William G. Bowen

Throughout the world, politicians are dismantling state enterprises and heaping praise on private markets, while in the United States a new rhetoric of "citizen empowerment" links a widespread distrust of government to decentralization and privatization. Here Joel Handler asks whether this restructuring of authority really allows ordinary citizens to take more control of the things that matter in their roles as parents and children, teachers and students, tenants and owners, producers and consumers. Looking at citizens as stakeholders in the modern social welfare state created by the New Deal, he traces the surprising ideological shifts of empowerment from its beginning as a cornerstone of the war on poverty in the 1960s to its central place in conservative market-based voucher schemes for school reform in the 1990s. Handler shows that in the past the gains from decentralization have proved to be more symbol than substance: some disadvantaged members of society will find new opportunities in the changes of the 1990s, but others will simply experience powerlessness under another name. He carefully distinguishes "empowerment by invitation" (in special education, worker safety, home health care, public housing tenancy, and neighborhood organizations) from the "empowerment by conflict" exemplified by the radical decentralization of the Chicago public schools. What emerges is a map of the major pitfalls and possible successes in the current journey away from a discredited regulatory state.

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2000" "Winner of the Thomas N. Bonner Prize" Jon H. Roberts is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. He is the author of Darwinism and the Divine in America. James Turner is Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and Director of the Erasmus Institute. Among his several books are Without God, Without Creed and The Liberal Education of Charles Eliot Norton. John F. Wilson is Dean of the Graduate School of Princeton University. Willam G. Bowen is President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Harold T. Shapiro is President of Princeton University. American higher education was transformed between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War I. During this period, U.S. colleges underwent fundamental changes--changes that helped to create the modern university we know today. Most significantly, the study of the sciences and the humanities effectively dissolved the Protestant framework of learning by introducing a new secularized curriculum. This secularization has long been recognized as a decisive turning point in the history of American education. Until now, however, there has been remarkably little attention paid to the details of how this transformation came about. Here, at last, Jon Roberts and James Turner identify the forces and explain the events that reformed the college curriculum during this era. The first section of the book examines how the study of science became detached from theological considerations. Previously, one of the primary pursuits of "natural scientists" was to achieve an understanding of the workings of the divine in earthly events. During the late nineteenth century, however, scientists reduced the scope of their inquiries to subjects that could be isolated, measured, and studied objectively. In pursuit of "scientific truth," they were drawn away from the larger "truths" that they had once sought. On a related path, social scientists began to pursue the study of human society more scientifically, attempting to generalize principles of behavior from empirically observed events. The second section describes the revolution that occurred in the humanities, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, when the study of humanities was largely the study of Greek and Latin. By 1900, however, the humanities were much more broadly construed, including such previously unstudied subjects as literature, philosophy, history, and art history. The "triumph of the humanities" represented a significant change in attitudes about what constituted academic knowledge and, therefore, what should be a part of the college curriculum. The Sacred and the Secular University rewrites the history of higher education in the United States. It will interest all readers who are concerned about American universities and about how the content of a "college education" has changed over the course of the last century. "[Jon Roberts and James Turner's] thoroughly researched and carefully argued presentations invite readers to revisit stereotypical generalizations and to rethink the premises developed in the late nineteenth century that underlie the modern university. At the least, their arguments challenge crude versions of the secularization thesis as applied to higher education."--From the foreword by William G. Bowen and Harold T. Shapiro "A handy historical overview of an issue that cannot be dismissed as "academic," because it is just too important for understanding who we are and where we are going."---Peter Heinegg, America "The Sacred and the Secular University is a balanced and well-reasoned contribution to one of the major themes of American higher education. Full of drama, characters, and plot . . . [it] provides insights into what may be the defining movement within American higher education history."---J. Gregory Behle, History of Education Quarterly "This is a masterful study. In a mere 122 pages of text, it gets to the

William M. Chace is Professor of English and President Emeritus at Emory University. He is the author of two books, The Political Identities of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot and Lionel Trilling: Criticism and Politics. In One Hundred Semesters, William Chace mixes incisive analysis with memoir to create an illuminating picture of the evolution of American higher education over the past half century. Chace follows his own journey from undergraduate education at Haverford College to teaching at Stillman, a traditionally African-American college in Alabama, in the 1960s, to his days as a professor at Stanford and his appointment as president of two very different institutions--Wesleyan University and Emory University. Chace takes us with him through his decades in education--his expulsion from college, his boredom and confusion as a graduate student during the Free Speech movement at Berkeley, and his involvement in three contentious cases at Stanford: on tenure, curriculum, and academic freedom. When readers follow Chace on his trip to jail after he joins Stillman students in a civil rights protest, it is clear that the ideas he presents are born of experience, not preached from an ivory tower. The book brings the reader into both the classroom and the administrative office, portraying the unique importance of the former and the peculiar rituals, rewards, and difficulties of the latter. Although Chace sees much to lament about American higher education--spiraling costs, increased consumerism, overly aggressive institutional self-promotion and marketing, the corruption of intercollegiate sports, and the melancholy state of the humanities--he finds more to praise. He points in particular to its strength and vitality, suggesting that this can be sustained if higher education remains true to its purpose: providing a humane and necessary education, inside the classroom and out, for America's future generations. "Chace here recounts a young man's maturation and offers insight into the challenges of university administration. . . . Chace is a gifted storyteller, appealingly honest in analyzing what he did well and where he went wrong."---Evelyn Beck, Library Journal "An unusual book, 100 Semesters is part memoir, part analysis and part how-to manual. . . . Chace's prose is clear and compelling, a pleasure to read as much for its style as for its ideas. It is, in a word, eloquent."---Mark E. Hayes, Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Hopeful yet sober, Chace's memoir provides an invaluable perspective on the challenges facing higher education." "A thoughtful commentary on both the promises and challenges colleges and universities have and continue to face. . . . [T]his is a much-needed, authentic commentary on the changes which happened throughout American higher education from one who was a direct participant in academia. . . . Highly recommended." "A very useful, if not crucial addition, to the libraries of aspiring humanists and administrators in U.S. higher education. Although neither a call to arms nor a road-map for change, Chace's book is a rich, timely, and sober reflection on higher education's upper half at the start of the twenty-first century."---Tim Lacy, History and Education "I have read Bill Chace's book and found it moving and full of what Nietzsche called 'joyful wisdom.' He is the Ishmael of American higher education's great quest for excellence: he has seen it all, its glories and shames, its triumphs and defeats, its ironies, tragedies, and paradoxes-and he has survived to tell us the tale. He is the best commentator on college and university life since Clark Kerr. And he weaves the threads of his own life and his own struggles into the great tapestry of institutions. His story takes us beyond the roles he has played-student, professor, dean, president-into the life he has lived in these institutions. It has been a good life but not an easy one. And out of it he has drawn thoughtful lessons for

Harold T. Shapiro served as President of the University of Michigan (1979-1988) and as President of Princeton University (1988-2001). He is currently Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton. The coeditor of Universities and Their Leadership (Princeton), he served as chair of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission from July 1996 to October 2001, and from 1990 to 1992 as a member and vice chair of President George Bush's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Universities were once largely insular institutions whose purview extended no further than the campus gates. Not anymore. Today's universities have evolved into multifaceted organizations with complex connections to government, business, and the community. This thought-provoking book by Harold Shapiro, former president of both Princeton University and the University of Michigan, and Chairman of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission under President Bill Clinton, explores the role the modern university should play as an ethical force and societal steward. Based on the 2003 Clark Kerr lectures, A Larger Sense of Purpose draws from Shapiro's twenty-five years of experience leading major research universities and takes up key topics of debate in higher education. What are the nature and objectives of a liberal education? How should universities address the increasing commercialization not only of intercollegiate sports but of education and research? What are the university's responsibilities for the moral education of students? The book begins with an expanded history of the modern research institution followed by essays on ethics, the academic curriculum, the differences between private and public higher education, the future of intellectual property rights, and the changing relationship between the nation's universities and the for-profit sector. Shapiro calls for universities to be more accountable morally as well as academically. He urges scientists not only to educate others about the potential and limitations of science but also to acknowledge the public's distress over the challenges presented by the very success of the scientific enterprise. He advocates for a more intimate connection between professional training and the liberal arts--in the hope that future doctors, lawyers, and business executives will be educated in ethics and the social sciences as well as they are in anatomy, torts, and leveraged buyouts. Candid, timely, and provocative, A Larger Sense of Purpose demands the attention of not only those in academics but of anyone who shares an interest in the soul of education. "Shapiro clearly and persuasively enunciates his major theme-that universities have a responsibility for performing two important social functions. One is to serve existing society, and the other is to challenge it."-Charles T. Clotfelter, Duke University "This book reflects an effort by one of our most distinguished educational leaders to look beneath the surface of existing controversies and ask deeper questions about the role of the university in a modern liberal democracy. Shapiro's analysis is well tuned to the paradoxical character of the modern university as at once loyal servant and stubborn critic of the society that sustains it."-Michael McPherson, President, the Spencer Foundation, and former President of Macalaster College

"Winner of the 2003 "Silver" Frandson Award for Literature in Higher Education" "Winner of the Alice L. Beeman Research Award in Communications for Educational Advancement" Derek Bok is the 300th Anniversary University Professor and Faculty Chair of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. He was formerly President of Harvard University and Dean of the Harvard Law School. His numerous books include The Shape of the River (Princeton, 1998, with William G. Bowen) and The Trouble with Government (Harvard, 2001). Is everything in a university for sale if the price is right? In this book, one of America's leading educators cautions that the answer is all too often "yes." Taking the first comprehensive look at the growing commercialization of our academic institutions, Derek Bok probes the efforts on campus to profit financially not only from athletics but increasingly, from education and research as well. He shows how such ventures are undermining core academic values and what universities can do to limit the damage. Commercialization has many causes, but it could never have grown to its present state had it not been for the recent, rapid growth of money-making opportunities in a more technologically complex, knowledge-based economy. A brave new world has now emerged in which university presidents, enterprising professors, and even administrative staff can all find seductive opportunities to turn specialized knowledge into profit. Bok argues that universities, faced with these temptations, are jeopardizing their fundamental mission in their eagerness to make money by agreeing to more and more compromises with basic academic values. He discusses the dangers posed by increased secrecy in corporate-funded research, for-profit Internet companies funded by venture capitalists, industry-subsidized educational programs for physicians, conflicts of interest in research on human subjects, and other questionable activities. While entrepreneurial universities may occasionally succeed in the short term, reasons Bok, only those institutions that vigorously uphold academic values, even at the cost of a few lucrative ventures, will win public trust and retain the respect of faculty and students. Candid, evenhanded, and eminently readable, Universities in the Marketplace will be widely debated by all those concerned with the future of higher education in America and beyond. "Provocative and original. . . . Bok is one of the premier elder statesman of American higher education."---Stephen B. Sample and Warren Bennis, Los Angeles Times "Astute and fair-minded. . . . Derek Bok, a sensible man, has written a sensible book about the commercialization of the American university."---Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World "Contending that the trend toward excessive commercialization is not yet irreversible, Bok offers cogent, urgent arguments for reorienting universities toward fulfilling their unique purpose uncorrupted by the insidious influence of money." "Derek Bok begins his new book with [a] nightmare of university avarice and moral decay. Some of the moneymaking schemes are imaginary, but, as Mr. Bok warns, the dangers inherent in the insatiable demands for revenue are not. . . . It is increasingly difficult . . . to meet higher education's insatiable financial demands through conventional means. . . . Mr. Bok notes that commercialization has seeped even into the core educational mission. . . . Having a Derek Bok to remind us of our higher calling and the present dangers may, if his words are heeded, be more consequential than we can imagine."---Anthony W. Marx, New York Times "Raises lots of big, disquieting questions. . . . Universities that blur the lines between their own culture and that of the corporate world endanger their values without substantially raising the value of their endowments. It is, in short, shortsighted. With the publication of this book, the nation's universities can't s

