About the Course

What reasons did you have for selecting Bucknell?  How did you decide that you wanted to attend a liberal arts college?  What do you hope your Bucknell experience will do for you?  Do you wonder if you college experience will meet your expectations?  Are you concerned about academics?  Are you curious about how your social life will unfold?   Have you thought about what the future value of your Bucknell education might be?

If you find questions such as these to be of interest, College 2.0 is for you!

imagesCollege 2.0 is designed to look more closely at what young people hope to get out of college and what the experience actually provides. To gain greater insight into these questions, we will examine many of the challenges currently facing higher education in the United States including widespread concern about the costs of higher education, the difficulties associated with expanding accessibility, worries about the quality of education being provided, and the impact of technology, distance learning, and MOOCs on traditional institutions of higher education.  These challenges are reshaping public perceptions of higher education as well as higher education institutions themselves – hence the title: College 2.0. Some of the questions that will guide the development of the course include the following:

  • Why is higher education important for students as individuals and as members of society?
  • Who gets into college and where do they go?
  • Why does college cost so much?
  • How important are college rankings? Academic Assessment? Accreditation?
  • What are students learning?
  • How does students’ social life support or hinder institutional goals?
  • How has technology begun to change the nature of higher education?
  • How might college look in the future?

In addition to reading a broad variety of recent writing focused on the nature and value of the college experience. For example we will be reading excerpts from the following important new books on higher education:

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We will read several additional texts in full.  We will also listen to radio commentary, view documentary films, and explore websites.

These resources will inform our discussions as well as our writing (both formal and informal). In addition, the course is designed so that you will also be able to recognize political values, such as equity, choice, efficiency, and quality, which permeate current debates about the future of higher education.