U.S. PROFESSORS ARE URGED TO STAND UP FOR THE VALUES
THEY TEACH THEIR STUDENTS AND WARNED THAT THE TECHNOLOGICAL
REVOLUTION WILL REQUIRE 
INCREASINGLY IMAGINATIVE MENTORING

	SAN DIEGO, Dec. 28 -- The president of one of the world's
largest academic organizations urged today that college and
university professors take an active stand in responding to recent
criticism by making clear the worth of their teaching and
scholarship to society.
	Addressing what she called "the deteriorating status of the
professorate as repository of wisdom and knowledge," Patricia Meyer
Spacks, president of the 30,000-member Modern Language Association,
said that "widespread doubts about the usefulness of what professors
do" have affected funding for universities and been demoralizing to
faculty members everywhere.  "Even observers outside the academy who
acknowledge that we work hard often believe that we too often devote
our efforts to enterprises mattering only to ourselves," she said.
  	In an address at the MLA's annual meeting in San Diego,
Spacks, who is professor of English at the University of Virginia,
said that teachers of language and literature must take
responsibility for the fact that many U.S. college graduates today
aren't as well prepared as readers and writers as they should be.
But, she asserted, most professors in her broad field are dedicated
to teaching students not only to think for themselves but to be
"responsible citizens."
	And in the face of widespread attacks, faculty have an
obligation to speak up about the values they teach, Spacks said,
urging her colleagues:  "We should not assume a merely defensive
position in response to the babble of criticism."
	Among the contributions of language and literature teachers,
she said, are helping students understand the importance of "the
written word" and the complexity of their own and other's
experiences, and the world they live in.  By showing students many
views of the world and life through study of literature, "we expand
their ways of seeing," she said.
	The importance of clear expression is another of the many
values taught to students, she said.  For example, "instruction in
dangers of the passive voice may shed light on modes of political
irresponsibility," she said.  "Men and women who talk and listen,
watch and vote in a democracy can arguably perform all these
functions better by virtue of a literary education.  They can
operate better in today's democracy as a result of today's
education."
	Teachers of literature give their students "an important
resource in a brutal world," Spacks said.  "To take pleasure in
literature helps people live their lives."
	Although "the greatest good done by departments of
literature" is the making of responsible citizens, she warned that
the literary studies profession needs to confront economic realities
and the problem of employment of its graduates, at all levels.
College and university literature teachers need to think creatively
and concretely "about viable vocational possibilities for our
degree-holders," she said.
	Spacks also warned that the much-heralded technological
revolution in the classroom will not necessarily streamline
education or help universities cut instructional costs by
eliminating a need for teachers.  Properly used, she said, classroom
technology places additional demands on teachers' time and
imaginations and stimulates students for even closer contact with
teachers.
	"Both the possibility of videotaped lectures by brilliant
teachers and the rich resources of the computer enlarge possibility
for the language and literature classroom," Spacks said.  However,
education "means more than transmission of knowledge," she said.
"It thrives on passion and exchange, will not thrive without passion
and exchange."
	"The effective teacher can use all of these possibilities
and more, but they are labor-intensive," Spacks said.  Computerized
language drill, for example, "is only a starting point" for
learning, and a classroom computer e-mail network for discussion and
writing "needs steady input from an instructor."
	ÒThe computer provides an awe-inspiring set of new
resources," Spacks said.  But it also requires as a guide, she said,
a dedicated teacher:  Òthe engaged presence of the human being who
most fully embodies in the classroom the passionate life of the
mind.Ó
###
December 20, 1994
	Patricia Meyer Spacks may be reached at (804) 924-7071
(office) or (804) 295-8647 (home).  From Dec. 26-28 she may be
reached at the MLA convention in San Diego at (619) 234-1500.