Excellence without a Soul

Here is the Former Dean of Harvard College on how Harvard and other great American Universities are failing students. America's great research universities are the envy of the world - and none more so than Harvard. Never before has the competition for excellence been fiercer. But, while striving to be unsurpassed in the quality of its faculty and students, Harvard has forgotten that the fundamental purpose of undergraduate education is to turn young people into adults who will take responsibility in society. In "Excellence Without a Soul", Harry Lewis, a Harvard professor for more than thirty years and Dean of Harvard College for eight, draws from his experience to explain how our great universities have abandoned their mission. Harvard is unique; it is the richest, oldest, most powerful university in America, and so it has set many standards, for better or worse. Lewis evaluates the failures of this grand institution - from the hot button issue of grade inflation to the college's knee-jerk response to the recent controversy over Harvard's handling of date rape cases - and makes an impassioned argument for change.