With funding cuts well underway and many institutions already promising to charge the maximum £9,000 (approx. $15,000 USD) yearly tuition fee in Britain, university education for the majority is under threat. This book exposes the true motives behind the government's program and provides the analytical tools to fight it. Widespread student protests and occupations, often supported by staff, unions, and society at large, show the public's opposition to funding cuts and fee increases. The contributors to this sharp, well-written collection, many of whom are active participants in the anti-cuts movement, outline what's at stake and why it matters. They argue that university education is becoming increasingly skewed towards vocational degrees, which devalues the arts and social sciences subjects that allow creativity and political inquiry to flourish. Released near the beginning of the new academic year, this book will be at the heart of debates around the future of higher education in the UK and beyond, inspiring both new and seasoned activists in the fight for the soul of our universities.
An essential American dream—equal access to higher education—was becoming a reality with the GI Bill and civil rights movements after World War II. But this vital American promise has been broken. Christopher Newfield argues that the financial and political crises of public universities are not the result of economic downturns or of ultimately valuable restructuring, but of a conservative campaign to end public education’s democratizing influence on American society. Unmaking the Public University is the story of how conservatives have maligned and restructured public universities, deceiving the public to serve their own ends. It is a deep and revealing analysis that is long overdue. Newfield carefully describes how this campaign operated, using extensive research into public university archives. He launches the story with the expansive vision of an equitable and creative America that emerged from the post-war boom in college access, and traces the gradual emergence of the anti-egalitarian “corporate university,” practices that ranged from racial policies to research budgeting. Newfield shows that the culture wars have actually been an economic war that a conservative coalition in business, government, and academia have waged on that economically necessary but often independent group, the college-educated middle class. Newfield’s research exposes the crucial fact that the culture wars have functioned as a kind of neutron bomb, one that pulverizes the social and culture claims of college grads while leaving their technical expertise untouched. Unmaking the Public University incisively sets the record straight, describing a forty-year economic war waged on the college-educated public, and awakening us to a vision of social development shared by scientists and humanists alike.
The professor and historian delivers a major critique of how political and financial attacks on the academy are undermining our system of higher education. Making a provocative foray into the public debates over higher education, acclaimed historian Ellen Schrecker argues that the American university is under attack from two fronts. On the one hand, outside pressure groups have staged massive challenges to academic freedom, beginning in the 1960s with attacks on faculty who opposed the Vietnam War, and resurfacing more recently with well-funded campaigns against Middle Eastern Studies scholars. Connecting these dots, Schrecker reveals a distinct pattern of efforts to undermine the legitimacy of any scholarly study that threatens the status quo. At the same time, Schrecker deftly chronicles the erosion of university budgets and the encroachment of private-sector influence into academic life. From the dwindling numbers of full-time faculty to the collapse of library budgets, The Lost Soul of Higher Education depicts a system increasingly beholden to corporate America and starved of the resources it needs to educate the new generation of citizens. A sharp riposte to the conservative critics of the academy by the leading historian of the McCarthy-era witch hunts, The Lost Soul of Higher Education, reveals a system in peril—and defends the vital role of higher education in our democracy.
“I want to call it a cry of the heart, but it’s more like a cry of the brain, a calm and erudite one.” —Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal The former dean of Yale Law School argues that the feverish egalitarianism gripping college campuses today is a threat to our democracy. College education is under attack from all sides these days. Most of the handwringing—over free speech, safe zones, trigger warnings, and the babying of students—has focused on the excesses of political correctness. That may be true, but as Anthony Kronman shows, it’s not the real problem. “Necessary, humane, and brave” (Bret Stephens, The New York Times), The Assault on American Excellence makes the case that the boundless impulse for democratic equality gripping college campuses today is a threat to institutions whose job is to prepare citizens to live in a vibrant democracy. Three centuries ago, the founders of our nation saw that for this country to have a robust government, it must have citizens trained to have tough skins, to make up their own minds, and to win arguments not on the basis of emotion but because their side is closer to the truth. Without that, Americans would risk electing demagogues. Kronman is the first to tie today’s campus clashes to the history of American values, drawing on luminaries like Alexis de Tocqueville and John Adams to argue that our modern controversies threaten the best of our intellectual traditions. His tone is warm and wise, that of an educator who has devoted his life to helping students be capable of living up to the demands of a free society—and to do so, they must first be tested in a system that isn’t focused on sympathy at the expense of rigor and that values excellence above all.
