What Ails Elite Education? Debating Deresiewicz’s ‘Excellent Sheep’

Even before it was published this week, William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (Free Press) was stirring controversy. (It helped that an excerpt appeared on the cover of The New Republic under the headline "Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League.") Deresiewicz, a former English professor at Yale University, is not optimistic about elite colleges—or the students they educate.
The Chronicle Review asked Harry R. Lewis, a professor of computer science at Harvard University, former dean of Harvard College, and the author of Excellence Without a Soul (PublicAffairs, 2007), and Deresiewicz to discuss Excellent Sheep. More...