The Higher Learning in America PDF Download

Author: Thorstein Veblen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education, Higher
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Author: Robert Maynard Hutchins
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412837189
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Author: Derek Bok
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140086612X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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A sweeping assessment of the state of higher education today from former Harvard president Derek Bok Higher Education in America is a landmark work--a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the current condition of our colleges and universities from former Harvard president Derek Bok, one of the nation's most respected education experts. Sweepingly ambitious in scope, this is a deeply informed and balanced assessment of the many strengths as well as the weaknesses of American higher education today. At a time when colleges and universities have never been more important to the lives and opportunities of students or to the progress and prosperity of the nation, Bok provides a thorough examination of the entire system, public and private, from community colleges and small liberal arts colleges to great universities with their research programs and their medical, law, and business schools. Drawing on the most reliable studies and data, he determines which criticisms of higher education are unfounded or exaggerated, which are issues of genuine concern, and what can be done to improve matters. Some of the subjects considered are long-standing, such as debates over the undergraduate curriculum and concerns over rising college costs. Others are more recent, such as the rise of for-profit institutions and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Additional topics include the quality of undergraduate education, the stagnating levels of college graduation, the problems of university governance, the strengths and weaknesses of graduate and professional education, the environment for research, and the benefits and drawbacks of the pervasive competition among American colleges and universities. Offering a rare survey and evaluation of American higher education as a whole, this book provides a solid basis for a fresh public discussion about what the system is doing right, what it needs to do better, and how the next quarter century could be made a period of progress rather than decline.

Author: John R. Thelin
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421428830
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 555

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Anyone studying the history of this institution in America must read Thelin's classic text, which has distinguished itself as the most wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's institutions of higher learning.

Author: Charles Dorn
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501712608
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Are colleges and universities in a period of unprecedented disruption? Is a bachelor's degree still worth the investment? Are the humanities coming to an end? What, exactly, is higher education good for? In For the Common Good, Charles Dorn challenges the rhetoric of America's so-called crisis in higher education by investigating two centuries of college and university history. From the community college to the elite research university—in states from California to Maine—Dorn engages a fundamental question confronted by higher education institutions ever since the nation's founding: Do colleges and universities contribute to the common good? Tracking changes in the prevailing social ethos between the late eighteenth and early twenty-first centuries, Dorn illustrates the ways in which civic-mindedness, practicality, commercialism, and affluence influenced higher education's dedication to the public good. Each ethos, long a part of American history and tradition, came to predominate over the others during one of the four chronological periods examined in the book, informing the character of institutional debates and telling the definitive story of its time. For the Common Good demonstrates how two hundred years of political, economic, and social change prompted transformation among colleges and universities—including the establishment of entirely new kinds of institutions—and refashioned higher education in the United States over time in essential and often vibrant ways.

Author: Gary A. Olson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317259408
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Written by leading education experts and by university presidents, provosts, and other leaders nationally recognized for their innovations, the 22 original and provocative chapters in this new book comprise a wide-ranging examination of the many challenges faced in fashioning the university of tomorrow. Authors offer their research, predictions, concerns, and advice on topics ranging from university finances, student access, changing technologies, and the philosophical underpinnings of college education. They address the multiple challenges facing higher education today, offering ideas and solutions. Contributors include Warren Arbogast, Gretchen Bataille, Lee Benson, Rita Bornstein , Sally Clausen , Reed Way Dasenbrock, John A. Dossey, Jean Dowdall, James L. Fisher, Judy L. Genshaft , Henry A. Giroux, Ira Harkavy , Michael Hoad, Freeman A. Hrabowski, Stephen K. Klasko, James V. Koch, George Mehaffy , J. Hillis Miller, Gary A. Olson , John W. Presley, John Puckett , Michael Rao, Charles B. Reed, Rollin C. Richmond, Roseann Runte, Neil J. Smelser , Sheila M. Stearns, and Randy L. Swing.

Author: Derek Curtis Bok
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674391765
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Bok concludes that the competition for the best students, the most advanced scholarship, the most successful scientific research, the best facilities--has helped to produce venturesome, adaptable, and varied universities. But because the process of learning itself is imperfectly understood, it is difficult to achieve sustained progress in the quality of education or even to determine which educational innovations actually enhance learning.

Author: Thorstein Veblen
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421416786
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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"Veblen's insights into the American university system at the outset of the twentieth century are as provocative today as they were when first published. Insisting that institutions of higher learning should be dedicated solely to the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, he urged American universities to abandon commitments to extraneous pursuits such as athletics, community service, and vocational education. He also believed that the corporate model of governance--with university boards of trustees dominated by well-to-do businessmen and university presidents who functioned essentially as businessmen in academic dress--mandated unsavory techniques of salesmanship and self-promotion that threatened to reduce institutions of higher learning to the status of competitive business enterprises."--Publisher's Web site.

Author: Ben Wildavsky
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
ISBN: 1612504272
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
The inspiration for this timely book is the pressing need for fresh ideas and innovations in U.S. higher education. At the heart of the volume is the realization that higher education must evolve in fundamental ways if it is to respond to changing professional, economic, and technological circumstances, and if it is to successfully reach and prepare a vast population of students—traditional and nontraditional alike—for success in the coming decades. This collection of provocative articles by leading scholars, writers, innovators, and university administrators examines the current higher education environment and its chronic resistance to change; the rise of for-profit universities; the potential future role of community colleges in a significantly revised higher education realm; and the emergence of online learning as a means to reshape teaching and learning and to reach new consumers of higher education. Combining trenchant critiques of current conditions with thought-provoking analyses of possible reforms and new directions, Reinventing Higher Education is an ambitious exploration of possible future directions for revitalized American colleges and universities.

Author: Christopher J. Lucas
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312176860
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Not since student turmoil and unrest wreaked havoc on the nation's campuses three decades ago has American higher education been the subject of so much controversy and popular criticism. Countless indictments compete for the public's attention as critics explore vital issues confronting today's institutions of higher learning: curricular fragmentation, declining academic standards, the apparent erosion of liberal learning within academe, widespread neglect of undergraduate education in favour of academic research and unprecedented financial woes. Confusion over fundamental priorities and purposes, the author argues, lies at the heart of the dilemma facing end-of-the-century higher education. Thoughtful and timely, Crisis in the Academy offers a wide-ranging analysis of contemporary higher education while making an important contribution to the ongoing public debate over the future of America's beleaguered and diverse institutions of higher learning.