"Winner of the 2008 Frederic W. Ness Book Award" Derek Bok is President Emeritus and Research Professor at Harvard University and the author of many major books on higher education, including (with William Bowen) The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions and Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education (both Princeton). Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, former Harvard President Derek Bok examines how much progress college students actually make toward widely accepted goals of undergraduate education. His conclusions are sobering. Although most students make gains in many important respects, they improve much less than they should in such important areas as writing, critical thinking, quantitative skills, and moral reasoning. Large majorities of college seniors do not feel that they have made substantial progress in speaking a foreign language, acquiring cultural and aesthetic interests, or learning what they need to know to become active and informed citizens. Overall, despite their vastly increased resources, more powerful technology, and hundreds of new courses, colleges cannot be confident that students are learning more than they did fifty years ago. Looking further, Bok finds that many important college courses are left to the least experienced teachers and that most professors continue to teach in ways that have proven to be less effective than other available methods. In reviewing their educational programs, however, faculties typically ignore this evidence. Instead, they spend most of their time discussing what courses to require, although the lasting impact of college will almost certainly depend much more on how the courses are taught. In his final chapter, Bok describes the changes that faculties and academic leaders can make to help students accomplish more. Without ignoring the contributions that America's colleges have made, Bok delivers a powerful critique--one that educators will ignore at their peril. "In the Bok view, American colleges and universities are victims of their own success: they answer to so many constituencies and are expected to serve so many ends that no one can agree on even a few common goals, and in the meantime they have grown complacent."---Charles McGrath, The New York Times "Derek Bok paints a picture of colleges that, if not dysfunctional, are operating far below capacity. He questions the coherence and purpose of departmental majors, describes programs of study abroad as little more than recreational excursions, criticizes lecturers for their indifference to whether students learn anything, and, in general, hold faculty accountable for ignoring research about which teaching methods are most effective."---Andrew Delbanco, New York Review of Books "Derek Bok makes a unique contribution by skillfully weaving his critique of campus and curriculum with an extensive review of the literature on student in a number of key areas, including writing instruction, critical thinking instruction, civic education, and diversity education. Rather than identify a narrowly defined culprit in the supposed decline of higher education, such as political correctness or neglect of the literary canon, Bok writes persuasively about the multiple aims of higher education and retains focus throughout on the question of how attention to each of these aims contributes to measurable increases in student learning. . . . This thoughtful critique of higher education will be accessible to a wide audience." "In Our Underachieving Colleges, Derek Bok argues forcefully that those of us within the academy can do a much better job of educating our undergraduates, widening their vistas, and preparing them to succeed in life."---Charles M. Vest, Boston Globe "Bok in this book criticizes the state of undergraduate education. . . . His research suggests that common problems in education extend beyond K-12." "D

Camille Z. Charles is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Social Sciences, and professor of sociology, education, and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Mary J. Fischer is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut. Margarita A. Mooney is assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Douglas S. Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Building on their important findings in The Source of the River, the authors now probe even more deeply into minority underachievement at the college level. Taming the River examines the academic and social dynamics of different ethnic groups during the first two years of college. Focusing on racial differences in academic performance, the book identifies the causes of students' divergent grades and levels of personal satisfaction with their institutions. Using survey data collected from twenty-eight selective colleges and universities, Taming the River considers all facets of student life, including who students date, what fields they major in, which sports they play, and how they perceive their own social and economic backgrounds. The book explores how black and Latino students experience pressures stemming from campus racial climate and "stereotype threat"--when students underperform because of anxieties tied to existing negative stereotypes. Describing the relationship between grade performance and stereotype threat, the book shows how this link is reinforced by institutional practices of affirmative action. The authors also indicate that when certain variables are controlled, minority students earn the same grades, express the same college satisfaction, and remain in school at the same rates as white students. A powerful look at how educational policies unfold in America's universities, Taming the River sheds light on the social and racial factors influencing student success. "An insightful study of scholastic performance and ethnicity on US campuses. . . . The increasing relative underperformance of US higher education, and especially the variations in academic achievement and persistence between students from different ethnic and socio-economic groups, has recently spawned a plethora of scholarly studies. This book is one of the most important."---Roger Brown, Times Higher Education "Fascinating and important for anyone who cares about managing diversity in higher education."---Stanley Katz, Teachers College Record "Taming the River provides pivotal insights into the experiences of students based on racial differences at elite institutions. Despite its heavy emphasis on quantitative findings, readers can easily understand the data presented in this book. The authors' depiction of the challenges that many students, especially Black and Latino students, face while navigating the first two years of their higher education experience will hopefully inspire readers to develop educational programs to assist these students during this critical phase."---Jennifer S. Cortes, Review of Higher Education "Taming the River is a well written and compelling read that uses sound research and analysis based in strong foundations of sociology and social psychology. The book clearly stimulates thought about institutional, state, and federal policies."---Noah D. Drezner, Journal of College Student Retention "Our image of life in America's selective colleges has not caught up with the realities of that life, especially regarding the diverse students these schools now serve and the challenges these students face. This book-part of a series reporting on one of the most ambitious studies ever done on the experience of different groups in elite higher education-does more to remedy this problem than anything I have read in ten years. It delivers a revealing description of this part of society with comprehensive data that are brilliantly interpret

William G. Bowen is president emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University. His many books include the acclaimed bestseller The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions and Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities (both Princeton). An insider's account of higher education from a legendary university leader Lessons Learned gives unprecedented access to the university president's office, providing a unique set of reflections on the challenges involved in leading both research universities and liberal arts colleges. In this landmark book, William Bowen, former president of Princeton University and of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and coauthor of the acclaimed bestseller The Shape of the River, takes readers behind closed faculty-room doors to discuss how today's colleges and universities serve their age-old missions. With extraordinary candor, clarity, and good humor, Bowen shares the sometimes-hard lessons he learned about working with trustees, faculty, and campus groups; building an effective administrative team; deciding when to speak out on big issues and when to insist on institutional restraint; managing dissent; cultivating alumni and raising funds; setting academic priorities; fostering inclusiveness; eventually deciding when and how to leave the president's office; and much more. Drawing on more than four decades of experience, Bowen demonstrates how his greatest lessons often arose from the missteps he made along the way, and how, when it comes to university governance, there are important general principles but often no single right answer. Full of compelling stories, insights, and practical wisdom, Lessons Learned frames the questions that leaders of higher education will continue to confront at a complex moment in history. "[Bowen's] advice on how to be a successful leader of a university is invariably spot-on."---Alan Ryan, New Statesman "This is a sensible and sensitive account of the job. . . . These are lessons learned sometimes the hard way, and Bowen is quite prepared to admit it."---Sir Drummond Bone, Times Higher Education "William G. Bowen somehow makes many of the things that drive nonacademics crazy about universities--tenure, specialization, faculty politics, student protests--seem necessary and even a little bit wonderful."---Justin Fox, Harvard Business Review "For readers interested in senior administration in higher education, Lessons Learned is a valuable and distinctive addition to available literature. Written with wit, humor, candor and clarity, the volume offers an engaging and thoughtful guide to the nuances of presidential leadership. His humility and collaborative spirit resonate throughout, making the work as inspiring as it is practical."---Michael Steven Williams, Teachers College Record "The essential manual for university presidents. . . . More than a memoir and less than a handbook, it distills presidential experiences into useful maxims and advice with examples of both successful decisions and unfortunate missteps. . . . Bowen's well-written, authoritative counsel will be helpful to university presidents and administrators as well as leaders in other complex organizations. It could easily be used for exemplar case studies in leadership, organizational management, and business administration courses. Highly recommended."---Jane Scott, Library Journal "This illuminating book written by a former president of Princeton, one of the world's top-ranking universities, demands to be read by anyone interested in good leadership, academic or otherwise, and in higher education. . . . [T]he principles he writes of are too fundamental and too good to be ignored by any university administrator with a heart. Think fund-raising. Think freedom of speech. Think uniting members of a university community. . . . An invaluable guide."---Louis Lee, South China Morning Post "This

William G. Bowen is President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and former President of Princeton University. He is coauthor of The Shape of the River and The Game of Life (both Princeton). A former All-American collegiate athlete, Sarah A. Levin is a doctoral student at the Harvard School of Public Health and a research associate at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She completed her undergraduate work in mathematics at Harvard, where she was an All-American collegiate athlete. In Reclaiming the Game, William Bowen and Sarah Levin disentangle the admissions and academic experiences of recruited athletes, walk-on athletes, and other students. In a field overwhelmed by reliance on anecdotes, the factual findings are striking--and sobering. Anyone seriously concerned about higher education will find it hard to wish away the evidence that athletic recruitment is problematic even at those schools that do not offer athletic scholarships. Thanks to an expansion of the College and Beyond database that resulted in the highly influential studies The Shape of the River and The Game of Life, the authors are able to analyze in great detail the backgrounds, academic qualifications, and college outcomes of athletes and their classmates at thirty-three academically selective colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships. They show that recruited athletes at these schools are as much as four times more likely to gain admission than are other applicants with similar academic credentials. The data also demonstrate that the typical recruit is substantially more likely to end up in the bottom third of the college class than is either the typical walk-on or the student who does not play college sports. Even more troubling is the dramatic evidence that recruited athletes "underperform:" they do even less well academically than predicted by their test scores and high school grades. Over the last four decades, the athletic-academic divide on elite campuses has widened substantially. This book examines the forces that have been driving this process and presents concrete proposals for reform. At its core, Reclaiming the Game is an argument for re-establishing athletics as a means of fulfilling--instead of undermining--the educational missions of our colleges and universities. " Reclaiming the Game paints a disappointing picture of the negative influences of college athletics. . . . Bowen and Levin demonstrate repeatedly that recruited athletes get preferential treatment in admissions despite lower SAT scores, underperform academically throughout college, choose easier majors and graduate at a lower percentage. . .. [A]s the athletic-academic gap grows, the need for visionary leadership from college presidents becomes more pressing. Reclaiming the Game provides an excellent blueprint to do exactly what its title suggests."---Mark Luce, Chicago Tribune "A work of extensive research, impressive statistical analyses, and excellent writing."---John Savant, Commonweal "In the comprehensiveness of its research and the solidity of its argument, Reclaiming the Game breaks new ground and probably will become the most influential book in the field for many years. . . . Unlike other proposals for the reform of college sports, Bowen and Levin's do not exist in a vacuum but have been tested in the real world. They actually work."---Murray Sperber, Academe "Rooted in convincing data, this powerful, thought-provoking work will likely receive wide national attention and will have a substantial impact on campus discussion." "In Reclaiming the Game, Bill Bowen and Sarah Levin have given us a splendid sequel to The Game of Life. Their admirable analysis of the growing divide between academic values and intercollegiate athletics on our most selective college campuses is meticulous in its documentation, comprehensive in its scope, and troubling in its findings. Bowen and Levin make a compelling case for reform and provide a realistic

