analyzing where the university is in the classroom? -- it's a start

Reading Inside Higher Education I am struck by the amount of (wilful?) denial about the mess that higher edu and edu in general are in. A good beginning might be to have all undergraduates read something about the current crisis of the university. My bias and I think the bias of many academics is to try to "protect the kids" from the awful truth. But I think this is a mistake. The whole point of the university is to exercise critical thinking, and what better way to start than with a critique of the institution we are in?

Stanley Aronowitz's book THE KNOWLEDGE FACTORY is short and quite easy to understand. What if all undergrads had to read it? I plan on implementing this in my classes -- all of them -- next year.

I think it will be uncomfortable, but that may well be productive.