We all knew it was going to happen, the only question was when:
A university in the United States has dropped “critical thinking” from its list of core learning objectives for undergraduates.
Beginning in the fall of 2018, Marquette University will only attempt to help students develop their ability to “feel.”
In a press conference on Thursday, Marquette President Michael Lovell announced that getting students to think critically had simply become too difficult. “Our faculty are exhausted and demoralized, and are desperate to grab some low-hanging fruit from the tree of learning. Moreover, we don’t want to lose market share to competing schools that might take this action before we do.”
When Lovell was asked to distinguish between “critical thinking” and “feeling,” he responded, “If you assert that a pizza topped with BBQ chicken and pineapple is not really a pizza, that’s critical thinking. But if you say, ‘I’m hungry’, that’s a feeling.”
Reporters wanted to know if this shift in institutional objectives would make it more likely that, in future Presidential elections, Marquette graduates would vote for candidates who couldn’t tell the difference between parsing a syllogism and using Cheetos to comb their hair.
Lovell’s reply: “I’m hungry.”