Sample Part II Response: Midterm Exam F16

Prompt: What kind of evidence does Lange use? Is it effective? In what ways and in light of what audiences?

T: Lange employs many types of evidence to support her implicit claim that the new “innovation campus” and the culture it promotes will benefit universities and their students, but the two most interesting ones include quotations from interviews of university administrators and financial figures regarding costs associated with high-tech “learning” facilities.

I. Unquestioned interviews of university administrators serve to promote the innovations described in the article without providing meaningful context that might inspire meaningful debate.

II. Financial figures present and un-cited in the article give the impression that the only complaints against corporate/tech culture and the design aesthetic it promotes as a net positive for everyone, including universities, are financial ones.

C. Although Lange employs other types of evidence, such as detailed descriptions of the tech environments of several specific university programs from diverse institutions, these two represent the dangerous failures of this article: what is the cost of celebrating new technologies and the values and aesthetics they promote without questioning the impact of such values and aesthetics on our humanity?

2 thoughts on “Sample Part II Response: Midterm Exam F16

    • Good question. I doubt it, personally. How would they do that? Maybe spend their borrowed money on schools offering this kind of aesthetic?

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