Douglas S. Massey is Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Camille Z. Charles is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Garvey F. Lundy is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Florida. Mary J. Fischer is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. African Americans and Latinos earn lower grades and drop out of college more often than whites or Asians. Yet thirty years after deliberate minority recruitment efforts began, we still don't know why. In The Shape of the River, William Bowen and Derek Bok documented the benefits of affirmative action for minority students, their communities, and the nation at large. But they also found that too many failed to achieve academic success. In The Source of the River, Douglas Massey and his colleagues investigate the roots of minority underperformance in selective colleges and universities. They explain how such factors as neighborhood, family, peer group, and early schooling influence the academic performance of students from differing racial and ethnic origins and differing social classes. Drawing on a major new source of data--the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen--the authors undertake a comprehensive analysis of the diverse pathways by which whites, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians enter American higher education. Theirs is the first study to document the different characteristics that students bring to campus and to trace out the influence of these differences on later academic performance. They show that black and Latino students do not enter college disadvantaged by a lack of self-esteem. In fact, overconfidence is more common than low self-confidence among some minority students. Despite this, minority students are adversely affected by racist stereotypes of intellectual inferiority. Although academic preparation is the strongest predictor of college performance, shortfalls in academic preparation are themselves largely a matter of socioeconomic disadvantage and racial segregation. Presenting important new findings, The Source of the River documents the ongoing power of race to shape the life chances of America's young people, even among the most talented and able. "This is scholarship of the first order, a study that will influence thinking about our society for the next generation."---Jay Mathews, Washington Monthly "This is a beautifully written book. Each word is so carefully chosen and the style so limpid that the text is a pleasure to read. . . . In short, this is a book that should be bought and read by every serious student of education."---Terence Kealey, The Times Higher Education Supplement "This is a very valuable contribution to the sociological study of access to American higher education by ethnic minorities. It also contains useful information for campus personnel and academic staff. . . . [T]his is how social science should be written. . . . This book is highly relevant to those academic staff concerned with meaningful access for all to higher education."---Gerald Postiglione, Educational Review "For examining the race difference in early college performance and achievement, The Source of the River is a very important book of well-designed and executed social science research. Massey and his colleagues are superb at presenting fresh evidence, and their analyses provide new insight into many of the established contributors to the relatively low early college performance and socialization of African American and Latino students compared to whites and Asian Americans attending the nation's elite colleges and universities. In addition to revealing the overwhelming and cumulative effect of cultural capital, The Source of the River is most effective in either refuting prevailing theories or challenging their generalizations about the race differences in student performance in American education generally and in colleges and univer

James L. Shulman collaborated on The Shape of the River (Princeton), is Financial and Administrative Officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and directs the Foundation's College and Beyond research.William G. Bowen (1933-2016) was president emeritus of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University and founding chairman of ITHAKA.. His many books included The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (with Derek Bok) (Princeton). The President of Williams College faces a firestorm for not allowing the women's lacrosse team to postpone exams to attend the playoffs. The University of Michigan loses $2.8 million on athletics despite averaging 110,000 fans at each home football game. Schools across the country struggle with the tradeoffs involved with recruiting athletes and updating facilities for dozens of varsity sports. Does increasing intensification of college sports support or detract from higher education's core mission? James Shulman and William Bowen introduce facts into a terrain overrun by emotions and enduring myths. Using the same database that informed The Shape of the River, the authors analyze data on 90,000 students who attended thirty selective colleges and universities in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s. Drawing also on historical research and new information on giving and spending, the authors demonstrate how athletics influence the class composition and campus ethos of selective schools, as well as the messages that these institutions send to prospective students, their parents, and society at large. Shulman and Bowen show that athletic programs raise even more difficult questions of educational policy for small private colleges and highly selective universities than they do for big-time scholarship-granting schools. They discover that today's athletes, more so than their predecessors, enter college less academically well-prepared and with different goals and values than their classmates--differences that lead to different lives. They reveal that gender equity efforts have wrought large, sometimes unanticipated changes. And they show that the alumni appetite for winning teams is not--as schools often assume--insatiable. If a culprit emerges, it is the unquestioned spread of a changed athletic culture through the emulation of highly publicized teams by low-profile sports, of men's programs by women's, and of athletic powerhouses by small colleges. Shulman and Bowen celebrate the benefits of collegiate sports, while identifying the subtle ways in which athletic intensification can pull even prestigious institutions from their missions. By examining how athletes and other graduates view The Game of Life--and how colleges shape society's view of what its rules should be--Bowen and Shulman go far beyond sports. They tell us about higher education today: the ways in which colleges set policies, reinforce or neglect their core mission, and send signals about what matters. "It may be one of the most important books on higher education published in the last twenty years. It is certainly one of the most interesting."---Louis Menand, The New Yorker "A provocative and important new book."---Robert Lipsyte, New York Times "The conclusions are truly depressing and significant. . . . The Game of Life is the most important sports book written in years."---Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated "A landmark study that should be welcomed by college presidents. . . These findings breathe new and potentially subversive life into old doubts about the role of highly competitive collegiate athletics. . ."---John Hoberman, The Wall Street Journal "Makes a compelling case that athletics has utterly warped not only big colleges, but most of education, and in ways that go far beyond the usual allegations of diverting resources and spreading cynicism."---Marc Fisher, The Washington Post "[The Game of Life] does not assign a catalog of sins to sports-minded

"Winner of the 2011 Philip E. Frandson Award for Literature in the Field of Continuing Higher Education, University Professional and Continuing Education Association" "Honorable Mention for the 2010 PROSE Award in Education, Association of American Publishers" Ben Wildavsky is a senior scholar in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was education editor of U.S. News & World Report, economic policy correspondent for the National Journal, higher education reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and executive editor of the Public Interest. He has written for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy (among other publications) and is co-editor of Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation. He has lectured widely in the United States and abroad. How global competition for the brightest minds is changing higher education In The Great Brain Race, former U.S. News & World Report education editor Ben Wildavsky presents the first popular account of how international competition for the brightest minds is transforming the world of higher education--and why this revolution should be welcomed, not feared. Every year, nearly three million international students study outside of their home countries, a 40 percent increase since 1999. Newly created or expanded universities in China, India, and Saudi Arabia are competing with the likes of Harvard and Oxford for faculty, students, and research preeminence. Satellite campuses of Western universities are springing up from Abu Dhabi and Singapore to South Africa. Wildavsky shows that as international universities strive to become world-class, the new global education marketplace is providing more opportunities to more people than ever before. Drawing on extensive reporting in China, India, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, Wildavsky chronicles the unprecedented international mobility of students and faculty, the rapid spread of branch campuses, the growth of for-profit universities, and the remarkable international expansion of college rankings. Some university and government officials see the rise of worldwide academic competition as a threat, going so far as to limit student mobility or thwart cross-border university expansion. But Wildavsky argues that this scholarly marketplace is creating a new global meritocracy, one in which the spread of knowledge benefits everyone--both educationally and economically. In a new preface, Wildavsky discusses some of the notable developments in global higher education since the book was first published. "Comprehensive and fascinating. . . . [Wildavsky] reports on American universities, notably NYU, branching out internationally; on foreign governments, like China's, spending vast sums to improve their own institutions, partly to attract scholars and students from abroad; on for-profit businesses, like Laureate and the Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Inc., planting campuses in remote global locations. . . . This is Mr. Wildavsky's major argument. The globalization of education is producing what he calls a 'free trade in minds'--beneficial not only to countries sending their students abroad and countries accepting them but also, through positive externalities, to the broader world."---James K. Glassman, Wall Street Journal "Academic globalisation has gone into overdrive in the modern university. Some of this is along familiar lines--academics collaborating with ever more foreign colleagues and sabbatical-seekers contriving to spend ever more time abroad. But Mr. Wildavsky demonstrates that globalisation is now much more complicated than just cross-border collaboration spiced up with junkets. . . . This is a fascinating story." "Readable, fast-paced. . . . The global race to attract the top talent among both staff and students is affecting the academy across the globe. . . . As a description of the state of play on all these issues i

"Winner of the 2015 AERA Division J Outstanding Publication Award, American Educational Research Association" Roger L. Geiger is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University. An authoritative one-volume history of the origins and development of American higher education This book tells the compelling saga of American higher education from the founding of Harvard College in 1636 to the outbreak of World War II. The most in-depth and authoritative history of the subject available, The History of American Higher Education traces how colleges and universities were shaped by the shifting influences of culture, the emergence of new career opportunities, and the unrelenting advancement of knowledge. Roger Geiger, arguably today's leading historian of American higher education, vividly describes how colonial colleges developed a unified yet diverse educational tradition capable of weathering the social upheaval of the Revolution as well as the evangelical fervor of the Second Great Awakening. He shows how the character of college education in different regions diverged significantly in the years leading up to the Civil War-for example, the state universities of the antebellum South were dominated by the sons of planters and their culture-and how higher education was later revolutionized by the land-grant movement, the growth of academic professionalism, and the transformation of campus life by students. By the beginning of the Second World War, the standard American university had taken shape, setting the stage for the postwar education boom. Breathtaking in scope and rich in narrative detail, The History of American Higher Education is the most comprehensive single-volume history of the origins and development of of higher education in the United States. "An encyclopedic history of American colleges and universities. . . . A well-researched, detailed tome." "'At Last!' Etta James does not usually come to mind when you're reviewing a scholarly book. Her 1960 signature song on vintage vinyl, 45 rpm, however, expressed my sentiment when I received Roger L. Geiger's new The History of American Higher Education: Learning and Culture From the Founding to World War II. Many of us in the field have been waiting for this big book. . . . Important."---John R. Thelin, Chronicle Review "Geiger's History of American Higher Education is an excellent survey of this complex topic. It is a very valuable addition to the historical literature on American higher education."---Steven Diner, H-Net Reviews "Geiger has successfully written about a major part of the history of higher education in the United States. This book will be of interest to both scholars and general readers interested in the subject."---John Sandstrom, Library Journal "Geiger has written a magisterial, almost encyclopedic history of higher education in the U.S. from its beginnings in the 17th century until 1940. . . . Well-written and filled with copious detail." "To say that Roger L. Geiger has done his homework would be an understatement. . . . Mr. Geiger packs decades of research into one exhaustive tome that tracks the evolution of American higher education from the 17th Century to 1940. . . . Skimming would be rather pointless given the learning opportunity that Mr. Geiger has carefully crafted here, one rich paragraph at a time."---Amy Lyons, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "[A] remarkably rich and detailed history. Given Geiger's previous contributions to the field, this is the book that higher education historians have been looking forward to reading."---Charles Dorn, Journal of American History "This encyclopedic book is as readable as it is thorough, drawing upon voluminous monographs and articles. No pedantic study, it places the history of colleges and universities in the context of broader political, economic, and social trends, the author always showing a firm grasp of the general American narrative."---Justus D. Doenecke, Anglican an

