The Children of the Upheaval: A Look at Today's College Freshmen

It is an increasingly common pastime in the academic community to lament the seemingly "better times" of earlier eras. Faculty who began their careers just before or shortly after the Second World War often speak fondly about the GI-Bill students who populated the nation's colleges in the late 1940s and early 1950s. More recently, professors who were on college campuses as undergraduates, graduate students, or faculty during the tumultuous period of the late 1960s and early 1970s engage in their own version of this game. By comparing today's students against the "60s generation." In general, many in the academic community find today's students guilty of a number of sins of omission and commission, the most offensive perhaps being intellectual docility, greed, careerism, and sartorial indulgence.