Policy Patrons

Policy Patrons

Author: Megan E. Tompkins-Stange

Publisher: Harvard Education Press

Published: 2020-07-29

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1612509142

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Policy Patrons offers a rare behind-the-scenes view of decision making inside four influential education philanthropies: the Ford Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. The outcome is an intriguing, thought-provoking look at the impact of current philanthropic efforts on education. Over a period of several years, Megan E. Tompkins-Stange gained the trust of key players and outside observers of these four organizations. Through a series of confidential interviews, she began to explore the values, ideas, and beliefs that inform these foundations’ strategies and practices. The picture that emerges reveals important differences in the strategies and values of the more established foundations vis-à-vis the newer, more activist foundations—differences that have a significant impact on education policy and practice, and have important implications for democratic decision making. In recent years, the philanthropic sector has played an increasing role in championing and financing education reform. Policy Patrons makes an original and invaluable contribution to contemporary discussions about the appropriate role of foundations in public policy and the future direction of education reform.


The Research Foundations of Graduate Education

The Research Foundations of Graduate Education

Author: Burton R. Clark

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-04-28

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 0520338715

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This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.


Places of Inquiry

Places of Inquiry

Author: Burton R. Clark

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-12-22

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0520915100

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A distinguished work by one of America's leading scholars of higher education, Places of Inquiry explores one of the major issues in university education today: the relationship among research, teaching, and study. Based on cross-national research on the university systems of Germany, Britain, France, the United States, and Japan—which was first reported in the edited volume The Research Foundations of Graduate Education (California, 1993)—this book offers in-depth comparative analysis and draws provocative conclusions about the future of the research-teaching-study nexus. With characteristic clarity and vision, Burton R. Clark identifies the main features and limitations of each national system: governmental and industrial dominance in Japan, for example, and England's collegiate form of university. He examines the forces drawing research, teaching, and study apart and those binding them together. Highlighting the fruitful integration of teaching and research in the American graduate school, Clark decries the widely held view that these are antithetical activities. Rather, he demonstrates that research provides a rich basis for instruction and learning. Universities, he maintains, are places of inquiry, and the future lies with institutions firmly grounded in this belief.


The Graduate School Mess

The Graduate School Mess

Author: Leonard Cassuto

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-09-14

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0674495616

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It is no secret that American graduate education is in disarray. Graduate students take too long to complete their studies and face a dismal academic job market if they succeed. The Graduate School Mess gets to the root of these problems and offers concrete solutions for revitalizing graduate education in the humanities. Leonard Cassuto, professor and graduate education columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education, argues that universities’ heavy emphasis on research comes at the expense of teaching. But teaching is where reforming graduate school must begin. Cassuto says that graduate education must recover its mission of public service. Professors should revamp the graduate curriculum and broaden its narrow definition of success to allow students to create more fulfilling lives for themselves both inside and outside the academy. Cassuto frames the current situation foremost as a teaching problem: professors rarely prepare graduate students for the demands of the working worlds they will actually join. He gives practical advice about how faculty can teach and advise graduate students by committing to a student-centered approach. In chapters that follow the career of the graduate student from admissions to the dissertation and placement, Cassuto considers how each stage of graduate education is shaped by unexamined assumptions and ancient prejudices that need to be critically confronted. Written with verve and infused with history, The Graduate School Mess returns our national conversation about graduate study in the humanities to first principles.