Seventeen years ago, I received a degree from the University of Michigan Law School, one of America’s top schools. My Harvard undergraduate degree opened doors at Michigan, and both of those degrees have opened other doors ever since–a fact that I have always appreciated. I have since learned that it’s our humanity, not paper credentials, that bolsters self-worth. So that probably makes me a recovering elitist, especially now that I have a son entering the University of Minnesota’s decidedly egalitarian General College. For seventy-three years, General College has fostered academic accessibility by admitting credentially challenged students. That very accessibility now has some U leaders clamoring to close it and create an unabashedly elitist “Honors College”; regrettably, they do not believe that both can peacefully coexist in a well-regarded public university.
In 1862, Vermont congressman Justin Morrill convinced Congress to allow states to sell thousands of acres of federal land to fund higher education. In return, the Morrill Act “land grant” schools had to promote the “liberal and practical education of the industrial classes.” In plain English, Congress wanted open access to land-grant schools such as the University of Minnesota. Seventy years later, U President Lotus Coffman became troubled by the rates at which freshmen were flunking out. His solution was to establish General College, which focused on helping underprepared students succeed at the university. The college has produced alums like broadcast mogul Stanley Hubbard and Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug.
Some, however–especially those who envision the U as a “Harvard on the prairie”–have long questioned whether General College belongs at the university. In fact, the current campaign to close the college is not the first. But a few things have changed since the last time the college faced the chopping block, in 1996. For one thing, almost half of those now enrolled at the college are people of color. Moreover, the key players on both sides of the battle this time are African-Americans: David Taylor, the General College dean, and Robert Jones, the university’s senior vice president for system administration. Their dueling views over the fate of the college put an academic twist on the age-old dilemma about deciding how much trust the have-nots can place in the haves to do the right thing.
Dean Taylor detects racial overtones in the U’s efforts to shut down General College; in fact, he told me, many folks on campus believed its days were numbered once its white population dropped below sixty-six percent. “Cutting General College is not about saving money,” he said. “Only $1.7 million of our $12 million budget comes from the state of Minnesota. This is not about helping the students, improving the college, or increasing access. This is a misguided attempt to move this university up the academic pecking order by sacrificing General College students.”
Taylor finds it ironic that the many programs designed to support the U’s large international student population are not thought of as an “academic ghetto” in the same way the college is. He believes that some opposition to General College comes from affluent parents whose offspring don’t gain admission to the U.
Robert Jones, the ranking African-American at the U, thinks this is hogwash. The college, he said, “is a packet of excellence at the university and a national leader in developmental education.” But he also pointed out that “Sixty percent of General College students never get a Minnesota diploma. Something is wrong with this picture.”
Taylor, in turn, said the university itself has “the worst overall graduation rate in the Big Ten. Only fifty-five percent of the university’s students get through in five years.” He also notes that General College does not grant diplomas. “So if there is a problem, it is because the rest of the university is dropping the ball–not us.”
I do believe General College can be tweaked and improved. But Jones is right–it should not be used to let the rest of the U escape responsibility for recruiting and graduating underprepared students of color. Yet I also understand all too well why Dean Taylor has trust issues with a majority-run institution such as University of Minnesota, which, outside of General College, has an abysmal record supporting and graduating students of color. I fully appreciate his reluctance to see the college become a department; the stark reality is that in academia, a college carries far more clout than a college department. Ultimately, I want my son to study at an institution where he will receive the best possible support. That’s much more likely to happen at a U with a General College than a U without one.
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