Selective Quotes by Derek Bok

Doctoral training is devoted almost entirely to learning to do research, even though most Ph.Ds who enter academic life spend far more time teaching…

— Derek Bok

I think it's sort of an outrage that companies should have to hire firms to teach the college graduates they employ how to write.

— Derek Bok

As countries embrace mass higher education, the cost of maintaining universities increases dramatically relative to an elite system.

— Derek Bok

“surveys show that over 90 percent of professors believe that their teaching is above average,”

— Derek Bok

For some students, especially in the sciences, the knowledge gained in college may be directly relevant to graduate study. For almost all students, a…

— Derek Bok

There is far too much law for those who can afford it and far too little for those who cannot.

— Derek Bok

An educated man must have a "curiosity in exploring the unfamiliar and unexpected, an open-mindedness in entertaining opposing points of view, tolerance for the…

— Derek Bok

Once you start worrying about a national football championship, then you begin to worry about getting the quality of athlete, and the numbers needed,…

— Derek Bok

I think any self-respecting educational institution ought to judge its policies by its best estimate of what their long-term consequences for their students and…

— Derek Bok

I think the minority students that we admit to Harvard are every bit as meritorious as the white students that we admit.

— Derek Bok

There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior.

— Derek Bok

Critics of American colleges typically attribute the failings of undergraduate education to a tendency on the part of professors to neglect their teaching to…

— Derek Bok