even we accept the too-common equivalence of higher education with vocational training.
At the same time, many employers are looking to college graduates because a high school diploma no longer guarantees a minimal level of ability and cultural knowledge. My mother did not attend college, and in high school she concentrated on "secretarial" courses. She knew more about grammar than I do to this day. She also knew more basic facts about history and literature than many of my MLIS students. She could do basic math -- add, subtract, multiply and divide -- in her head, and could convert weights and measurements, as well.
Even an undergraduate degree no longer guarantees that. I have too many students in cataloging who do not recognize Greek tragedians such as Euripides, presidents other than the two or three they remember from their own life time, and basic works of Western culture. I shudder (not "shutter," as so many of them would have it) to think what their math skills are like.
Suzanne M. Stauffer, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Library and Information Science
Louisiana State University
275 Coates Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
(225)578-1461
Fax: (225)578-4581
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
--T.S. Eliot, "Choruses from The Rock"
