Islands in the Stream Course Index

Coastal engineering and the restoration of natural conditions along the shore are a real test of the prevailing faith of contemporary America. Our faith in progress, as a national ethos, is related to the widespread belief that we as a people respect what works. This aspect of our thinking is called pragmatism.

As a value, pragmatists test the verity or credibility of ideas based on how things function and what we do to improve how something functions to better meet human needs.

Pragmatism was a belief from the 19th century, popularized by Columbia University Professor, John Dewey (1920s) in his call to national service on behalf of common values of civic virtue.

John Dewey once said

"The essential need is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public."

A democratic value of a well educated person in an ever more complex society can not be underestimated.

This well educated person requires a safe intellectual climate and rigorous inquiry in a supportive and responsible place of higher education.

Historically an American College is an outpost of the New England faith in literacy, the Jeffersonian belief in an informed citizenry as the foundation of freedom, and the training ground for creating and staffing the Progressive mission of a rational international order based on a well educated thinker.

Such a person ought to be capable of developing expertise through analysis and synthesis of technical problems in a democratic setting with ethical constraints.

When ethical constraints force people to reconsider action or designs, our education should be such that decision-makers are trained to change in order to adapt to both physical and ecological conditions, as well as, ethical traditions or local customs when working with communities.

Index to island plans

Grading Scale Criteria

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