Higher Learning, Greater Good
Higher Learning, Greater Good

Author: Walter W. McMahon

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2009-03-18

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0801896789

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The chronic underinvestment in higher education has serious ramifications for both individuals and society. Winner, Best Book in Education, 2009 PROSE Awards, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers Winner, Best Book in Education, PROSE Awards, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers A college education has long been acknowledged as essential for both personal success and economic growth. But the measurable value of its nonmonetary benefits has until now been poorly understood. In Higher Learning, Greater Good, leading education economist Walter W. McMahon carefully describes these benefits and suggests that higher education accrues significant social and private benefits. McMahon's research uncovers a major skill deficit and college premium in the United States and other OECD countries due to technical change and globalization, which, according to a new preface to the 2017 edition, continues unabated. A college degree brings better job opportunities, higher earnings, and even improved health and longevity. Higher education also promotes democracy and sustainable growth and contributes to reduced crime and lower state welfare and prison costs. These social benefits are substantial in relation to the costs of a college education. Offering a human capital perspective on these and other higher education policy issues, McMahon suggests that poor understanding of the value of nonmarket benefits leads to private underinvestment. He offers policy options that can enable state and federal governments to increase investment in higher education.

Land-Grant Universities for the Future
Land-Grant Universities for the Future

Author: Stephen M. Gavazzi

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1421426854

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

For the Common Good
For the Common Good

Author: Charles Dorn

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 1501712608

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

Higher Education for the Public Good
Higher Education for the Public Good

Author: Adrianna Kezar

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-06-22

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 1119177952

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This important book explores the various ways that higher education contributes to the realization of significant public ends and examines how leaders can promote and enhance their contribution to the social charter through new policies and best practices. It also shows how other sectors of society, government agencies, foundations, and individuals can partner with institutions of higher education to promote the public good. Higher Education for the Public Good includes contributions from leaders in the field—many of whom participated in dialogues hosted by the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good. These leaders are responsible for creating successful strategies, programs, and efforts that foster the public’s role in higher education.

Leading Higher Education As and For Public Good
Leading Higher Education As and For Public Good

Author: Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 0429537522

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Leading Higher Education As and For Public Good asserts that the purpose of higher education is twofold: for public good and as public good. Acknowledging that the notion of public good increasingly cannot be taken for granted, the book argues that leading, teaching and learning must be directly connected to its pursuit. It avers and demonstrates how this may be accomplished, articulating specific approaches and dispositions that require cultivation within university communities. This volume argues that leading higher education occurs within competing and sometimes conflicting webs of commitments, necessitating a capacity to negotiate legitimate compromises. Its empirical chapters expand on this, providing examples of academic developers who use deliberate communication as a method in cultivating leading and teaching praxis. What emerges is the potential of deliberative leadership to be transformative in building sustainable leadership in higher education, while simultaneously renewing commitments to education and contributing to public good. Leading Higher Education As and For Public Good is essential reading for policy-makers, university leaders and administrators, academics, students and all those interested in building a sustainable future for higher education that also contributes to public good.

Reclaiming the University for the Public Good
Reclaiming the University for the Public Good

Author: Malcolm Noble

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-12-11

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 303021625X

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This book asks how we can reclaim the university for the public good. The editors and contributors argue that the sector is in crisis, accelerated by the passing of the UK Higher Education Research Act in 2017 and made visible during the University and College Union strikes in April 2018. In response to this, there are widespread demands to reclaim the university and protect education as a public good, using co-operative structures. Taking an interdisciplinary and social justice perspective, the editors and contributors offer concrete examples of alternative higher education: in doing so, analysing how the future of the university can be recovered. This intersectional volume discusses a broad range of approaches to higher education while disseminating new ideas. It will be of interest and value to those disenchanted with the current state of higher education in the UK and beyond, as well as activists and policy makers.

Good Mentoring
Good Mentoring

Author: Jeanne Nakamura

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-06-02

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0470189630

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"We pass on our traits through our genes but our cherished values, beliefs, and practices are transmitted through those units of meaning called memes. This remarkable book provides an authoritative account of how 'good work' endures in the sciences and has profound implications for the quality of work across the professional landscape." Howard Gardner, editor, Responsibility at Work, and Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard University "This book should sow the seeds of greatness for protégés and mentors alike, and well beyond the discipline of science. Mentoring lineages are the hallmark of disciplines that endure and have impact, a reality that the authors powerfully communicate." Carol A. Mullen, editor, Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, and professor and chair, Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations, University of North Carolina at Greensboro "Good Mentoring is a landmark study with implications for the continued vibrancy of any discipline. This is a fresh, eye-opening perspective on the social transmission of professional lineages." Daniel Goleman, author, Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence

How to Recruit and Retain Higher Education Students
How to Recruit and Retain Higher Education Students

Author: Tony Cook

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-09-10

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 113585324X

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How to Recruit and Retain Higher Education Students is an invaluable resource for academic staff, administrators and policy makers involved in student recruitment and improving student retention. It offers practical advice on how universities can influence the expectations of prospective students, allowing them to make sensible decisions about careers, courses and institutions. Many surveys of students who drop out of university show that most do so out of disappointment. Failing to understand what higher education was about quickly enough, they become confused and frustrated. Dropping out seems the best solution. This book describes a series of practices proven to encourage students to stay on, discussing the background research on student attrition. By preparing students better for their higher education experience, the practices in this book are effective not only in recruiting students but also in matching them to the right institutions and programmes. The practices described range from those reaching out in a broad way to communities of potential students, to university support for pre-entry examinations, to enhanced communication between institutions and applicants. All are described in sufficient detail to allow judgments to be made about how to use and adapt them to suit local needs. How to Recruit and Retain Higher Education Students provides a sound theoretical foundation for research into student retention and provides the necessary underpinning for those academic staff embarking on courses and assists in preparing them for their roles in both teaching and student support.

The Case against Education
The Case against Education

Author: Bryan Caplan

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-08-20

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 0691201439

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Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education Despite being immensely popular—and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. Now with a new afterword by Bryan Caplan, this explosive book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As only to forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for average workers, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy. Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.