"I can′t imagine anyone living or working with adolescents and young adults without being aware of the material in this book. A must read for educators, health providers, student personnel, administrators, the clergy, campus security, and even parents." --Mary P. Koss, The Arizona Prevention Center, University of Arizona "My overall response to this book is highly positive. I think the authors make an important contribution to the field of violence against women by focusing on male peer support for sexual violence. I think that this book fills a real void in the literature. Sanday′s book, Fraternity Gang Rape, offers a rich theoretical analysis of rape on campus, and this book takes us another step in understanding sexual violence on campus by focusing on a variety of other issues related to campus rape such as alcohol and sports. . . . I think this book could (and should) be recommended reading for every college student in the U.S. and Canada. . . . The arguments . . . are clearly stated and they provide a powerful analysis of this serious problem--the material is fascinating and easy to read." --Raquel Kennedy Bergen, Sociology Department, St. Joseph′s University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania "This book speaks to me on several different levels. . . . The loose pages of the manuscript that I have are now well marked with red ink; some are tea-stained and others are dog-eared. From my experience as a teacher, researcher, editor, and activist, this is usually the sign of a very good book--good not because it makes an interesting read but, more important, because it is useful. . . . As a researcher, I was struck by the book′s utility in . . . the authors′ attention to methodology . . . [and the book′s] contribution to theory building. . . . As an educator, I am impressed by the accessibility of the analysis, which makes the book useful as a text in many different courses. It is an interesting read; in fact, I predict that most students will report that they liked reading it. At the same time, however, it contains a wealth of information that carries not only the credibility stamp of science but also speaks directly to the students′ experience. . . . This book is also a valuable resource for faculty and administrators willing to scrutinize their personal attitudes and behavior as well as the policies and practices of their institutions. . . . One more level on which this book spoke to me [is] a more personal level. . . . We must make a commitment to what the authors call ′′newsmaking′′: reaching out beyond our own circles to get alternative messages heard by as many people as possible. . . . And therein lies, I suppose, the book′s ultimate value: what we have here is a testament to the fact that the personal is political. That old feminist adage has been quoted so often and is on so many bumper stickers that the words sound hollow much of the time. I want to take this opportunity to thank Martin D. Schwartz and Walter S. DeKeseredy for reinvigorating it--and me." --from the Foreword by Claire M. Renzetti, St. Joseph′s University, Philadelphia For many coeds, the college campus life experience is marred by traumatic experiences of sexual assault. While there are many social determinants of rape and attempted rape, Sexual Assault on the College Campus examines the pivotal role of male peer support in legitimizing woman abuse. Written in an approachable style and completely grounded in the scientific research literature, this book provides enlightening discussions on the relationship of sexual assault to factors such as alcohol, deterrence, and fraternities. Authors Martin D. Schwartz and Walter S. DeKeseredy advance an original theory on male peer support and its role in supporting sexual assault using extensive prior studies and investigations they′ve conducted, including a national representative study and local campus victimization surveys. Combining a firm political stand with important research findings in a highly readable format, Sexual Assault on the College Campus provides essential reading for academics, researchers, criminologists, social workers, mental health professionals, and college administrators. It will also educate students in courses that wish to make the connection between their college environment and sociology, criminology, criminal justice, women′s studies, psychology, family studies, and counseling.
