A University Education

A University Education PDF Author: David Willetts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191080047
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
Universities have a crucial role in the modern world. In England entrance to universities is by nation-wide competition which means English universities have an exceptional influence on schools - a striking theme of the book. This important book first investigates the university as an institution and then tracks the individual on their journey to and through university. In A University Education, David Willetts presents a compelling case for the ongoing importance of the university, both as one of the great institutions of modern society and as a transformational experience for the individual. The book also makes illuminating comparisons with higher education in other countries, especially the US and Germany. Drawing on his experience as UK Minister for Universities and Science from 2010 to 2014, the author offers a powerful account of the value of higher education and the case for more expansion. He covers controversial issues in which he was involved from access for disadvantaged students to the introduction of £9,000 fees. The final section addresses some of the big questions for the future, such as the the relationship between universities and business, especially in promoting innovation.. He argues that the two great contemporary trends of globalisation and technological innovation will both change the university significantly. This is an authoritative account of English universities setting them for the first time in their new legal and regulatory framework.

A University Education

A University Education PDF Author: David Willetts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191080047
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Get Book Here

Book Description
Universities have a crucial role in the modern world. In England entrance to universities is by nation-wide competition which means English universities have an exceptional influence on schools - a striking theme of the book. This important book first investigates the university as an institution and then tracks the individual on their journey to and through university. In A University Education, David Willetts presents a compelling case for the ongoing importance of the university, both as one of the great institutions of modern society and as a transformational experience for the individual. The book also makes illuminating comparisons with higher education in other countries, especially the US and Germany. Drawing on his experience as UK Minister for Universities and Science from 2010 to 2014, the author offers a powerful account of the value of higher education and the case for more expansion. He covers controversial issues in which he was involved from access for disadvantaged students to the introduction of £9,000 fees. The final section addresses some of the big questions for the future, such as the the relationship between universities and business, especially in promoting innovation.. He argues that the two great contemporary trends of globalisation and technological innovation will both change the university significantly. This is an authoritative account of English universities setting them for the first time in their new legal and regulatory framework.

Expanding Opportunity in Higher Education

Expanding Opportunity in Higher Education PDF Author: Patricia Gándara
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791481239
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
The dream of public higher education in America is to provide opportunity for many and to offer transformative help to American communities and the economy. Expanding Opportunity in Higher Education explores the massive challenges facing California and the nation in realizing this goal during a time of enormous demographic change. The immediate focus on California is particularly appropriate given the size of the state—it educates one out of every nine students in the country—and its checkered political record with respect to civil rights and educational inequities. The book includes essays not only by academics looking at the state's educational system as a whole, but also by those within the policy system who are trying to keep it going in difficult times. The contributors show that the destiny of California, and the nation, rests on the courage of policymakers, both within the universities and within the government, to move aggressively to reclaim the hope of millions of students who can make enormous contributions to this society if only given the chance.

The Lost Soul of Higher Education

The Lost Soul of Higher Education PDF Author: Ellen Schrecker
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595586032
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The professor and historian delivers a major critique of how political and financial attacks on the academy are undermining our system of higher education. Making a provocative foray into the public debates over higher education, acclaimed historian Ellen Schrecker argues that the American university is under attack from two fronts. On the one hand, outside pressure groups have staged massive challenges to academic freedom, beginning in the 1960s with attacks on faculty who opposed the Vietnam War, and resurfacing more recently with well-funded campaigns against Middle Eastern Studies scholars. Connecting these dots, Schrecker reveals a distinct pattern of efforts to undermine the legitimacy of any scholarly study that threatens the status quo. At the same time, Schrecker deftly chronicles the erosion of university budgets and the encroachment of private-sector influence into academic life. From the dwindling numbers of full-time faculty to the collapse of library budgets, The Lost Soul of Higher Education depicts a system increasingly beholden to corporate America and starved of the resources it needs to educate the new generation of citizens. A sharp riposte to the conservative critics of the academy by the leading historian of the McCarthy-era witch hunts, The Lost Soul of Higher Education, reveals a system in peril—and defends the vital role of higher education in our democracy.

College Disrupted

College Disrupted PDF Author: Ryan Craig
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1137279699
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
There is a revolution happening in higher education—and this is how it's unfolding

How the University Works

How the University Works PDF Author: Marc Bousquet
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814791123
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Uncovers the labor exploitation occurring in universities across the country As much as we think we know about the modern university, very little has been said about what it's like to work there. Instead of the high-wage, high-profit world of knowledge work, most campus employees—including the vast majority of faculty—really work in the low-wage, low-profit sphere of the service economy. Tenure-track positions are at an all-time low, with adjuncts and graduate students teaching the majority of courses. This super-exploited corps of disposable workers commonly earn fewer than $16,000 annually, without benefits, teaching as many as eight classes per year. Even undergraduates are being exploited as a low-cost, disposable workforce. Marc Bousquet, a major figure in the academic labor movement, exposes the seamy underbelly of higher education—a world where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates work long hours for fast-food wages. Assessing the costs of higher education's corporatization on faculty and students at every level, How the University Works is urgent reading for anyone interested in the fate of the university.

