Delbanco focuses on history of higher education

Delbanco’s lecture is the first of a three-part lecture series titled “Does College Really Matter? The History of Undergraduate Education, Why It’s in Trouble, and What to Do About It.” Delbanco, the author of the award-winning book “Melville: His World and Work,” spoke to an audience of about 50 community members and faculty in McCosh 10.

After describing the classic American college ideal and noting that “college sweatshirts are as much an American icon as the Super Bowl,” Delbanco went on to point out that fewer than one in seven American undergraduates lives on residential, “leafy” campuses and that more than half of all college students attend school part-time.

Delbanco added that the percentage of Americans who don’t attend college is high and continues to grow. He contrasted this trend to that in the 20th century, which saw an increase in the number of Americans receiving a college education, a trend that paved the way for the United States’ economic dominance.

“Today, however, we are slipping in primary and secondary education,” Delbanco said.

He emphasized the importance of higher education, explaining that “the best reason to care about higher education is not for what it does for society, but for individuals, in both calculable and incalculable cases.”

Delbanco focused on the history of American colleges during this lecture, promising to “be well into the present” by Wednesday night’s lecture and noting that in many respects colleges look to the past for inspiration, pointing to architecture as evidence.

“Campus architecture tends to look to the past. It’s neo-this or neo-that,” he said.

Delbanco proposed looking into the origins of colleges to understand the purpose and direction of undergraduate education.

“Like any institution or idea, it has a history,” he said, citing references to the idea of college in ancient Greece and Rome.

“The history of college exceeds two millennia, but college as we know it is an English idea,” Delbanco said.

He described the purpose of establishing the United States’ first colleges and the theories that went into their establishment. He also examined their relationship to the Protestant Church and already existing English colleges.

“The theme of self-interrogation lies at the heart of the Anglo-American education,” Delbanco said, pointing to the liberal-arts approach of many colleges that promotes an “aspiration toward wholeness.”

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Delbanco concluded the night’s lecture with questions for the audience to keep in mind for tonight’s lecture.

He asked that the audience ponder the future of the idea of college as a community when a growing number of students attend college only part-time and classes can be taken online. He also asked the audience to consider the “disciplinary aspect of college” in an era in which the “spiritual authority belonging to the college is long gone.”

The lectures are part of the Stafford Little Lectures series, cosponsored by the Princeton University Press and the University Public Lectures Series.