"'The surmounting of error stands as one part of Shaughnessy's larger concern with basic writing students' need to gain control of a language that would enable them to participate more fully in a wider society. She would not contest 'the students' right to their own language' (the theme of a resolution adopted by CCCC in 1974), but she would insist that more than one language was necessary, and the second language should be the public discourse that the schools should assist us all to master'" (quoted in Maher, 1997, p. 245; from Lyons, p. 184).
In Maher's "Works Cited" (pp. 311-313), she lists two works by Lyons, but she does not give the inclusive page range for either of them. But I would guess that the quotation comes from Lyons' essay "Mina Shaughnessy" in the book Traditions of Inquiry, edited by John Brereton (Oxford University Press, 1985).
Now, in Maher's sharply focused 1997 book about Mina Shaughnessy (p. 94), she calls attention to Geoffrey Wagner's 1976 book The End of Education (A. S. Barnes) and Louis Heller's 1973 book The Death of the American University: With Special Reference to the collapse of the City College of New York (Arlington House). Both Wagner and Heller were tenured faculty at City College - and both were critics of open admissions.
Neil Postman of New York University published a review of Wagner's 1976 book titled "Blowing the Whistle" in the Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies, volume 3, number 3 (1977): pp. 182-185.
Subsequently, Postman himself published an ambiguously titled book The End of Education (Knopf, 1995).
Now, I have not read either Wagner's 1976 book or Heller's 1973 book. Ah, but why not? At this remove in time, I guess that I was just too much of an open admissions enthusiast in the 1970s to be interested in what critics of open admissions were saying at the time. However, I have tempered my enthusiasm for open admissions since then.
When I today look back on my earlier enthusiasm for open admissions, I have no explanation, or excuse, to offer you for it; I am just reporting it here. I just jumped on the open admissions bandwagon - perhaps because of Joseph P. Cosand's enthusiasm for open admissions. He was the founding president of the St. Louis - St. Louis County Junior College District (now known as St. Louis Community College) - and a prominent national leader of the two-year community college movement that was sweeping the country at that time.
However, I had begun to curb my enthusiasm for open admissions by the time that I reviewed Theodore L. Gross' 1980 book Academic Turmoil, mentioned above, in the now-defunct Jesuit-sponsored journal Review for Religious, volume 41 (1982): pp. 146-147.
For a candid and sober discussion of open admissions at the City College/CUNY up to the 1990s, see the American journalist James Traub's 1994 book City on a Hill: Testing the American Dream at City College (Addison-Wesley Publishing). Traub discusses Mina Shaughnessy extensively (pp. 76-78, 111-121, 135, 136, 148, 155, 157, 176, 195 198, 210, and 214).
Barry R. Gross reviewed Traub's candid and sober 1994 book City on a Hill - rather soberly, in my estimate - in Commentary, volume 98, number 5 (November 1994): pp. 77-79. In Lazere's fourfold categorizing of media outlets, mentioned above, he categorizes Commentary as being in the (4) Conservative category.
Now, in Jane Maher's sharply focused 1997 biography of Mina Shaughnessy, she quotes the following passage from James Traub's candid and sober 1994 book about the City College/CUNY:
"'In 1976, with New York City having come within a whisker of bankruptcy, CUNY's budget was slashed by a third. The system actually shut down for the first two weeks in June. [Newspapers carried photographs of CUNY professors lined up outside unemployment offices throughout New York City.] City fired fifty-nine dedicated teachers whom Shaughnessy had assembled. And it wasn't only the remedial commitment that was circumscribed. To reduce the flow of students to the senior colleges, and to raise their level, admissions standards were changed to admit the top third, rather than the top half, of graduating classes. And in a decision that was no less shocking for being inevitable, CUNY ended its tradition of free tuition. That tradition, at City College, was over 125 years old'" (quoted by Maher, 1997, p. 172; bracketed material added by Maher; quoted from Traub, 1994, p. 77).
As far as I know, no one has yet written a more comprehensive account of the national trends of open admissions and of two-year community colleges in the 1970s.
In conclusion, yes, I was inspired in the 1960s by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when I was an undergraduate at Saint Louis University (class of 1966). I heard the Baptist preacher speak on the SLU campus on October 12, 1964, and again in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 25, 1965. He was an inspiring speaker.
Yes, I was also inspired in the 1960s by having Father Walter J. Ong, S.J., as a teacher at Saint Louis University -- and by reading some of his perceptive publications.
Yes, I was also inspired by Joseph P. Cosand's speeches to the faculty at Forest Park Community College. Yes, I was overly idealistic and optimistic about open admissions.
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