"Winner of the 2016 PROSE Award in Education Theory, Association of American Publishers" William G. Bowen (1933-2016) was president emeritus of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University and founding chairman of ITHAKA. His many books included The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (with Derek Bok) (Princeton). Eugene M. Tobin is senior program officer for higher education and scholarship in the humanities at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and former president of Hamilton College. Why colleges and universities should change their governance systems-and what could happen if they don't Do higher education institutions have what it takes to reform effectively from within? Locus of Authority argues that every issue facing today's colleges and universities, from stagnant degree completion rates to worrisome cost increases, is exacerbated by a century-old system of governance that desperately requires change. While prior studies have focused on boards of trustees and presidents, few have looked at the place of faculty within the governance system. Bowen and Tobin explore whether departments remain the best ways through which to organize decision making and if the concepts of academic freedom and shared governance need to be sharpened and redefined. Using case studies of four very different institutions, the authors demonstrate that college and university governance has capably adjusted to the necessities of the moment and governance norms and policies should be assessed in the context of historical events. They also demonstrate that successful reform depends on the artful consideration of technological, financial, and cultural developments. Locus of Authority shows that the consequences of not addressing college and university governance are more than the nation can afford. "[An] eloquent exposition." "William Bowen and Eugene Tobin's new book, Locus of Authority: The Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education, has just been published: anyone interested in the governance of universities and colleges should read it."---Henry Farrell, Washington Monthly "Compelling. . . .Locus of Authorityis worth reading. . . as an invitation to a conversation that is relevant to students, alumni and taxpayers as well as higher education 'insiders.'"---Glenn C. Altschuler, Huffington Post "Through a sweeping yet incisive history, Bowen and Tobin . . . present best practices for allowing American education to remain an engine of upward mobility and, thus, a guarantor of global competitiveness. Fortunately, the authors are highly qualified to examine this issue of tremendous import. . . . Locus of Authority is an obligatory study for anyone involved with higher education. It's additionally a must-read for anyone concerned with the fate of American society."---Jonathan Bronitsky, Key Reporter "[A] thoughtful, well-informed conversation." "We are often so frustrated by each other that we squander the energy crucially required to defend the liberal arts by fighting amongst ourselves. As William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin amply argue. . . there is much misunderstanding and suspicion on both sides. . . . [Locus of Authority] is extremely thoughtful and detailed in regard to all aspects of a crisis long neglected, and indispensable reading for both sides of the divide." "Withering critiques of the academy appear daily, predicting the end of higher education as we know it. Bowen and Tobin step into this fray with insight, deep knowledge of the field, data, and a good eye for history. Their eminently sensible book convincingly argues that higher education institutions have evolved over time in response to pressures and challenges, and that they are capable of continuing this evolution."-Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus, Tufts University "This timely book thoughtfully explores the challenges of decision making at our universities today. Bowen

Derek Bok is the 300th Anniversary University Research Professor at Harvard University. He served as the twenty-fifth president of Harvard from 1971 to 1991, and he served again as interim president from 2006 to 2007. His many books include Our Underachieving Colleges, Universities in the Marketplace, and the acclaimed best seller The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (all Princeton). 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. "Magisterial."---Stanley Fish, New York Times "[Higher Education in America is] a magisterial yet often contrarian assessment of challenges facing university governance, teaching, and, indeed, survival."---Jim Sleeper, Huffington Post "A thought-provoking book that defies political stereotypes. Because of its nuances, the book is a refreshing change from the openly hostile diatribes attacking higher education in recent years."---Peter Sacks, Minding the Campus "Bok draws on the latest empirical research to set the record straight about systems of governance, undergraduate education, doctoral programs, medical schools, law schools, and business schools, teaching, research, and tenure, tuition, financial aid, affirmative action, the role of government, inter-collegiate athletics, online education, for-profit institutions, and what he calls 'matters of genuine concern.' Comprehensive, judicious, probing, and immensely informative, written for students, parents, and taxpayers as well as 'insiders,' it is one of the best books to appear on this subject in decades."---Glenn Altschuler, Huffington Post "Monumental. . . . [Bok's] assessment is measured and clear, and we may confidently refer young academics and administrators to Higher Education in America as a primer on current affairs."---Mark Bauerlein, Weekly Standard "A detailed progress report on the challenges and opportunities facing our nation's colleges and universities. . . . Competition among schools produces benefits and causes problems. Most of th

"Winner of the 2015 Christian Gauss Award, Phi Beta Kappa Society" "Honorable Mention for the 2015 PROSE Award in Language & Linguistics, Association of American Publishers" "Shortlisted for the 2015 Christian Gauss Award, Phi Beta Kappa Society" "One of The Times Literary Supplement's Books of the year 2014, chosen by Thom Shippey" "Selected for the Claremont Review of Books CRB Christmas Reading List 2015" James Turner is the Cavanaugh Professor of Humanities Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, where he taught in the History Department and the doctoral program in history and philosophy of science. A prehistory of today's humanities, from ancient Greece to the early twentieth century Many today do not recognize the word, but "philology" was for centuries nearly synonymous with humanistic intellectual life, encompassing not only the study of Greek and Roman literature and the Bible but also all other studies of language and literature, as well as history, culture, art, and more. In short, philology was the queen of the human sciences. How did it become little more than an archaic word? In Philology, the first history of Western humanistic learning as a connected whole ever published in English, James Turner tells the fascinating, forgotten story of how the study of languages and texts led to the modern humanities and the modern university. The humanities today face a crisis of relevance, if not of meaning and purpose. Understanding their common origins-and what they still share-has never been more urgent. "[A] book written with passion and verve by an author who cares deeply about his subject."---Peter N. Miller, Times Literary Supplement "[A] substantial survey of the growth of scholarship. . . . Only a brute would resist his argument, since the volume of evidence he has amassed really does warrant the use of the verb 'amass', and his purpose is manifestly good."---Colin Burrow, London Review of Books "James Turner's book on 'philology' must be the most wide-ranging work of intellectual history for many years."---Tom Shippey, Wall Street Journal "[Turner] traces philology's origins and history, from Greek rhetoric to the Renaissance, on through the dawn of the modern humanities in the 19th-century and finally into its 20th-century decline. The story he tells is of a wide-ranging, all-encompassing field of learning that was forced to grow, evolve, and eventually spawn its successors over the centuries. . . . Thorough, occasionally wry, passionate . . . the sort of work that may be heralded as a masterpiece in the field." "[Turner] undertakes the mother of all thankless tasks: a comprehensive history of 'the queen of the human sciences,' the multiform discipline of philology. It's a stupendous work of scholarship and synergy, and nobody knows better than its author the uphill struggle before it. . . . The end result is the best and liveliest book (indeed, one of the only books of its kind that I know of) about philology ever written."---Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly "A rich intellectual history of what many American scholars would describe as the long lost art and science of philology."---Peter Sacks, Minding the Campus "Very thorough and yet easy to read. . . . Scholars and students will find this a rewarding volume. Turner does a fantastic job of introducing how the history of philology is also, in turn, a chronicle of the various branches of the humanities and why looking at this connection might help demonstrate the humanities' worth among academic disciplines."---Scott Duimstra, Library Journal "Sell all the books you have which purport to explain the nature of the academic disciplines and buy James Turner's Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities. If you want to understand higher education in its current configuration of departments, divisions, and professional associations, I can commend no better book. . . . Mind-invigoratingly entertaining."---Timothy Larsen, Books & Culture

"One of Bloomberg's Best Books of 2016" William G. Bowen (1933-2016) was president emeritus of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University and founding chairman of ITHAKA.. His many books included The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (with Derek Bok) (Princeton). Michael S. McPherson is president of the Spencer Foundation, former president of Macalester College, and the author of many books. Bowen, McPherson, and Matthew M. Chingos are the authors of Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities (Princeton). Why and how American colleges and universities need to change in order to meet the nation's pressing needs American higher education faces some serious problems-but they are not the ones most people think. In this brief and accessible book, two leading experts show that many so-called crises-from the idea that typical students are drowning in debt to the belief that tuition increases are being driven by administrative bloat-are exaggerated or simply false. At the same time, many real problems-from the high dropout rate to inefficient faculty staffing-have received far too little attention. In response, William G. Bowen and Michael S. McPherson provide a frank assessment of the biggest challenges confronting higher education and propose a bold agenda for reengineering essential elements of the system to meet them. The result promises to help shape the debate about higher education for years to come. Lesson Plan shows that, for all of its accomplishments, higher education today is falling short when it comes to vital national needs. Too many undergraduates are dropping out or taking too long to graduate; minorities and the poor fare worse than their peers, reinforcing inequality; and college is unaffordable for too many. But these problems could be greatly reduced by making significant changes, including targeting federal and state funding more efficiently; allocating less money for "merit aid" and more to match financial need; creating a respected "teaching corps" that would include nontenure faculty; improving basic courses in fields such as math by combining adaptive learning and face-to-face teaching; strengthening leadership; and encouraging more risk taking. It won't be easy for faculty, administrators, trustees, and legislators to make such sweeping changes, but only by doing so will they make it possible for our colleges and universities to meet the nation's demands tomorrow and into the future. "Bachelor's degrees should be completed in three years. MOOCs should replace general education. Coding boot camps are the game changer. College should be free. Internships are more important than instruction. Eliminate administrative bloat and higher education will be prosperous. Pick your quick fix for higher education, but it won't be endorsed in Lesson Plan, a new book by William G. Bowen and Michael S. McPherson. They make clear early in the book that while higher education has serious problems, they find most punditry and political proposals for higher education to be wrong."---Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed "A masterly summary of the state of higher education…. [Bowen and McPherson] bring together current research, broad conversations with experts, and their own perspective in a brilliant, coherent explanation of their conviction that academia continues to be a vital investment in human capital…. A must-read for everyone concerned about price and quality in higher education." "Lesson Plan [is] a concise, compelling, and, at times, courageous analysis of the ways in which institutions of higher education are failing to provide equal opportunity and lay out an ambitious reform agenda."---Glenn Altschuler, , Huffington Post "I recommend [this book] to anyone who wants a better understanding of the problems in higher education in the US, and especially to anyone who is working in hi

