By Rich Fisher
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kwgs/local-kwgs-987716.mp3
Tulsa, OK – Today we speak with the veteran author, critic, and scholar Andrew Delbanco, who is the Director of the Center for American Studies at Columbia University as well as a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Republic. A noted expert on American literature and culture, and also on higher education in this country, Delbanco (whose books include "Melville: His World and Work," "The Real American Dream," and "Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now," among others) spoke yesterday at the University of Tulsa's Fall 2011 Convocation, and he stopped by our studios while he was on the TU campus. Delbanco's forthcoming book, due in the Spring of 2012, is called "College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be" --- and so his conversation with host Rich Fisher largely centered on what "going to college" has (and hasn't) meant to Americans over the past several decades. They also spoke about what our nation's collective collegiate experience might look like in the years to come, given the economic upheavals and technological sea-changes that are so much a part of life now.