
Is it time to return to the medieval way of life on college campuses?  - quinndupont
http://chronicle.com/article/Getting-Medieval-on-Higher/126008/
======
granite_scones
I think there's some merit to this proposal, but it's too riddled with an
infatuation with a certain brand of Christian monasticism for me to separate
out what is good and what is bad.

 _"As we all know, for the virtuous student, college life has become a
variation on The Temptation of Saint Anthony—a never-ending assault by the
demons of gluttony, envy, sloth, lust, and pride."_

That's confusing "virtue" with something actually relevant to academic
involvement. I agree there's a lot wrong with the current system, but it's not
that students are having too much sex and sleeping in on.

 _"Members should cultivate nonviolence, humility, and ungrudging obedience to
just authority. Speech should be used in moderation, and only for some
purpose. Instead of gossiping at meals, edifying books are read aloud. There
are no private possessions, only two meals a day, and vegetarianism is the
norm. Clothing is simple, utilitarian, and uniform."_

That's not going to happen. Once again, we have some confusion between this
weird form of self-denial with caring about education. It's perfectly possible
to be committed to learning/research/etc. while still wanting to talk to your
friends during dinner.

This isn't even getting at the daily ritualistic prayer, the claim the current
academic zeitgeist is "decadent", the fact that a lot of research requires
expensive equipment, something unaccounted for under this scheme, the
suggested "withdrawal" from the rest of the world, etc.

EDIT: Not to mention, there's the problem of people with families. Does the
rest of the family have to join in also? What about children? If they don't,
how does the member provide for them? Are only single people allowed to join?
What?

~~~
stcredzero
_I agree there's a lot wrong with the current system, but it's not that
students are having too much sex_

From what I saw, it's not that students were having too much sex. It's the
combination of a lot of undirected lost souls who are not committed so
something substantive (like learning/research) with a pervasive atmosphere of
bacchanalia. I saw people go through many emotional wringers in school.

 _Once again, we have some confusion between this weird form of self-denial
with caring about education._

I agree. I think it's perfectly possible to have an atmosphere which is
contemplative without going towards asceticism. What's really needed is a
shift in emphasis.

 _the fact that a lot of research requires expensive equipment, something
unaccounted for under this scheme_

There's a lot of research and substantive work that doesn't require expensive
equipment. For one thing, I would love some monasteries to become hosts for
Google Summer of Code work.

~~~
joshkaufman
The positive aspect of asceticism: such a place would have far less overhead.

------
icegreentea
...good luck?

Engineering school makes even the most dedicated student wonder why they're
even bothering at times. And now you'll take away getting laid, fucking off,
bitching, and Starcraft. And you'll have them do additional manual labor on
top of that.

I think part of the reason these monasteries have such sterling reputations is
cause we never hear about the failures. No one really bothered recording the
number of people who joined, and then ran away, or even the number of
successful for which monastic life was actually an improvement. I mean sure,
you gotta read all these books, and plow a field, but at least you have a bed
(albeit hard) and roof, and the lord isn't out to tax you all the time.

~~~
sskates
"What would it be like if college students felt that they were called to a
vocation rather than simply getting their tickets stamped so they can get
middle-class jobs, if they are lucky?" You're not going to spawn Zuckberg,
Obama, or the next cure for cancer and you'll fall behind China and India,
while your kids wonder why they never got a shot at being the world leaders of
tomorrow.

Now I don't mean to say that there isn't value in learning for it's own sake-
there is. You don't need to reshape education to do that though. Every student
today has the ability to make these choices- like icegreentea said, they
choose not to because they don't think it's valuable.

------
atgm
I think that a more ascetic way of life would be good for many people, myself
included -- when I get away from everything, it gives me time to think and
refresh myself.

On the other hand, the article seems to be going in a more insular direction,
which I absolutely cannot agree with. Universities and colleges need to teach
as a part of the world, not from ivory towers. The biggest problem with my
alma mater is that it's very isolated geographically and that created a
"bubble" where outside events didn't really penetrate beyond sports or a few
political interest groups.

~~~
Alex3917
I think the ideal solution would be to adopt the deep springs model, where
students do two years of monastic liberal arts education as described, and
then finish off at a research university. I would have greatly preferred this
over the actual college experience.

------
cma
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem>

~~~
arethuza
One thing that the Cartasian maths did in Anathem was to effectively provide a
civilization insurance policy by preserving knowledge, and a scientific
mindset, through extended dark ages.

In you look around and wonder what would happen if there was a general
collapse of civil society you do have to wonder who and where the bodies of
knowledge that we have collected over the last few thousand years would be
preserved (right back to things like the Homeric epics - which have made it
through two long dark ages).

