Universities and the Future of America

Universities and the Future of America PDF Author: Derek Curtis Bok
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Former Harvard president Bok asks what universities can do to promote higher levels of ethical responsibility and help the nation address its urgent social problems and its competitive international position.

Universities and the Future of America

Universities and the Future of America PDF Author: Derek Curtis Bok
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Former Harvard president Bok asks what universities can do to promote higher levels of ethical responsibility and help the nation address its urgent social problems and its competitive international position.

Research Universities and the Future of America

Research Universities and the Future of America PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309256399
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Research Universities and the Future of America presents critically important strategies for ensuring that our nation's research universities contribute strongly to America's prosperity, security, and national goals. Widely considered the best in the world, our nation's research universities today confront significant financial pressures, important advances in technology, a changing demographic landscape, and increased international competition. This report provides a course of action for ensuring our universities continue to produce the knowledge, ideas, and talent the United States needs to be a global leader in the 21st century. Research Universities and the Future of America focuses on strengthening and expanding the partnership among universities and government, business, and philanthropy that has been central to American prosperity and security. The report focuses on the top 10 actions that Congress, the federal government, state governments, research universities, and others could take to strengthen the research and education missions of our research universities, their relationships with other parts of the national research enterprise, and their ability to transfer new knowledge and ideas to those who productively use them in our society and economy. This report examines trends in university finance, prospects for improving university operations, opportunities for deploying technology, and improvement in the regulation of higher education institutions. It also explores ways to improve pathways to graduate education, take advantage of opportunities to increase student diversity, and realign doctoral education for the careers new doctorates will follow. Research Universities and the Future of America is an important resource for policy makers on the federal and state levels, university administrators, philanthropic organizations, faculty, technology transfer specialists, libraries, and researchers.

Land-Grant Universities for the Future

Land-Grant Universities for the Future PDF Author: Stephen M. Gavazzi
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421426854
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Land-grant colleges and universities have a storied past. This book looks at their future. Land-grant colleges and universities occupy a special place in the landscape of American higher education. Publicly funded agricultural and technical educational institutions were first founded in the mid-nineteenth century with the Morrill Act, which established land grants to support these schools. They include such prominent names as Cornell, Maryland, Michigan State, MIT, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Texas A&M, West Virginia University, Wisconsin, and the University of California—in other words, four dozen of the largest and best public universities in America. Add to this a number of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and tribal colleges—in all, almost 300 institutions. Their mission is a democratic and pragmatic one: to bring science, technology, agriculture, and the arts to the American people. In this book, Stephen M. Gavazzi and E. Gordon Gee discuss present challenges to and future opportunities for these institutions. Drawing on interviews with 27 college presidents and chancellors, Gavazzi and Gee explore the strengths and weaknesses of land-grant universities while examining the changing threats they face. Arguing that the land-grant university of the twenty-first century is responsible to a wide range of constituencies, the authors also pay specific attention to the ways these universities meet the needs of the communities they serve. Ultimately, the book suggests that leaders and supporters should become more fiercely land-grant in their orientation; that is, they should work to more vigorously uphold their community-focused missions through teaching, research, and service-oriented activities. Combining extensive research with Gee’s own decades of leadership experience, Land-Grant Universities for the Future argues that these schools are the engine of higher education in America—and perhaps democracy’s best hope. This book should be of great interest to faculty members and students, as well as those parents, legislators, policymakers, and other area stakeholders who have a vested interest in the well-being of America’s original public universities.

Future of the American Public Research University

Future of the American Public Research University PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9087903456
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Public research universities are an integral part of American society. They play the leading role in educating future leaders in agriculture, engineering, the arts and sciences, humanities, business, education, and other professions. Public research universities generate the new products, processes, inventions, discoveries, insights, and interpretations that advance the human condition. The dominant centers of higher education in many states, public research universities are increasingly looked upon as major engines of economic development. And, through outreach, they harness their human and intellectual capital to serve their sponsoring societies. Yet state investment in public higher education is faltering and the role of public higher education is an area of ongoing debate. This flagging support, along with the growing perception that higher education is a private benefit rather than a public good, has put public research universities at a crossroads. With chapters by leading scholars, this book tackles these challenging issues—on learning resources; on competition; on the public and private benefits of public research universities; and on how best to create an environment for engaged learning. It brings into one collection informed arguments on the key issues facing the American public research university and serves as a valuable resource to students, scholars, and policy makers who are concerned about the future of these national assets.

