On today's program, which revisits an interview that we originally aired in September of last year, we hear from the veteran author, critic, and scholar Andrew Delbanco, who is the Chair of American Studies at Columbia University as well as a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Republic. A noted expert on American literature, culture, and religion, and also on higher education in this country, Delbanco has a new book out (from Princeton University Press) called "College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be." What, exactly, has "going to college" meant to Americans over the past several decades? What hasn't it meant? And what should it mean today? Is there still a place --- in this era of "getting a degree" in order to attain a certain salary, a certain job, and so on --- for those who attend college so as to find themselves: to test their ideas, discover their values, explore their beliefs, and understand their place in the world? On today's show, we offer a conversation that confronts such questions. We also ask Prof. Delbanco about what our nation's collegiate experience might look like in the years to come, given the economic upheavals and technological sea-changes that are so much a part of life now.
The Noted American Scholar Andrew Delbanco on "College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be"