~~~
prodigal_erik
It reminds me of Hillis' observation that relics like the Dead Sea Scrolls are
safe while lost but endangered by being found and put in a museum.

<http://longnow.org/essays/millennium-clock/>

~~~
gjm11
Well, of course the relics _that we've discovered_ were safe while they were
lost. Because otherwise we wouldn't have discovered them. That doesn't mean
that being lost is safer than being in a museum. (Perhaps it _is_ , but
where's the evidence?)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>(Perhaps it is, but where's the evidence?)

The relics that were safe through social meltdowns and other problems are the
evidence.

There are pretty safe assumptions that lead to that position too - museums
will get destroyed just as other municipal buildings would in a period of
societal collapse. Imagine you're uneducated, living in what was a museum and
need to build a fire ...

If the artefacts are still safely ensconced in a not yet rediscovered cave
then they're relatively safe.

We get a lot of our historic information from ceramic and stone artifacts - I
wonder what durable items we might pass down through the millenia?

~~~
allwein
"If the artefacts are still safely ensconced in a not yet rediscovered cave
then they're relatively safe."

His point is that if a colony of insects happened into that cave a month after
they were "safely ensconced" 500 years ago, then they wouldn't be there for us
to find. Basically you're falling for survivorship bias.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias>

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Basically you're falling for survivorship bias.

Yes some artifacts will be destroyed in caves. But we also know that artifacts
won't be preserved in museums. Hence I said relatively safe. Clearly not all
artifacts survive but we're sure that no artifacts remain in the Library of
Alexandria (whether scrolls from there were saved or not, they weren't saved
in the library).

Yes I see that you can also argue that items in caves/other caches are also
eventually removed or destroyed in situ but it is the preservation against
rampaging hordes and systematic destruction that I was targetting.

>That doesn't mean that being lost is safer than being in a museum. (Perhaps
it is, but where's the evidence?)

Obviously this is circumstantial evidence but I think that museums are simply
too obvious to protect against certain things like looting in war or social
collapse scenarios.

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jhamburger
I think we can all agree at least that the current 'college experience' goes a
little to far in the other extreme. I'd argue that at this point its actually
a step backward from adulthood.

High school student:

-Wakes up at 6am, Juggles school, extracurriculars, home responsibilities, social life, holds a part-time job

college student:

-Doesn't change out of pajamas until it's time to go to the bar.

~~~
arethuza
Actually for me university was exactly where I learned self discipline because
the opportunities to go off the rails were just so available - after coming
with a hair's breadth of being thrown out I turned myself around and ended up
with excellent marks and a first. In some ways the very availability of
distractions is part of the strengths of a traditional university education.

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aphyr
When would I have had _time_ for significant manual labor in college? Ask a
grad student working 72 hours a week in the lab to grow their own food instead
of snarfing down ramen at their desk, and see how much research gets done. :/

~~~
jrmg
Part of his proposal is that people would never be forced to leave. I suspect
that many grad students would trade a year or two longer researching at a more
relaxed pace, combined with some less intellectually intense manual labor, for
how things work now.

~~~
aphyr
Ah yes. Five to eight years of phd and another three of postdoc was just
getting me to the nonexistent job market for scientists _too darn fast_. ;-)

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bd_at_rivenhill
_Another corrupting influence—anxiety over college costs—could be removed
entirely by making our institutions self-sustaining through productive labor._

The author is ignoring a significant advantage that actual monasteries and
convents have on this point: they are exempt from taxes by law and
longstanding tradition. It's not clear that an institution lacking this
advantage could really become economically self-sufficient.

~~~
rdouble
Colleges and universities are also exempt from taxation. Harvard University
pays no tax on its endowment gains or property.

------
brendano
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Springs_College>

~~~
waterlesscloud
I got a mailing from them way back when I was graduating high school. I looked
at it over and over, but was never bold enough to actually apply to such a
non-traditional school. I think that was a big mistake on my part. Still think
about that choice on a regular basis, many years later.

------
hugh3
I have, on occasion, wanted to start a monastic order of really well dressed
physicists. So many scientists are so poorly dressed, I just want to start an
order where you _must_ be impeccably dressed in an expensive suit and tie at
all times.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>you must be impeccably dressed in an expensive suit and tie at all times

Why? What is it about this attire that makes you want to do that.

All I can see is that such dress is an attempt to feel superior over others
and that your belonging to such a group would allow for the feeling of
superiority without the effort of intellectual advancement?

