THE NEW PROFESSORS

by Robert O.-Ed. Bowen ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Nine younger men have been asked to give some intramural insights on their profession- teaching, on why they became teachers, and what rewards, they find in a calling where certainly the immediate returns are minimal. It is a highly spontaneous and stimulating symposium, ranging from some personal self-examination and evaluation to less subjective, and larger, ideas and issues. While the first two essays deal with the satisfactions- mostly ""internal"", of teaching on a liberal arts campus, and the ambience of academic freedom-, Otto Butz of Princeton (who edited- and was reprimanded for so doing- The Unsilent Generation) raps sharply the ""pettiness, backbiting and organizational timidity"", the professional myopia and passivity of what passes for ""academic freedom"". Chandler Davis, who was politically ousted, further destroys the illusion in his defense of the dissenter- From an Exile. Sociologist Richard Emerson's A Rational Idealism brilliantly shatters the accepted, and pleasing, public image of the professor- absent-minded, openminded, sacrificing self-interest to status- and the popular fallacy in confusing the academic man with the academic role. Also exceptional are Glenn Leggett's A Conservative View, and non-university Edward Echols' (Exeter) Say Something Nasty About Pittsburgh which has a good deal to say about teaching in the South. From this ""area in which so many strive for so little""- many unorthodox, telling points are made with considerable wit and persuasion. As far as the general public is involved, it may well be a closed seminar.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Rinehart

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1960

Categories: NONFICTION