Relationship-Rich Education

Relationship-Rich Education PDF Author: Peter Felten
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421439379
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
A mentor, advisor, or even a friend? Making connections in college makes all the difference. What single factor makes for an excellent college education? As it turns out, it's pretty simple: human relationships. Decades of research demonstrate the transformative potential and the lasting legacies of a relationship-rich college experience. Critics suggest that to build connections with peers, faculty, staff, and other mentors is expensive and only an option at elite institutions where instructors have the luxury of time with students. But in this revelatory book brimming with the voices of students, faculty, and staff from across the country, Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert argue that relationship-rich environments can and should exist for all students at all types of institutions. In Relationship-Rich Education, Felten and Lambert demonstrate that for relationships to be central in undergraduate education, colleges and universities do not require immense resources, privileged students, or specially qualified faculty and staff. All students learn best in an environment characterized by high expectation and high support, and all faculty and staff can learn to teach and work in ways that enable relationship-based education. Emphasizing the centrality of the classroom experience to fostering quality relationships, Felten and Lambert focus on students' influence in shaping the learning environment for their peers, as well as the key difference a single, well-timed conversation can make in a student's life. They also stress that relationship-rich education is particularly important for first-generation college students, who bring significant capacities to college but often face long-standing inequities and barriers to attaining their educational aspirations. Drawing on nearly 400 interviews with students, faculty, and staff at 29 higher education institutions across the country, Relationship-Rich Education provides readers with practical advice on how they can develop and sustain powerful relationship-based learning in their own contexts. Ultimately, the book is an invitation—and a challenge—for faculty, administrators, and student life staff to move relationships from the periphery to the center of undergraduate education.

Liberal Education and the Idea of the University

Liberal Education and the Idea of the University PDF Author: Karim Dharamsi
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1622735218
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The idea of the university and the idea of liberal education share a family resemblance. However, it is not always explicitly clear what they have in common and what differentiates them. This collection brings together arguments and reflections on the nature of the university and the place of liberal learning in the 21st century. It is divided into two parts. In the first part authors examine the values and ideals that shape our understanding of liberal learning and the university; in the second part authors consider pedagogies informing our practices, asking after what underlying presuppositions, when made explicit, guide our liberal education classrooms in higher education. Unique in its approaches, this volume includes defenses of liberal education’s intrinsic value, the commodification of some of its best ideals, as well as utilitarian defenses that challenge some orthodox conceptions of liberal learning and its justifications. Each in its own right understands liberal learning as essential to the defense of a democratic order. On the pedagogical side, included are essays that defend a view of liberal education from the vantage of STEM subjects, including architecture, as well as those we typically associate with the liberal arts. This volume will aid academics and students seeking to better grasp an understanding of liberal education, but also those seeking to advance their pedagogical ideas about liberal learning. Researchers and students in education, higher education and those interested in the liberal arts and sciences will find this volume a useful addition to their collection.

Beyond the University

Beyond the University PDF Author: Michael S. Roth
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300206550
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Contentious debates over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism—often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student’s capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America’s long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education. Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois’s humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams’s emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey’s calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.

Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education

Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education PDF Author: William G. Bowen
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813933399
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
Thomas Jefferson once stated that the foremost goal of American education must be to nurture the "natural aristocracy of talent and virtue." Although in many ways American higher education has fulfilled Jefferson's vision by achieving a widespread level of excellence, it has not achieved the objective of equity implicit in Jefferson's statement. In Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, William G. Bowen, Martin A. Kurzweil, and Eugene M. Tobin explore the cause for this divide. Employing historical research, examination of the most recent social science and public policy scholarship, international comparisons, and detailed empirical analysis of rich new data, the authors study the intersection between "excellence" and "equity" objectives. Beginning with a time line tracing efforts to achieve equity and excellence in higher education from the American Revolution to the early Cold War years, this narrative reveals the halting, episodic progress in broadening access across the dividing lines of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The authors argue that despite our rhetoric of inclusiveness, a significant number of youth from poor families do not share equal access to America's elite colleges and universities. While America has achieved the highest level of educational attainment of any country, it runs the risk of losing this position unless it can markedly improve the precollegiate preparation of students from racial minorities and lower-income families. After identifying the "equity" problem at the national level and studying nineteen selective colleges and universities, the authors propose a set of potential actions to be taken at federal, state, local, and institutional levels. With recommendations ranging from reform of the admissions process, to restructuring of federal financial aid and state support of public universities, to addressing the various precollegiate obstacles that disadvantaged students face at home and in school, the authors urge all selective colleges and universities to continue race-sensitive admissions policies, while urging the most selective (and privileged) institutions to enroll more well-qualified students from families with low socioeconomic status.

Education Is Not an App

Education Is Not an App PDF Author: Jonathan A. Poritz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317436350
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Whilst much has been written about the doors that technology can open for students, less has been said about its impact on teachers and professors. Although technology undoubtedly brings with it huge opportunities within higher education, there is also the fear that it will have a negative effect both on faculty and on teaching standards. Education Is Not an App offers a bold and provocative analysis of the economic context within which educational technology is being implemented, not least the financial problems currently facing higher education institutions around the world. The book emphasizes the issue of control as being a key factor in whether educational technology is used for good purposes or bad purposes, arguing that technology has great potential if placed in caring hands. Whilst it is a guide to the newest developments in education technology, it is also a book for those faculty, technology professionals, and higher education policy-makers who want to understand the economic and pedagogical impact of technology on professors and students. It advocates a path into the future based on faculty autonomy, shared governance, and concentration on the university’s traditional role of promoting the common good. Offering the first critical, in-depth assessment of the political economy of education technology, this book will serve as an invaluable guide to concerned faculty, as well as to anyone with an interest in the future of higher education.