William G. Bowen and Harold T. Shapiro are former presidents of Princeton University. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Princeton University, leading educators and commentators participated in a symposium jointly sponsored by Princeton and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Universities and Their Leadership is a collection of original essays from presenters at the Princeton Conference on Higher Education. Individually, these essays discuss aspects of contemporary higher education in the U.S. Taken together, they offer a useful perspective on issues that face American universities as they enter the twenty-first century. The opening essay, "The University and Its Critics" by Frank Rhodes, confronts criticisms of the American university, examines how universities have changed over recent decades, and suggests a plan of action to restore public confidence and strengthen bonds of community within universities. "On the Accountability of Higher Education in the United States," by Martin Trow, deals with the critical issue of responsibility. Harold Shapiro's essay, "University Presidents--Then and Now," blends personal insights with a historical account of changes over time in the roles of university presidents. In commenting on Shapiro's paper, Hanna Gray draws on her experiences as a university president and her training as a historian to demonstrate that university presidents have always operated under constraints. Henry Rosovsky and Inge-Lise Ameer collaborate in the essay "A Neglected Topic: Professional Conduct of College and University Teachers," to which Amy Gutmann responds in an essay entitled "How Can Universities Teach Professional Ethics?" Oliver Fulton contributes a cross-cultural perspective in "Unity or Fragmentation, Convergence or Diversity: The Academic Profession in Comparative Perspective in the Era of Mass Higher Education." Daniel J. Kevles's essay, "A Time for Audacity: What the Past Has to Teach the Present about Science and the Federal Government," considers the historical partnership between the scientific community and the government. In reaction, Frank Press in "New Policies for New Times" comments on the shifting actions of major political parties in supporting research, and Maxine Singer, in her essay "On the Future of America's Scientific Enterprise," surveys opportunities and problems that have been created by recent scientific advances. "The major essays are thought-provoking and quite informative, as they capture current thinking on significant issues within universities today. . . . A very useful resource. . . By distinguished and lively contributors."-H. Keith H. Brodie, M.D., President Emeritus, Duke University

Derek Bok is the 300th Anniversary University Research Professor, professor of law, and president emeritus of Harvard University. His many books include Higher Education in America, Our Underachieving Colleges, and Universities in the Marketplace (all Princeton). Why efforts to improve American higher educational attainment haven't worked, and where to go from here During the first decade of this century, many commentators predicted that American higher education was about to undergo major changes that would be brought about under the stimulus of online learning and other technological advances. Toward the end of the decade, the president of the United States declared that America would regain its historic lead in the education of its workforce within the next ten years through a huge increase in the number of students earning "quality" college degrees. Several years have elapsed since these pronouncements were made, yet the rate of progress has increased very little, if at all, in the number of college graduates or the nature and quality of the education they receive. In The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges, Derek Bok seeks to explain why so little change has occurred by analyzing the response of America's colleges; the influence of students, employers, foundations, accrediting organizations, and government officials; and the impact of market forces and technological innovation. In the last part of the book, Bok identifies a number of initiatives that could improve the performance of colleges and universities. The final chapter examines the process of change itself and describes the strategy best calculated to quicken the pace of reform and enable colleges to meet the challenges that confront them. "Derek Bok has written a clear-eyed analysis of the challenges facing those interested in reforming our nation's colleges. Informed by data, scholarship, and the wisdom of experience, Bok's perspective is that of a thoughtful but loving critic, and he pulls no punches. His critiques of faculty, students, college presidents, trustees, foundations, and government policymakers are spot-on. All who wish to improve higher education should read this book."-Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Tufts University "In The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges, Derek Bok is rightly tough on colleges and universities for their failure to improve educational outcomes and graduation rates, leading to a corresponding negative effect on economic growth and income inequality. Exploring the ways that student learning should be strengthened, Bok demonstrates how the stars have to be aligned between the government, foundations, thoughtful administrators, and faculty to create a productive environment for reform."-Mary Patterson McPherson, president emeritus of Bryn Mawr College "The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges provides an insightful, balanced analysis of the problems facing higher education and does an excellent job offering the background needed to understand the issues. Bok reviews the arguments for increasing postsecondary educational attainment with a strong focus on the quality of education and what students actually learn. He is realistic about the barriers to strengthening the system but is refreshingly optimistic about the prospects for meaningful progress."-Sandy Baum, author of Student Debt "This ambitious book argues that we are at a moment of change and reform in higher education. The United States is falling behind other countries in the share of the population with postsecondary degrees, and at the same time advances in teaching and the advent of new technology are opening opportunities. Assessing this progress, The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges yields important discussion. I learned a great deal."-Thomas Bailey, coauthor of Redesigning America's Community Colleges

Scott Cowen is president emeritus and distinguished university chair of Tulane University. His books include The Inevitable City (St. Martin's) and Innovation in Professional Education (Jossey-Bass). Cowen has written for such publications as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Why a strong mission and inspired leadership are vital to the success of America's colleges and universities In 1998, soon after assuming the presidency of Tulane University, Scott Cowen was confronted with a setback. Despite an undefeated football season and putting the best financial deal on the table, Cowen was unable to retain the school's football coach. The coach wanted something the president didn't have--a football program so popular, as the coach put it, that fans would line up their Winnebagos on Wednesdays in anticipation of Saturday games. In that moment, Cowen improbably found himself in the entertainment business-and his university was deemed wanting. At a time when schools seem overrun by sports programs, spiraling costs, and absurd ranking systems, Winnebagos on Wednesdays argues that colleges and universities of all stripes and sizes can achieve their educational aims if they possess two things: visionary leadership and a strong mission. Cowen, named one of the nation's top university presidents by Time magazine in 2009, gives a behind-the-scenes look at the critical demands faced by many education leaders. He profiles a range of situations, from how Diana Natalicio of the University of Texas at El Paso expanded a school serving a specific demographic into an academic powerhouse to how Michael Sorrell shifted Paul Quinn College's mission to urban entrepreneurship in order to save the institution. Cowen also draws from his own hard-won experiences, including the rebuilding of Tulane and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the decision to maintain Tulane's football program. He shows how crucial choices in tough situations shape organizations, for better or ill. A sweeping overview of the higher education landscape, Winnebagos on Wednesdays demonstrates that the courage of transformative leadership is essential for colleges and universities to remain vital. "Far from being another memoir recounting the accomplishments of a former university president, Winnebagos on Wednesdays offers an array of worthwhile ideas for how universities can better serve their students and society. Academic leaders and trustees will all find food for thought by reading this book."-Derek Bok, president emeritus of Harvard University and author of The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges "Education is about transforming lives and is an ever-evolving pursuit requiring transformational leadership. In this book, Cowen wisely reflects on his own leadership and that of others through engaging and thought-provoking stories-each offering important lessons for the educational leaders of today and tomorrow."-Edward Burger, president of Southwestern University and coauthor of The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking "In Winnebagos on Wednesdays, Cowen talks about presidential leadership in American higher education by exploring his own experiences at Tulane University as well as other examples across higher education. Highly effective and engaging, this book considers the successes, failures, and complicated issues of institutional leadership."-Catharine B. Hill, former president of Vassar College "From diversity to athletics, and metrics to medicine, this clear and comprehensive book examines the entire spectrum of America's diverse higher education ecosystem. With a keen and trained eye, Cowen brings together accounts from the most elite research universities, land-grant 'multiversities,' small imperiled private colleges, and community colleges. No other former president or provost has ever provided such an extensive look."-Richard Chait, Harvard University

Hanna Holborn Gray is the Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Early Modern European History at the University of Chicago, where she served as president from 1978 to 1993. She is the author of Searching for Utopia: Universities and Their Histories. She lives in Chicago. A compelling memoir by the first woman president of a major American university Hanna Holborn Gray has lived her entire life in the world of higher education. The daughter of academics, she fled Hitler's Germany with her parents in the 1930s, emigrating to New Haven, where her father was a professor at Yale University. She has studied and taught at some of the world's most prestigious universities. She was the first woman to serve as provost of Yale. In 1978, she became the first woman president of a major research university when she was appointed to lead the University of Chicago, a position she held for fifteen years. In 1991, Gray was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to education. An Academic Life is a candid self-portrait by one of academia's most respected trailblazers. Gray describes what it was like to grow up as a child of refugee parents, and reflects on the changing status of women in the academic world. She discusses the migration of intellectuals from Nazi-held Europe and the transformative role these exiles played in American higher education--and how the émigré experience in America transformed their own lives and work. She sheds light on the character of university communities, how they are structured and administered, and the balance they seek between tradition and innovation, teaching and research, and undergraduate and professional learning. An Academic Life speaks to the fundamental issues of purpose, academic freedom, and governance that arise time and again in higher education, and that pose sharp challenges to the independence and scholarly integrity of each new generation. "Readers interested in academic administration or the history of American universities would do well to spend a couple hours in Gray's edifying company." "An engaging recounting of Gray's impressive academic and managerial skills that contributed to the advancement of American higher education through the second half of the 20th century."---Elizabeth Hayford, Library Journal "[An Academic Life] presents the eccentric, and often comedic, charm of the collegiate world. . . . Gray's declarative style provides a frank portrayal of academic culture and a refreshing acknowledgment of the constant, changing tensions faced by universities in contemporary society. . . . [D]uring an era when levels of public distrust in universities are high, and the confidence of university leaders is low, her honest narrative reminds us of the importance of the scholarly enterprise-warts and all."---Justin Zaremby, New Criterion "[An Academic Life] contains magisterial reflections but is also sprightly, often playful, and chockful of entertaining anecdotes."---Robert E. Lerner, National Interest "Hanna Holborn Gray's life journey is inspiring and her passion for academic excellence uplifting. Born in Europe, raised in the United States, she is a pioneer among distinguished American academics who propelled the University of Chicago to global eminence. This book is a joy-warm, witty, and thoughtful, piercing, shrewd, and smart."-Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania "Hanna Holborn Gray has written a marvelous book that is at once a rich, warm, and vivid memoir of an astonishing life and a sharp, lively, and informative account of what it is like to run America's greatest universities. An Academic Life is for anyone who wants to understand how universities have changed, and what they stand for."-Anthony Grafton, author of Worlds Made by Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West "An Academic Life is a brilliant and capt