The Creation of the Future

The Creation of the Future PDF Author: Frank Harold Trevor Rhodes
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801439377
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
In the process, he articulates strong opinions on a range of difficult issues." "The Creation of the Future is no defense or promotion of the status quo. Focusing on American research universities, Rhodes makes the case that they are an irreplaceable treasure, whose value must be preserved through judicious renewal and reform, beginning with a rededication to teaching as a moral vocation."--BOOK JACKET.

The Amateur Hour

The Amateur Hour PDF Author: Jonathan Zimmerman
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421439107
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
The first full-length history of college teaching in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present, this book sheds new light on the ongoing tension between the modern scholarly ideal—scientific, objective, and dispassionate—and the inevitably subjective nature of day-to-day instruction. American college teaching is in crisis, or so we are told. But we've heard that complaint for the past 150 years, as critics have denounced the poor quality of instruction in undergraduate classrooms. Students daydream in gigantic lecture halls while a professor drones on, or they meet with a teaching assistant for an hour of aimless discussion. The modern university does not reward teaching, so faculty members at every level neglect it in favor of research and publication. In the first book-length history of American college teaching, Jonathan Zimmerman confirms but also contradicts these perennial complaints. Drawing upon a wide range of previously unexamined sources, The Amateur Hour shows how generations of undergraduates indicted the weak instruction they received. But Zimmerman also chronicles institutional efforts to improve it, especially by making teaching more "personal." As higher education grew into a gigantic industry, he writes, American colleges and universities introduced small-group activities and other reforms designed to counter the anonymity of mass instruction. They also experimented with new technologies like television and computers, which promised to "personalize" teaching by tailoring it to the individual interests and abilities of each student. But, Zimmerman reveals, the emphasis on the personal inhibited the professionalization of college teaching, which remains, ultimately, an amateur enterprise. The more that Americans treated teaching as a highly personal endeavor, dependent on the idiosyncrasies of the instructor, the less they could develop shared standards for it. Nor have they rigorously documented college instruction, a highly public activity which has taken place mostly in private. Pushing open the classroom door, The Amateur Hour illuminates American college teaching and frames a fresh case for restoring intimate learning communities, especially for America's least privileged students. Anyone who wants to change college teaching will have to start here.

First in the World

First in the World PDF Author: Noah J. Brown
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1442209992
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
From his unique vantage point as President and CEO of the Association of Community College Trustees, J. Noah Brown writes about the intersection between community colleges and America’s need to regain economic momentum and its position as first in the world with respect to college attainment. By connecting past economic and education policies and investments to possibilities for the future and continued national progress, Brown reminds us that restoring America’s prominence is within reach. More importantly, he succinctly advocates for the power of community colleges to increase educational attainment, thereby reducing income inequality by allowing more Americans to access real economic opportunity.

