I think you're going to get along here just fine.

I can't agree more with your comments. I attended college in the 60s and 70s at USF near Tampa and we had a program of Basic Studies similar to the one you described which I feel was the most single valuable educational experience of my life. Although a hard sciences major, I feel qualified to discuss and reflect on issues outside my field with a perspective guided by the scholarship of the past and the guidance of the fine teachers I had the good fortune to study under. I commented on this in one of my earliest posts in this forum.

The pressure to turn the University system, particularly state colleges, into a tax-supported vocational training program for private industry is very strong, and as you have pointed out, private donations to Universities often come with strings attached designed to do precisely that (along with other motivations!). The temptation is strong to yield to them.

Add to this college sports, the fraternity system, and degrees in lunatic disciplines like Real Estate Investment Counseling and Hospitality Management; and the value of a college degree, except in a few limited and technical fields, is rapidly deteriorating. This certainly is born out by the quality of new graduates that I run into in the work force.

A close friend of mine, now a USF employee, was present at the installation of the new governing body which replaced the old State Board of Regents at USF. This body now reflects a more "community based" approach, which means there are more representatives from the business community and less from academia. He reports that in the opening remarks from the new chairman, he said (I paraphrase)

"It is now time to redefine the purpose of the University--it is not our purpose to teach our youth how to think, but to teach them what they need to know."