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It's on the problem of University education, not undergraduate education, so it isn't directly relevant to my normal topics, but Mark Taylor's op-ed yesterday points out a commonly-known number of problems with the university model. His suggestions for fixing those problems include:

1. Restructure the curriculum, beginning with graduate programs and proceeding as quickly as possible to undergraduate programs. The division-of-labor model of separate departments is obsolete and must be replaced with a curriculum structured like a web or complex adaptive network. Responsible teaching and scholarship must become cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural.

2. Abolish permanent departments, even for undergraduate education, and create problem-focused programs.

3. Increase collaboration among institutions.

Op-Ed Contributor - End the University as We Know It - NYTimes.com

I think I've heard this somewhere before. Wait. Maybe... Evergreen? Or was it Dewey? Or my long-suffering alma mater Antioch? Or just the basic notion of liberal education for which all small, liberal arts colleges strive? Maybe he should have just said "Don't go to universities. Go to colleges." And saved the planet all that ink and paper.