Designing the New American University

Designing the New American University PDF Author: Michael M. Crow
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421417243
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
A radical blueprint for reinventing American higher education. America’s research universities consistently dominate global rankings but may be entrenched in a model that no longer accomplishes their purposes. With their multiple roles of discovery, teaching, and public service, these institutions represent the gold standard in American higher education, but their evolution since the nineteenth century has been only incremental. The need for a new and complementary model that offers broader accessibility to an academic platform underpinned by knowledge production is critical to our well-being and economic competitiveness. Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University and an outspoken advocate for reinventing the public research university, conceived the New American University model when he moved from Columbia University to Arizona State in 2002. Following a comprehensive reconceptualization spanning more than a decade, ASU has emerged as an international academic and research powerhouse that serves as the foundational prototype for the new model. Crow has led the transformation of ASU into an egalitarian institution committed to academic excellence, inclusiveness to a broad demographic, and maximum societal impact. In Designing the New American University, Crow and coauthor William B. Dabars—a historian whose research focus is the American research university—examine the emergence of this set of institutions and the imperative for the new model, the tenets of which may be adapted by colleges and universities, both public and private. Through institutional innovation, say Crow and Dabars, universities are apt to realize unique and differentiated identities, which maximize their potential to generate the ideas, products, and processes that impact quality of life, standard of living, and national economic competitiveness. Designing the New American University will ignite a national discussion about the future evolution of the American research university.

Curtains?

Curtains? PDF Author: Michael M. Kaiser
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 1611687047
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
In this clear-minded but sobering book, Michael M. Kaiser assesses the current state of arts institutions-orchestras; opera, ballet, modern dance, and theater companies; and even museums. According to Kaiser, new developments in the twenty-first century, including the Internet explosion, the death of the recording industry, the near-death of subscriptions, economic instability, the focus on STEM education in schools, the introduction of movie-theater opera, the erosion of newspapers, the threat to serious arts criticism, and the aging of the donor base have together created tremendous challenges for all arts organizations. Using Michael Porter's model of industry structure to describe how industries evolve, Kaiser argues persuasively that unless steps are taken now, midsized performing arts institutions will have all but evaporated by 2035. Only the largest arts organizations will survive, with tickets priced for the very wealthy and programming limited to the most popular and lucrative productions. Kaiser concludes with a call to arms. With three extraordinary decades' experience as an arts administrator behind him, he advocates passionately for risk-taking in programming and more creative marketing, and details what needs to happen now-building strong donor bases, creating effective boards, and collective action-to sustain the performing arts for generations to come.

The Fifth Wave

The Fifth Wave PDF Author: Michael M. Crow
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421438038
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
Out of the crises of American higher education emerges a new class of large-scale public universities designed to accelerate social change through broad access to world-class knowledge production and cutting-edge technological innovation. America's research universities lead the world in discovery, creativity, and innovation—but are captive to a set of design constraints that no longer aligns with the changing needs of society. Their commitment to discovery and innovation, which is carried out largely in isolation from the socioeconomic challenges faced by most Americans, threatens to impede the capacity of these institutions to contribute decisively and consistently to the collective good. The global preeminence of our leading institutions, moreover, does not correlate with overall excellence in American higher education. Sadly, admissions practices that flatly exclude the majority of academically qualified applicants are now the norm in our leading universities, both public and private. In The Fifth Wave, Michael M. Crow and William B. Dabars argue that colleges and universities need to be comprehensively redesigned in order to educate millions more qualified students while leveraging the complementarities between discovery and accessibility. Building on the themes of their prior collaboration, Designing the New American University, this book examines the historical development of American higher education—the first four waves—and describes the emerging standard of institutions that will transform the field. What must emerge in this Fifth Wave of universities, Crow and Dabars posit, are institutions that are responsive to the needs of students, focused on access, embedded in their regions, and committed to solving global problems. The Fifth Wave in American higher education, Crow and Dabars write, comprises an emerging league of colleges and universities that aspires to accelerate positive social outcomes through the seamless integration of world-class knowledge production with cutting-edge technological innovation. This set of institutions is dedicated to the advancement of accessibility to the broadest possible demographic that is representative of the socioeconomic and intellectual diversity of our nation. Recognizing the fact that both cooperation and competition between universities is essential if higher education hopes to truly serve the needs of the nation, Fifth Wave schools like Arizona State University are already beginning to spearhead a network spanning academia, business and industry, government agencies and laboratories, and civil society organizations. Drawing from a variety of disciplines, including design, economics, public policy, organizational theory, science and technology studies, sociology, and even cognitive psychology and epistemology, The Fifth Wave is a must-read for anyone concerned with the future of higher education in our society.