"Co-Winner of the Emory Elliott Book Award, UCR Center for Ideas & Society" "Honorable Mention for the Pierre Bourdieu Award for Best Book, Sociology of Education Section of the American Sociological Association" "A Forbes' Pick for The Year's Best Books About Higher Education, 2019" Steven Brint is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside, where he directs the Colleges & Universities 2000 Project. His books include Schools and Societies, In an Age of Experts, and The Diverted Dream, and he has written for the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Washington Post. A leading expert challenges the prevailing gloomy outlook on higher education with solid evidence of its successes Crushing student debt, rapidly eroding state funding, faculty embroiled in speech controversies, a higher-education market disrupted by online competition-today's headlines suggest that universities' power to advance knowledge and shape American society is rapidly declining. But Steven Brint, a renowned analyst of academic institutions, has tracked numerous trends demonstrating their vitality. After a recent period that witnessed soaring student enrollment and ample research funding, universities, he argues, are in a better position than ever before. Focusing on the years 1980–2015, Brint details the trajectory of American universities, which was influenced by evolving standards of disciplinary professionalism, market-driven partnerships (especially with scientific and technological innovators outside the academy), and the goal of social inclusion. Conflicts arose: academic entrepreneurs, for example, flouted their campus responsibilities, and departments faced backlash over the hiring of scholars with nontraditional research agendas. Nevertheless, educators' commitments to technological innovation and social diversity prevailed and created a new dynamism. Brint documents these successes along with the challenges that result from rapid change. Today, knowledge-driven industries generate almost half of U.S. GDP, but divisions by educational level split the American political order. Students flock increasingly to fields connected to the power centers of American life and steer away from the liberal arts. And opportunities for economic mobility are expanding even as academic expectations decline. In describing how universities can meet such challenges head on, especially in improving classroom learning, Brint offers not only a clear-eyed perspective on the current state of American higher education but also a pragmatically optimistic vision for the future. "The most thorough, sweeping, and balanced book that I have read on the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary colleges and universities."---Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Education "Brint's agenda-setting book maps out a number of surprisingly optimistic trends for higher education while engaging deeply with decades of scholarship. He brilliantly combines an original big-picture framework with rich and compelling data analysis. My advice is to buy it, read it, study it, think with it, argue with it, build on it."-Jerry A. Jacobs, author of In Defense of Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity and Specialization in the Research University "A comprehensive, authoritative, and original analysis of trends in American universities, Two Cheers for Higher Education transcends the polemics that currently dominate discussion of the subject. The data the book presents are enormously informative in establishing the basic realities of the higher education system and clarifying controversial issues."-Roger L. Geiger, author of The History of American Higher Education "Two Cheers for Higher Education is an antidote to the Chicken Littles who say the academic sky is falling. Sure, higher education faces challenges, but Steven Brint argues that the kids-and the institutions they attend-are all right.

Eugene Y. Lowe, Jr., is Associate Provost of Northwestern University. Issues of diversity and affirmative action have turned elite higher education in the United States into contested terrain. Rights revolutions in the country have raised hopes that have proved difficult to fulfill. Most particularly, expectations about access and opportunity--redressing the unfairness of the past--have collided with widely held beliefs: that educational institutions should treat each person fairly as an individual and should promote high academic standards. Promise and Dilemma gathers the reflections of a group of leading educators on whether and how objectives of diversity, equity, and excellence can be simultaneously pursued. Empirical in orientation, these essays focus on constructive proposals and on the role of social and political consensus. Furthermore, they contrast what we believe we know with what empirical data and institutional experience can teach us. Eugene Lowe's substantive introduction reviews the history of the practice of affirmative action in colleges and universities. The other essays are by L. Scott Miller of The College Board; Mamphela Ramphele, vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town; Neil J. Smelser of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford; and Claude M. Steele of Stanford University. Also included are commentaries by Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law School; Richard J. Light, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Chang-Lin Tien, the University of California, Berkeley; and Philip Uri Treisman, the University of Texas. "The topic of this book is timely, the contents are excellent, and the authors are eminent. Promise and Dilemma should be widely read by university administrators and faculty, by policymakers who are looking for ways of dealing productively with the vexed issue of affirmative action, and by the educated lay public."-Jennifer Hochschild, Harvard University "I would feel a great deal better about the future of the country if every policymaker at the state and federal level read Promise and Dilemma, and I would be overjoyed if a large part of the public could benefit from its multiple perspectives."-Sheldon Hackney, University of Pennsylvania

Michael S. McPherson is President of Macalester College. Morton Owen Schapiro is Dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California. Student aid in higher education has recently become a hot-button issue. Parents trying to pay for their children's education, college administrators competing for students, and even President Bill Clinton, whose recently proposed tax breaks for college would change sharply the federal government's financial commitment to higher education, have staked a claim in its resolution. In The Student Aid Game, Michael McPherson and Morton Owen Schapiro explain how both colleges and governments are struggling to cope with a rapidly changing marketplace, and show how sound policies can help preserve the strengths and remedy some emerging weaknesses of American higher education. McPherson and Schapiro offer a detailed look at how undergraduate education is financed in the United States, highlighting differences across sectors and for students of differing family backgrounds. They review the implications of recent financing trends for access to and choice of undergraduate college and gauge the implications of these national trends for the future of college opportunity. The authors examine how student aid fits into college budgets, how aid and pricing decisions are shaped by government higher education policies, and how competition has radically reshaped the way colleges think about the strategic role of student aid. Of particular interest is the issue of merit aid. McPherson and Schapiro consider the attractions and pitfalls of merit aid from the viewpoint of students, institutions, and society. The Student Aid Game concludes with an examination of policy options for both government and individual institutions. McPherson and Schapiro argue that the federal government needs to keep its attention focused on providing access to college for needy students, while colleges themselves need to constrain their search for strategic advantage by sticking to aid and admission policies they are willing to articulate and defend publicly. "Confusion and apprehension often drive families into the arms of private counselors, who offer, for a price, to help them master the [student aid] system. They would be well advised to save their money and consult McPherson and Schapiro instead."---Donald Kennedy, Atlantic Monthly "Because they are primarily interested in how federal policy might more effectively open the doors to college for low-income youth, McPherson and Schapiro, like good economists, analyze the effects of financial-aid programs on the incentives of colleges and parents, and anticipate the impact of recent changes in the tax code on colleges' tuition and aid policies." "This is a wonderful book. The authors' many years of thinking about admissions and financial aid policies and their econometric research on the topic provide the foundations for a nontechnical book that addresses many of the fundamental issues facing society, federal and state government, individual institutions, and students and their families."-Ronald Ehrenberg, Cornell University

Andrew Delbanco is the Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University and president of the Teagle Foundation. His books include Melville: His World and Work and The War before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War. In 2011, he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. In 2022, he was named the Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities, the highest honor conferred by the federal government for intellectual achievement in the humanities. The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience-an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers-is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America's colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations. "At a time when many are trying to reduce the college years to a training period for economic competition, Delbanco reminds readers of the ideal of democratic education. . . . The American college is too important 'to be permitted to give up on its own ideals,' Delbanco writes. He has underscored these ideals by tracing their history. Like a great teacher, he has inspired us to try to live up to them."---Michael S. Roth, New York Times Book Review "The book does have a thesis, but it is not thesis-ridden. It seeks to persuade not by driving a stake into the opponent's position or even paying much attention to it, but by offering us examples of the experience it celebrates. Delbanco's is not an argument for, but a display of, the value of a liberal arts education."---Stanley Fish, New York Times "A lucid, fair, and well-informed account of the problems, and it offers a full-throated defense of the idea that you don't go to college just to get a job. Delbanco's brevity, wit, and curiosity about the past and its lessons for the present give his book a humanity all too rare in the literature on universities."---Anthony Grafton, New York Review of Books "{I}nsightful and rewarding. . . . Delbanco's evocation of these nineteenth-century precedents is of central importance, for they allow him to demonstrate that liberal education, far from being an elite indulgence, is inseparable from our nation's most cherished and deeply rooted democratic precepts. In the face of today's hyper-accelerated, ultra-competitive global society, the preservation of opportunities for self-development and autonomous reflection is a value we underestimate at our peril."---Richard Wolin, The Nation "Has the democratic ide

Roger L. Geiger is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University. His books include The History of American Higher Education: Learning and Culture from the Founding to World War II (Princeton) and Knowledge and Money: Research Universities and the Paradox of the Marketplace. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania. A masterful history of the postwar transformation of American higher education American higher education is nearly four centuries old. But in the decades after World War II, as government and social support surged and enrollments exploded, the role of colleges and universities in American society changed dramatically. Roger Geiger provides the most complete and in-depth history of this remarkable transformation, taking readers from the GI Bill and the postwar expansion of higher education to the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, desegregation and coeducation, and the challenges confronting American colleges today. Shedding critical light on the tensions and triumphs of an era of rapid change, Geiger shows how American universities emerged after the war as the world's most successful system for the advancement of knowledge, how the pioneering of mass higher education led to the goal of higher education for all, and how the "selectivity sweepstakes" for admission to the most elite schools has resulted in increased stratification today. He identifies 1980 as a turning point when the link between research and economic development stimulated a revival in academic research-and the ascendancy of the modern research university-that continues to the present. Sweeping in scope and richly insightful, this groundbreaking book demonstrates how growth has been the defining feature of modern higher education, but how each generation since the war has pursued it for different reasons. It provides the context we need to understand the complex issues facing our colleges and universities today, from rising inequality and skyrocketing costs to deficiencies in student preparedness and lax educational standards. "A comprehensive historical account . . . well written, copiously footnoted and makes for an accessible read."---David Wheeler, Times Higher Education "Roger Geiger is the preeminent historian of American higher education and this book shows why. By absorbing the lessons of this authoritative and panoramic volume, we may find the wisdom to build on the accomplishments of the scientific and scholarly disciplines while treating the distempers that threaten higher education's further progress."-Steven Brint, author of Two Cheers for Higher Education: Why American Universities Are Stronger Than Ever-and How to Meet the Challenges They Face "Superb. Readers looking for insight into why the American higher education system developed the way it did will be rewarded by spending time with this erudite and important book."-Christopher P. Loss, author of Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century

