ABSTRACT
At Yale, the campus newspaper staff published "Course Critiques" from 1939 on. To what extent did those "Crits" defend the academic work ethic? The writers valued intellectual exertion and lampooned "gut" courses. The sweeping claims in the print and electronic media about Yale in the years of the two Bush presidents—the alleged lack of commitment to hard work—are misleading. This chapter examines the course critiques with two questions in mind: For the readers of the Crits, to what extent would the booklet point the way to easy courses, widely known as "guts"? For the writers and editors of the Crits, what do the booklets reveal about their beliefs in and embodiment of an academic work ethic? Several Crits took pains to say they were not a "gut hunter's brochure", in the words of the 1950 editors. The Crits were not as autonomous as the contemporary teacher rating websites, whose owners have no institutional connections with, or loyalty to, any college.
