Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: The number of college degrees is not nearly as important as how well students develop cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving ability.

— Derek Bok

Derek Bok Quotes

Efforts to develop critical thinking falter in practice because too many professors still lecture to passive audiences instead of challenging students to apply what they have learned to new questions.

— Derek Bok

I suspect that no community will become humane and caring by restricting what its members can say.

— Derek Bok

The oldest of the arts and the youngest of the professions.

— Derek Bok

Early admission programs tend to advantage the advantaged.

— Derek Bok

Good teaching is creating really interesting generalizations out of war stories.

— Derek Bok

Fewer than half of all university professors publish as much as one article per year.

— Derek Bok

Greater inequality in Europe has made people less happy.

— Derek Bok

Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: The number of college degrees is not nearly as important as how well students develop cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving ability.

— Derek Bok

I think the minority students that we admit to Harvard are every bit as meritorious as the white students that we admit.

— Derek Bok

I won’t say there aren’t any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the Harvard I know.

— Derek Bok

I think it’s sort of an outrage that companies should have to hire firms to teach the college graduates they employ how to write.

— Derek Bok

The college that takes students with modest entering abilities and improves their abilities substantially contributes more than the school that takes very bright students and helps them develop only modestly.

— Derek Bok

Ever since economists revealed how much universities contribute to economic growth, politicians have paid close attention to higher education.

— Derek Bok

The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like. This purpose scarcely requires justification.

— Derek Bok

If we are prepared to invest the necessary time and effort, affirmative action can contribute to Harvard’s quality and not detract from it.

— Derek Bok

As countries embrace mass higher education, the cost of maintaining universities increases dramatically relative to an elite system.

— Derek Bok

I think any self-respecting educational institution ought to judge its policies by its best estimate of what their long-term consequences for their students and for the society will be.

— Derek Bok

I don’t think the alternative to Yale is jail by any means. On the other hand, there is a mass of research that does show that there are real advantages to your subsequent career in going to selective institutions.

— Derek Bok

Critics of American colleges typically attribute the failings of undergraduate education to a tendency on the part of professors to neglect their teaching to concentrate on research. In fact, the evidence does not support this thesis, except perhaps in major research universities.

— Derek Bok

Despite the hours spent debating different models of general education, the choices faculties make rarely lead to any significant difference in the cognitive development of undergraduates.

— Derek Bok
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