"Winner of the 2017 PROSE Award in Education Practice, Association of American Publishers" "One of Times Higher Education's Books of the Year 2017 (chosen by John Bowers)" Nancy Weiss Malkiel is professor emeritus of history at Princeton University, where she was the longest-serving dean of the college. A groundbreaking history of how elite colleges and universities in America and Britain finally went coed As the tumultuous decade of the 1960s ended, a number of very traditional, very conservative, highly prestigious colleges and universities in the United States and the United Kingdom decided to go coed, seemingly all at once, in a remarkably brief span of time. Coeducation met with fierce resistance. As one alumnus put it in a letter to his alma mater, "Keep the damned women out." Focusing on the complexities of institutional decision making, this book tells the story of this momentous era in higher education-revealing how coeducation was achieved not by organized efforts of women activists, but through strategic decisions made by powerful men. In America, Ivy League schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth began to admit women; in Britain, several of the men's colleges at Cambridge and Oxford did the same. What prompted such fundamental change? How was coeducation accomplished in the face of such strong opposition? How well was it implemented? Nancy Weiss Malkiel explains that elite institutions embarked on coeducation not as a moral imperative but as a self-interested means of maintaining a first-rate applicant pool. She explores the challenges of planning for the academic and non-academic lives of newly admitted women, and shows how, with the exception of Mary Ingraham Bunting at Radcliffe, every decision maker leading the charge for coeducation was male. Drawing on unprecedented archival research, "Keep the Damned Women Out" is a breathtaking work of scholarship that is certain to be the definitive book on the subject. "An important work of cultural history. . . . Malkiel writes with an insider's knowledge of her own institution and from a historian's meticulous reconstruction of what happened at the others."---Linda Greenhouse, New York Review of Books "Malkiel presents an absorbing, richly textured landscape of the experience of thousands of women who found themselves in elite universities that were bastions run by men for men who felt anything on a scale of muddled incomprehension to active aggression at the notion of gender equality."---Rachel Holmes, Times Literary Supplement "In an age when student activists at campuses across the country are focused on microaggressions and safe spaces, it's a bit surreal to read Nancy Weiss Malkiel's history of gender desegregation at elite American and British colleges. Fifty years ago, same-sex schooling in higher education had ended for many public colleges and universities in the United States and Britain, but it remained the norm at most elite universities. . . . How and why, between 1969 and 1974, these prestigious institutions decided to go coed--or not--is the fascinating story Ms. Malkiel tells. And although her narrow focus is gender admission practices, there are clues . . . about the obstacles that continue to prevent the harmony between the many diverse groups of students on campus today."---Lenore Tiefer, Wall Street Journal "One of the most thorough accounts ever written of the determination of highly educated and powerful men to keep women away from the places that endorse exclusive forms of power. . . . A superb, richly documented study."---Mary Evans, Times Higher Education "As well as examining the interplay of interests, egos and bureaucratic structures, Malkiel also shows that sexual politics gave a heightened charge to proceedings. For many people, the character – even the soul – of these institutions seemed to be at stake."---Helen McCarthy, London Review of Books "Fascinating. . . . [This] book offers a compelling study of i

Beth Akers is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Matthew M. Chingos is director of the Education Policy Program at the Urban Institute and the coauthor of Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities (Princeton). Why fears about a looming student loan crisis are unfounded-and how they obscure what's really wrong with student lending College tuition and student debt levels have been rising at an alarming pace for at least two decades. These trends, coupled with an economy weakened by a major recession, have raised serious questions about whether we are headed for a major crisis, with borrowers defaulting on their loans in unprecedented numbers and taxpayers being forced to foot the bill. Game of Loans draws on new evidence to explain why such fears are misplaced-and how the popular myth of a looming crisis has obscured the real problems facing student lending in America. Bringing needed clarity to an issue that concerns all of us, Beth Akers and Matthew Chingos cut through the sensationalism and misleading rhetoric to make the compelling case that college remains a good investment for most students. They show how, in fact, typical borrowers face affordable debt burdens, and argue that the truly serious cases of financial hardship portrayed in the media are less common than the popular narrative would have us believe. But there are more troubling problems with student loans that don't receive the same attention. They include high rates of avoidable defaults by students who take on loans but don't finish college-the riskiest segment of borrowers-and a dysfunctional market where competition among colleges drives tuition costs up instead of down. Persuasive and compelling, Game of Loans moves beyond the emotionally charged and politicized talk surrounding student debt, and offers a set of sensible policy proposals that can solve the real problems in student lending. "In Game of Loans, we learn that only a quarter of first-year college students can predict their debt load within 10 percent of the correct amount, in large part because students are regularly overpromised financial aid in complex deals that then change year by year, just like the subprime mortgages that blew up in 2008."---Rana Foroohar, New York Review of Books "Successfully aimed at non-economists, [Game of Loansis] clearly written. [It is a] powerful antidote to the stereotypes and myths that have grown up around student loans."---David Wessel, Wall Street Journal "For many casual observers, the evidence and arguments presented in …Game of Loanswill be new. And if [you] read [the] book, that could help inform a public debate that's bound to stick around for some time."---Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education "The authors [ofGame of Loans] deserve credit for taking a good hard look at prevailing narratives, such as the one that holds that student loans are causing borrowers to delay major life decisions, such as buying homes or getting married, and building a case that many of those narratives are unfounded."---Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Diverse Magazine "[Akers and Chingos] provide compelling evidence that paying for the costs of higher education is relatively feasible under the plethora of public financing options available." "Influential." "Game of Loansincludes a clear and concise analysis of college prices and student borrowing patterns over time, filling in holes in a debate often bereft of relevant and reliable data."---Jason Delisle, Education Next "Higher education is essential to our nation's future, so how do we pay for it? Game of Loans tackles that urgent question-and it does so brilliantly. With lucid prose and crisp analysis, Beth Akers and Matthew Chingos puncture myths, reveal facts, and chart a sensible course forward. This book is a game-changer, and it should be required reading for everyone interested in higher education and public policy."-Christopher L. Eisgr

William G. Bowen (1933–2016) was president emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University and founding chairman of JSTOR and ITHAKA. His many books include The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions and Lesson Plan: An Agenda for Change in American Higher Education (both Princeton). Kevin M. Guthrie is an executive and entrepreneur with expertise in higher education technology and not-for-profit management. He was the founding president of JSTOR and ITHAKA. Ever the Leader gathers together selected speeches and writings from one of the great scholars and commentators of higher education. William G. Bowen's career at Princeton University-from economics professor to provost to a sixteen-year tenure as president-was marked by extraordinary accomplishments during times of great change, both at the university and in the country. But it was in Bowen's second act, as president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and founding chairman of ITHAKA, that he took the lessons he learned as a highly productive leader of one of the nation's most esteemed universities and applied them to a broader set of problems in higher education. This volume of work from Bowen's later career captures this expansion of his thought and influence. Comprising remarks and articles on the subjects of university values, educational opportunity, college sports, technology, and colleagues and peers in higher education leadership, Ever the Leader is more than just a concise distillation of Bowen's research and thinking on some of the most urgent issues of the day-it is a portrait of leadership in action. The selected papers, talks, and articles exemplify Bowen's commitment and singular ability to communicate strong, persuasive arguments for change, and to motivate others to engage with the truly hard questions facing higher education leaders. Filled with formidable insights, Ever the Leader will be required reading for university presidents, policymakers, and all those who carry on the struggle for equity and excellence in higher education. "This book captures the essence of William Bowen-his brilliance, wisdom, wit, and humanity. It is a worthy tribute to one of the most visionary and inspirational leaders in the history of American higher education."-Morton Schapiro, president of Northwestern University "Ever the Leader introduces readers to one of the most original, productive, and engaging minds, wrestling with some of the compelling issues of his day. A remarkable portrait of an immensely effective leader, this collection clearly articulates the values William Bowen cherished in individuals and institutions, and displays the intellectual excitement inspired by his wide-ranging interests and commitments."-Mary Patterson McPherson, president emeritus of Bryn Mawr College "Few figures in American higher education have left a larger mark than William Bowen. This beautifully edited collection of his lectures, essays, and remembrances perfectly captures Bowen's breadth, brilliance, wit, judgment, decency, and humanity. This is a fitting tribute to someone who was truly 'ever the leader.'"-Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Tufts University "Ever the Leader presents William Bowen's major ideas on essential topics in higher education. Even for those who are well versed in the Bowen oeuvre, there are important insights, especially on academic freedom and free speech. Bowen's moral clarity, wisdom, and courage-his willingness to speak his mind on the most controversial dilemmas-shine through."-Nancy Weiss Malkiel, author of "Keep the Damned Women Out": The Struggle for Coeducation "This exceptionally valuable book serves a distinctive and important purpose. It exemplifies William Bowen's work as a leader in the academic, philanthropic, and business worlds."-Michael S. McPherson, coauthor of Lesson Plan: An Agenda for Change in American Hi

"Winner of the 2010 Pierre Bourdieu Book Award, Sociology of Education Section of the American Sociological Association" "Honorable Mention for the 2009 PROSE Award in Education, Association of American Publishers" William G. Bowen is president emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University. Matthew M. Chingos is a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a research associate at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Michael S. McPherson is president of the Spencer Foundation and former president of Macalester College. Why so many of America's public university students are not graduating-and what to do about it The United States has long been a model for accessible, affordable education, as exemplified by the country's public universities. And yet less than 60 percent of the students entering American universities today are graduating. Why is this happening, and what can be done? Crossing the Finish Line provides the most detailed exploration ever of college completion at America's public universities. This groundbreaking book sheds light on such serious issues as dropout rates linked to race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Probing graduation rates at twenty-one flagship public universities and four statewide systems of public higher education, the authors focus on the progress of students in the entering class of 1999-from entry to graduation, transfer, or withdrawal. They examine the effects of parental education, family income, race and gender, high school grades, test scores, financial aid, and characteristics of universities attended (especially their selectivity). The conclusions are compelling: minority students and students from poor families have markedly lower graduation rates-and take longer to earn degrees-even when other variables are taken into account. Noting the strong performance of transfer students and the effects of financial constraints on student retention, the authors call for improved transfer and financial aid policies, and suggest ways of improving the sorting processes that match students to institutions. An outstanding combination of evidence and analysis, Crossing the Finish Line should be read by everyone who cares about the nation's higher education system. "Identifying the causes of the college dropout crisis matters enormously, and [Crossing the Finish Line] tries to do precisely that. . . . For all the book's alarming statistics, its message is ultimately uplifting--or at least invigorating. . . . Crossing the Finish Line makes it clear that we can do better."---David Leonhardt, New York Times "Crossing the Finish Line serves as a wake-up call to educators and administrators, and provides valuable data that will help universities to invest their resources in nurturing the talents of all their students. It also provides a disturbing glimpse of the far-reaching effects of limited expectations and diminished educational opportunities."---Devorah Bennu, Nature "The most comprehensive look yet possible at the determinants of graduation rates--and what might be done to improve them. Bowen and McPherson are economists and bring economists' sensibilities and methods to their subject. Much of the book uses regression analysis to assess the impact of various factors on college completion (e.g., socioeconomic status, financial aid, and institutional selectivity) after adjusting for other factors such as students' high-school grades and test scores. Individual chapters deftly summarize what is known about each topic and then often extend that knowledge substantially. . . . The book provides new and often surprising insights on other major determinants of college completion. The chapters on financial aid, in particular, are masterful. . . . Crossing the Finish Line exemplifies the best that social science research has to offer: rigorous empirical analysis brought to bear on a major public policy issue. Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson have provided an essential resource tha

