The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

by Thomas M. Nichols

because these small schools cannot support a doctoral program in an established field, they construct esoteric interdisciplinary fields that exist only to create new credentials. It’s not hard to see how this ends up creating degrees that do not actually signal a corresponding level of knowledge. All of this borders on academic malpractice. The creation of graduate programs in colleges that can barely provide a reasonable undergraduate education cheats both graduates and undergrads. Small colleges do not have the resources—including the libraries, research facilities, and multiple programs—of large universities, and repainting the signs at the front gates cannot magically create that kind of academic infrastructure.

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