Derek Bok Quotes

45 quotes in 771 categories

• Efforts to develop critical thinking falter in practice because too many professors still lecture to passive audiences instead of challenging students to apply what they…
• There are no tests similar to SATs to tell us how much undergraduates know. State legislators, who appropriate billions of dollars each year to higher…
• Although professors regard improving critical thinking as the most important goal of college, tests reveal that seniors who began their studies with average critical thinking…
• Colleges and universities, for all the benefits they bring, accomplish far less for their students than they should. Many students graduate without being able to…
• Critics of American colleges typically attribute the failings of undergraduate education to a tendency on the part of professors to neglect their teaching to concentrate…
• Despite the hours spent debating different models of general education, the choices faculties make rarely lead to any significant difference in the cognitive development of…
• I don't think the alternative to Yale is jail by any means. On the other hand, there is a mass of research that does show…
• 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 for…
• If you think the cost of education is high, think about ignorance.
• Ever since economists revealed how much universities contribute to economic growth, politicians have paid close attention to higher education.
• Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: The number of college degrees is not nearly as…
• As countries embrace mass higher education, the cost of maintaining universities increases dramatically relative to an elite system.
• Apart from finding a first job, college graduates seem to adapt more easily than those with only a high school degree as the economy evolves…
• Universities are in a position where they can think very creatively.
• What we are doing in educating students is trying to prepare them to live more fulfilling lives for the decades after they graduate. And trying…
• The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the…
• For some students, especially in the sciences, the knowledge gained in college may be directly relevant to graduate study. For almost all students, a liberal…
• I believe that Harvard can have, and must have, a strong affirmative action program that reflects our commitment to equal opportunity while fully respecting the…
• In 1968, the situation at Harvard was not one of which we can be proud. In that year, the proportion of minority persons in salary…
• The University has a moral obligation to provide equal opportunities to women, minority persons and all other groups who work or seek to work at…

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