Inventing the University

David Bartholomae's article was the shortest article we've read, I believe, yet the hardest for me to get through. It seemed to me that he was primarily ranting about how students cannot live up to his academic expectations, and I was reminded of several professors I've had with impossible standards. I often felt my learning was impeded by translating my interpretations of my education into this overly formal language I did not intend to use; I had no interest in joining an academic community, only in satisfying my curiosity in intriguing, coincidentally "upper-level" electives.

Certainly, we need to learn the academic discourse he describes through introductory classes in order to write as a member of the academic community, which, as he states involves a great deal of imitation at the start. We must learn to write in the format that the university demands of us if we wish to think of the university as an institution of learning and reporting to those in that institutional environment. He's correct in this respect, but all too condescending. I felt like his complaints about student essays were nit-picky and too precise for the standards of most professors. I understand that he is committed to academia and wants to engage students in that world, but honestly, I think he expects too much from undergraduate students. I think his arguments are valid perhaps for students preparing for graduate work in a field, but most undergraduates I know do not have any serious interest in permanently joining an academic community. Thus, the hundreds of students he, like so many other theorists, deems "basic writers" are probably mostly good writers. In fact, some of his examples were not as troubling as he made them out to be. I don't like to think of my university education as empowering me with a superior discourse; rather, I like to think of it as enlightening me as to other forms of discourse aside from my natural one. I agreed with his understanding of the undertaking of university discourse and how we grapple with it as students, but I definitely do not agree with the emphasis he placed on its importance. University education is about more than learning how to manipulate language and engage in the academic community accordingly.