Alexandra W. Logue is a research professor at the Center for Advanced Study in Education at the Graduate Center, CUNY. From 2008 to 2014, she served as executive vice chancellor and university provost of the CUNY system. She is the author of The Psychology of Eating and Drinking and Self-Control: Waiting Until Tomorrow for What You Want Today. She lives in New York City. A personal account of the implementation of a controversial credit transfer program at the nation's third-largest university Change is notoriously difficult in any large organization. Institutions of higher education are no exception. From 2010 to 2013, Alexandra Logue, then chief academic officer of The City University of New York, led a controversial reform initiative known as Pathways. The program aimed to facilitate the transfer of credits among the university's nineteen constituent colleges in order to improve graduation rates-a long-recognized problem for public universities such as CUNY. Hotly debated, Pathways met with vociferous resistance from many faculty members, drew the attention of local and national media, and resulted in lengthy legal action. In Pathways to Reform, Logue, the figure at the center of the maelstrom, blends vivid personal narrative with an objective perspective to tell how this hard-fought plan was successfully implemented at the third-largest university in the United States. Logue vividly illustrates why change does or does not take place in higher education, and the professional and personal tolls exacted. Looking through the lens of the Pathways program and factoring in key players, she analyzes how governance structures and conflicting interests, along with other institutional factors, impede change-which, Logue shows, is all too rare, slow, and costly. In this environment, she argues, it is shared governance, combined with a strong, central decision-making authority, that best facilitates necessary reform. Logue presents a compelling investigation of not only transfer policy but also power dynamics and university leadership. Shedding light on the inner workings of one of the most important public institutions in the nation, Pathways to Reform provides the first full account of how, despite opposition, a complex higher education initiative was realized. All net royalties received by the author from sales of this book will be donated to The City University of New York to support undergraduate student financial aid. "This intense, personal memoir of a contentious episode in The City University of New York's recent history painstakingly recounts the complicated events surrounding a set of policies designed to help students transfer credits, with the goal of improving graduation rates and educational attainment. A riveting account of power and authority, Pathways to Reform demonstrates how difficult it is to achieve change when vested interests are at stake and compromise is viewed as surrender."-Eugene M. Tobin, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation "Pathways to Reform provides a guide to colleges on how to avoid the pitfalls and survive the minefields at every stage of creating a core curriculum, from planning to implementation. With the narrative flow of a novel, and carefully presenting all views while objectively arguing her position, Logue puts readers firmly in the places-onstage and backstage-where arguments, counterarguments, and negotiations occurred at The City University of New York."-Elizabeth Nunez, Hunter College, CUNY "This interesting and engaging book looks at the history and controversy related to The City University of New York's Pathways program. Telling a good story, it describes the background that led to the need for Pathways, the features of the reform program, the steps for developing and approving the reform, and the controversies and conflict surrounding this process."-Thomas Bailey, Teachers College, Columbia University "An insider's story of a major reform and curricular effort at a

"One of The Times Higher Education Supplement's Books of the Year 2014, chosen by Steven Schwartz" William G. Bowen is president emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University and founding chairman of ITHAKA, a nonprofit dedicated to sustainably integrating technology into scholarly research and teaching. He is the author or coauthor of many books, including the acclaimed best seller The Shape of the River, Crossing the Finish Line, and Lessons Learned (all Princeton). Kevin M. Guthrie is president of ITHAKA. How online learning could help control the exploding cost of higher education Two of the most visible and important trends in higher education today are its exploding costs and the rapid expansion of online learning. Could the growth in online courses slow the rising cost of college and help solve the crisis of affordability? In this short and incisive book, William G. Bowen, one of the foremost experts on the intersection of education and economics, explains why, despite his earlier skepticism, he now believes technology has the potential to help rein in costs without negatively affecting student learning. As a former president of Princeton University, an economist, and author of many books on education, including the acclaimed bestseller The Shape of the River, Bowen speaks with unique expertise on the subject. Surveying the dizzying array of new technology-based teaching and learning initiatives, including the highly publicized emergence of "massive open online courses" (MOOCs), Bowen argues that such technologies could transform traditional higher education-allowing it at last to curb rising costs by increasing productivity, while preserving quality and protecting core values. But the challenges, which are organizational and philosophical as much as technological, are daunting. They include providing hard evidence of whether online education is cost-effective in various settings, rethinking the governance and decision-making structures of higher education, and developing customizable technological platforms. Yet, Bowen remains optimistic that the potential payoff is great. Based on the 2012 Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at Stanford University, the book includes responses from Stanford president John Hennessy, Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner, Columbia University literature professor Andrew Delbanco, and Coursera cofounder Daphne Koller. "A slim and highly readable volume. . . . The collection of voices provides a thoughtful and provocative discussion of the emergence of online education."---Richard D. Kahlenberg, The Century Foundation "Higher Education in the Digital Age is an elegant exposition of old-fashioned, gentlemanly and humane views and values, couched in concerns about the value of new educational technologies and their pedagogical and economic potential. It is worth reading for its beautiful prose and for its clear commitment to the continuing importance of teaching and pedagogy in higher education."---Miriam E. David, Times Higher Education "Bowen's thought provoking book should be required reading for anyone having a stake in our educational future."---Rich Lewine, NACADA Journal "[A]s an introduction to the assumptions that underwrite many of the decisions that shape higher education today, this is an important book. . . . Higher Education in the Digital Age makes visible a perspective that all of us with investments in the societal value of education need to grapple with, a language we need to understand in order to engage in the contemporary conversation about the future of higher education."---Bonnie Stewart, British Journal of Educational Technology "One of the few places where the information revolution has not improved productivity or reduced costs is higher education, but that is all about to change with the rise of online learning. The former president of Princeton explains how education will and should change in the face of these hug

As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience-an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers-is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America's colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations. In a new afterword, Delbanco responds to recent developments-both ominous and promising-in the changing landscape of higher education.

"Winner of the 2012 Philip E. Frandson Award for Literature in the Field of Continuing Higher Education, University Professional and Continuing Education Association" Taylor Walsh writes on behalf of Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit strategy and research service that supports innovation in the academic community. How elite universities are entering the world of online education Over the past decade, a small revolution has taken place at some of the world's leading universities, as they have started to provide free access to undergraduate course materials-including syllabi, assignments, and lectures-to anyone with an Internet connection. Yale offers high-quality audio and video recordings of a careful selection of popular lectures, MIT supplies digital materials for nearly all of its courses, Carnegie Mellon boasts a purpose-built interactive learning environment, and some of the most selective universities in India have created a vast body of online content in order to reach more of the country's exploding student population. Although they don't offer online credit or degrees, efforts like these are beginning to open up elite institutions-and may foreshadow significant changes in the way all universities approach teaching and learning. Unlocking the Gates is one of the first books to examine this important development. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including extensive interviews with university leaders, Taylor Walsh traces the evolution of these online courseware projects and considers the impact they may have, both inside elite universities and beyond. As economic constraints and concerns over access demand more efficient and creative teaching models, these early initiatives may lead to more substantial innovations in how education is delivered and consumed-even at the best institutions. Unlocking the Gates tells an important story about this form of online learning-and what it might mean for the future of higher education. "By now, books, articles and blogs about the virtues and vices of online distance learning are hardly new, and are frequently repetitive. But Taylor Walsh's Unlocking the Gates is different. She analyses in great detail the varied experiences of a small number of elite US, UK and Indian universities that, starting in 1999, began to offer some, if not all, of their undergraduate courses online to varying audiences. Walsh has done extensive research--including interviews with 87 educational and business leaders--in this pioneering, unbiased study. . . . A solid, pioneering contribution to the study of online higher education and will surely become the benchmark for later studies."---Howard P. Segal, Times Higher Education "For anyone looking for an insight into some of the issues lying underneath western higher education, they would do well to pick up a copy of Unlocking the Gates. Taylor Walsh's work may only focus on one particular phenomenon but it acts as a lens through which to examine some key challenges facing institutions: how to have a global impact whilst also serving your local students, how to do more with less in times of reducing budgets and endowments, and how higher education can and should change to become fit for the 21st century." "The enabling of open access to learning materials from a range of international higher education providers, at least those that choose to share, means that, provided the technology exists to enable access, potential scholars from around the world can use them to learn and grow in ways not previously available to them. And that it why it is worth reading this book."---Kevin Ashford-Rowe, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management "Walsh's book stimulates reflection. . . . Too, it provides substantial reality testing with respect to the large number of practical issues spawned by the OER movement."---Donald J. Foss, PsycCRITIQUES "The book is an eye-opener, supported by ample footnotes and extensive interviews (if not with enthusiastic us

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2016" "Honorable Mention for the 2017 PROSE Award in Education Theory, Association of American Publishers" James Axtell is the Kenan Professor of Humanities Emeritus at the College of William and Mary. His many books include The Pleasures of Academe, The Educational Legacy of Woodrow Wilson, and The Making of Princeton University (Princeton). Axtell was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. An essential history of the modern research university When universities began in the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory IX described them as "wisdom's special workshop." He could not have foreseen how far these institutions would travel and develop. Tracing the eight-hundred-year evolution of the elite research university from its roots in medieval Europe to its remarkable incarnation today, Wisdom's Workshop places this durable institution in sweeping historical perspective. In particular, James Axtell focuses on the ways that the best American universities took on Continental influences, developing into the finest expressions of the modern university and enviable models for kindred institutions worldwide. Despite hand-wringing reports to the contrary, the venerable university continues to renew itself, becoming ever more indispensable to society in the United States and beyond. Born in Europe, the university did not mature in America until the late nineteenth century. Once its heirs proliferated from coast to coast, their national role expanded greatly during World War II and the Cold War. Axtell links the legacies of European universities and Tudor-Stuart Oxbridge to nine colonial and hundreds of pre–Civil War colleges, and delves into how U.S. universities were shaped by Americans who studied in German universities and adapted their discoveries to domestic conditions and goals. The graduate school, the PhD, and the research imperative became and remain the hallmarks of the American university system and higher education institutions around the globe. A rich exploration of the historical lineage of today's research universities, Wisdom's Workshop explains the reasons for their ascendancy in America and their continued international preeminence. "In this time of anti-intellectualism--whether technocratic or populist--we don't need more smug disruptors. We need more hopeful builders. They will remind us of the democratic aspirations of pragmatic liberal education while recalling that the ambitions of our finest universities help fulfill the dreams of our best selves as a people."---Michael Roth, Wall Street Journal "Authoritative, panoramic. . . . A thoroughly researched and vigorous history of an institution that has 'gained new vigor and proliferated progeny not only in the United States but around the globe.'" "At a time in which colleges and universities have come under sustained attack . . . it may well be useful to explain to those outside the academy how American institutions became preeminent and why they continue to play an essential role at the center of modernity's infrastructure. In Wisdom's Workshop, Axtell does just that. Drawing on the vast literature on higher education, he provides an informative and engaging . . . account of the evolution of the research university, from its origins in England, Italy, and France in the Middle Ages to the emergence of the 'multiversity' in the United States in the last half century."---Glenn Altschuler, Huffington Post "This is an enjoyable and well-informed account of some of the most significant universities in the world."---David Willetts, Times Higher Education "In his new book . . . Wisdom's Workshop: The Rise of the Modern University . . . [James] Axtell traces the U.S. university system all the way back to its Medieval roots. It turns out universities have changed quite a bit in the last eight centuries, both in form and function, adapting to their times. And some shifts are just as radical as the ones we