Sexual assault continues to be a problem on college campuses despite greater attention to reducing rates of assault and an increased presence in the public discourse. Programming has been historically directed towards women by providing them with information about how to keep themselves safe rather than confronting a climate conducive to sexual violence. This important volume illuminates the urgency of combating sexual violence on college campuses. The authors depict in detail empirically supported approaches to combating climates conducive to sexual violence and ways to empower all members of the campus community to actively prevent sexual violence.
In recent years, politicians led by President Obama and prominent senators and governors have teamed with extremists on campus to portray our nation’s institutions of higher learning as awash in a violent crime wave—and to suggest (preposterously) that university leaders, professors, and students are indifferent to female sexual assault victims in their midst. Neither of these claims has any bearing to reality. But they have achieved widespread acceptance, thanks in part to misleading alarums from the Obama administration and biased media coverage led by The New York Times. The frenzy about campus rape has helped stimulate—and has been fanned by—ideologically skewed campus sexual assault policies and lawless commands issued by federal bureaucrats to force the nation’s all-too-compliant colleges and universities essentially to presume the guilt of accused students. The result has been a widespread disregard of such bedrock American principles as the presumption of innocence and the need for fair play. This book uses hard facts to set the record straight. It explores, among other things, nearly two dozen of the cases since 2010 in which students who in all likelihood would have or have subsequently been found not guilty in a court of law have, in a lopsided process, been hastily and carelessly branded as sex criminals and expelled or otherwise punished by their colleges, often after being tarred and feathered by their fellow students. And it shows why all students—and, eventually, society as a whole—are harmed when our nation’s universities abandon pursuit of truth and seek instead to accommodate the passions of the mob. As detailed in the new Epilogue, some encouraging events have transpired since this book was first published in October 2016. A majority of the judicial rulings in dozens of lawsuits by male students claiming their schools treated them unfairly and discriminated against them based on their gender have rebuked the schools for their handling of these cases. And Education Secretary Betsy DeVos called for fairness to accused students and accusers alike, revoked most of the guilt-presuming Obama-era policies, and began a protracted rule-making process designed to compel procedural fairness and nondiscrimination.
At least one in four women attending college or university will be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate. Beyond this staggering statistic, recent media coverage of “rape chants” at Saint Mary’s University, misogynistic Facebook posts from Dalhousie University’s dental school, and high-profile incidents of sexual violence at other Canadian universities point to a widespread culture of rape on university campuses and reveal universities’ failure to address sexual violence. As university administrations are called to task for their cover-ups and misguided responses, a national conversation has opened about the need to address this pressing social problem. This book takes up the topic of sexual violence on campus and explores its causes and consequences as well as strategies for its elimination. Drawing together original case studies, empirical research, and theoretical writing from scholars and community and campus activists, this interdisciplinary collection charts the costs of campus sexual violence on students and university communities, the efficacy of existing university sexual assault policies and institutional responses, and historical and contemporary forms of activism associated with campus sexual violence.
This book describes the ever-escalating dangers to which Jewish refugees and recent immigrants were subjected in France and Italy as the Holocaust marched forward. Susan Zuccotti uncovers a gruelling yet complex history of suffering and resilience through historical documents and personal testimonies from members of nine central and eastern European Jewish families, displaced to France in the opening years of the Second World War. The chronicle of their lives reveals clearly that these Jewish families experienced persecution of far greater intensity than citizen Jews or longtime resident immigrants. The odyssey of the nine families took them from hostile Vichy France to the Alpine village of Saint-Martin-Vesubie and on to Italy, where German soldiers rather than hoped-for Allied troops awaited. Those who crossed over to Italy were either deported to Auschwitz or forced to scatter in desperate flight. Zuccotti brings to light the agonies of the refugees' unstable lives, the evolution of French policies toward Jews, the reasons behind the flight from the relative idyll of Saint-Martin-Vesubie, and the choices that confronted those who arrived in Italy. Powerful archival evidence frames this history, while firsthand reports underscore the human cost of the nightmarish years of persecution.
