Ernest L. Boyer Quotes

Art is humanity's most essential, most universal language. It is not a frill, but a necessary part of communication. The quality of civilization can be measured through its music, dance, drama, architecture, visual art and literature. We must give our children knowledge and understanding of civilization's most profound works.

Education must prepare students to be independent, self-reliant human beings. But education, at its best, also must help students go beyond their private interests, gain a more integrative view of knowledge, and relate their learning to the realities of life.

Music gives us a language that cuts across the disciplines, helps us to see connections and brings a more coherent meaning to our world.

Our most consequential human problems will be resolved, not through competition, but collaboration... what we need in education is a learning climate in which students work together. In such an atmosphere, truth emerges as authentic insights are conscientiously exchanged.

Education is a seamless web: one level of learning relates to every other.

In an era when careerism dominates the campus, is it too much to expect students to go beyond their private interests, learn about the world around them, develop a sense of civic and social responsibility, and discover how they can contribute to the common good?

A poor surgeon hurts one person at a time. A poor teacher hurts 130.

It is no longer enough to simply read and write. Students must also become literate in the understanding of visual images. Our children must learn how to spot a stereotype, isolate a social cliche, and distinguish facts from propaganda, analysis from banter and important news from coverage.

Research must continue to be the centerpiece of intellectual life, and our commitment to research must grow, because our problems are growing.

To push for excellence today without continuing to push for access for less privileged students is to undermine the crucial but incomplete gains that have been made. Equity and excellence cannot be divided.

In the end, excellence in education means excellence in teaching, and if this country would give the status to first grade teachers that we give to full professors, this one act alone would revitalize the nation's schools.

The connectedness of things is what the great university is all about, and I believe the great university in the coming century will be described as a community of scholars.

I am suggesting that quality in undergraduate education means giving students a perspective that is global.

To put it simply, school readiness means creating in this country a public love of children.

Literature is an inquiry into the deepest yearnings of the human spirit.

When all is said and done we simply must make teaching in this country an honorable profession-since it's in the classrooms of America where the battle for excellence, ultimately, will be won or lost.

The assumption of all education is that learning will be directed toward constructive ends and I'm convinced that colleges should support students in their determination to be useful, self-sufficient, and productive.

As I watched my grandfather work with people who were impoverished, I began to understand that to be truly human, one must serve.

Based upon the pictures, I concluded that about 60 percent of all college classes in the United States are held outside, underneath a tree, usually by a gently flowing stream.

An incompetent teacher is even worse than an incompetent surgeon because a surgeon can only cut up one person at a time.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every home had good books instead of knick-knacks and plastic flowers on the bookshelves? And wouldn't it be great if every child heard good speech and received thoughtful answers to their questions instead of 'be quiet' or 'go to bed'?

Book CoverTo have people who are well informed but not constrained by conscience is conceivably, the most dangerous outcome of education possible. Indeed it could be argued that ignorance is better than unguided intelligence, for the most dangerous people are those who have knowledge without a moral framework.

We hear a lot of talk these days about teaching values in higher education. Frankly, I am not sure this can be accomplished through a separate course in morality or ethics. I am convinced, however, that values are sustained on campus by the honesty of our words, and by the confidence we have in the words of others.