~~~
hugh3
Not really, I just like nice clothes. And I like to wear nice clothes. And I
feel silly wearing nice clothes when surrounded by others who aren't wearing
nice clothes.

One could, however, think of it as a discipline thing. If you wear a perfectly
pressed suit you're less likely to slouch. And if you're less likely to
slouch, maybe you're less likely to be sloppy in your thoughts, so your
research might be better.

Then again, maybe your research would wind up being worse because a suit feels
so conformist. Who knows? But it would be a worthwhile experiment.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Then again, maybe your research would wind up being worse because a suit
feels so conformist. Who knows? But it would be a worthwhile experiment.

Or maybe it wouldn't matter because you're just you with different textiles
covering (or not) your naked body.

------
kd0amg
This whole thing feels like a solution to a problem that's already been
solved. If students want to decide where to go to school based on academic
strength rather than the gym facilities and sports teams, they are already
free to do so. I know a lot of students who would rather stay home and read
than party all night, so that's what they do. Attaining the mind-oriented
domestic life described later is mostly a matter of finding the right people
to live with.

------
bd_at_rivenhill
_...college life has become a variation on The Temptation of Saint Anthony—a
never-ending assault by the demons of gluttony, envy, sloth, lust, and pride._

Hell, I thought everybody already understood that this was actually the point
of college, but I will defer to Frank Zappa on this one: _If you want to get
laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library._

------
cafard
Are we talking about the nominal regulations, or the way things actually ran?
Cf. Chaucer, Rabelais, and the Goliardic poems for some information on the
latter. Gutenberg's version of Rabelais is a very old translation, but I
append a sample anyway:

Going from Bourges, he came to Orleans, where he found store of swaggering
scholars that made him great entertainment at his coming, and with whom he
learned to play at tennis so well that he was a master at that game. For the
students of the said place make a prime exercise of it; and sometimes they
carried him unto Cupid's houses of commerce (in that city termed islands,
because of their being most ordinarily environed with other houses, and not
contiguous to any), there to recreate his person at the sport of poussavant,
which the wenches of London call the ferkers in and in. As for breaking his
head with over-much study, he had an especial care not to do it in any case,
for fear of spoiling his eyes. Which he the rather observed, for that it was
told him by one of his teachers, there called regents, that the pain of the
eyes was the most hurtful thing of any to the sight. For this cause, when he
one day was made a licentiate, or graduate in law, one of the scholars of his
acquaintance, who of learning had not much more than his burden, though
instead of that he could dance very well and play at tennis, made the blazon
and device of the licentiates in the said university, saying,

    
    
      So you have in your hand a racket,
      A tennis-ball in your cod-placket,
      A Pandect law in your cap's tippet,
      And that you have the skill to trip it
      In a low dance, you will b' allowed
      The grant of the licentiate's hood.

~~~
blahblahblah
Very good point. This article fits quite well in the category of "nostalgia
for a simpler age that never really existed."

------
raghava
I studied in a JNV
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawahar_Navodaya_Vidyalaya>), from class 6th
till class 12th; those were the best days of my life. All that I am today, is
because of my stay in the vidyalaya. I guess the article linked above speaks
of a similar life in an institute, but for higher education.

Such a model would only work if the students in that place are of such
ideological disposition that they do not find all the fancy stuff fun.

I was once asked what I'd do if I had a 100 million, by some sheer luck or
something. My answer was that I would anonymously buy a huge stretch of land
in a remote area somewhere near the Western Ghats/Himalayas (India) and start
a zen monastery type of institute for sciences; frugal(with
Internet/infrastructure) in nature but strict in admissions, with no age limit
for members. No fee whatsoever for the students, boarding and lodging
included. A centre for higher education in science and technology, modeled
after JNVs. And I would try joining that institute as a student, taking
admission tests.

------
dspeyer
_Bring together a core group of serious-minded but underemployed academics—who
already have adopted a life of poverty ... instead of preparing students to
leave the institution, we encouraged some of them to stay, joining us in work
and reflection._

Sounds like a typical grad school.

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wisty
Why would anybody want to copy an education system that arguably set Europe
back 1000 years?

~~~
jonah
Well, how about the one that preserved knowledge through the dark ages then?

~~~
NickPollard
Isn't a lot of modern academic opinion turning against the idea of any kind of
significant 'dark age' actually having occurred in Europe?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages>

~~~
arethuza
They seem to be avoiding the term "Dark Age" but there is no doubt that there
was a huge collapse in the infrastructure of civil society and technology
after the Western Empire ended.

Note that there was also an earlier Bronze Age "Dark Age" in Eastern Europe:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_collapse>

