TEXT A The Carnegie Foundation
report says that many colleges have tried to be "all things to all people". In
doing so, they have increasingly catered to a narrow-minded careerism while
failing to cultivate a global vision among their students. The current crisis,
it contends, does not derive from a legitimate desire to put learning to
productive ends. The problem is that in too many academic fields, the work has
no context; skills, rather than being means, have become ends. Students are
offered a variety of options and allowed to pick their way to a degree. In
short, driven by careerism, "the national colleges and universities are more
successful in providing credentials than in providing a quality education for
their students." The report concludes that the special challenge confronting the
undergraduate college is one of shaping an "integrated core" of common learning.
Such a core would introduce students "to essential knowledge, to connections
across the disciplines, and in the end, to application of knowledge to life
beyond the campus". Although the key to a good college is a
high-quality faculty, the Carnegie study found that most colleges do very little
to encourage good teaching. In fact, they do much to undermine it. As one
professor observed: "Teaching is important, we are told, and yet faculty know
that research and publication matter most." Not surprisingly, over the last
twenty years colleges and universities have failed to graduate half of their
four-year degree candidates. Faculty members who dedicate themselves to teaching
soon discover that they will not be granted tenure, promotion, or substantial
salary increases. Yet 70 percent of all faculty say their interests lie among
more in teaching than in research. Additionally, a frequent complaint among
young scholars is that "There is pressure to publish, although there is
virtually no interest among administrators or colleagues in the content of the
publications." American colleges and universities failed to graduate half of their four year degree candidates because ______.
A．most of them lack high-quality faculties B．the interests of most faculty members lie in research C．there are not enough incentives for students to study hard D．they attach greater importance to research and publication than to teaching