Checklist for Change
Making American Higher Education a Sustainable Enterprise
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Almost every day American higher education is making news with a list of problems that includes the incoherent nature of the curriculum, the resistance of the faculty to change, and the influential role of the federal government both through major investments in student aid and intrusive policies. Checklist for Change not only diagnoses these problems, but also provides constructive recommendations for practical change.
Robert Zemsky details the complications that have impeded every credible reform intended to change American higher education. He demythologizes such initiatives as the Morrill Act, the GI Bill, and the Higher Education Act of 1972, shedding new light on their origins and the ways they have shaped higher education in unanticipated and not commonly understood ways. Next, he addresses overly simplistic arguments about the causes of the problems we face and builds a convincing argument that well-intentioned actions have combined to create the current mess for which everyone is to blame.
Using provocative case studies, Zemsky describes the reforms being implemented at a few institutions with the hope that these might serve as harbingers of the kinds of change needed: the University of Minnesota at Rochester’s compact curriculum in the health sciences only, Whittier College’s emphasis on learning outcomes, and the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s coherent overall curriculum.
In conclusion, Zemsky describes the principal changes that must occur not singly but in combination. These include a fundamental recasting of federal financial aid; new mechanisms for better channeling the competition among colleges and universities; recasting the undergraduate curriculum; and a stronger, more collective faculty voice in governance that defines not why, but how the enterprise must change.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In University of Pennsylvania higher education scholar Zemsky's (Remaking the American University) blunt and accessible new book, he delivers a refreshing vision and outline for reforming American higher education that is neither starry-eyed nor hopeless, and thankfully free of neo-inspirational screed, flowery rhetoric, or a call-to-arms ending. His diagnosis of and solutions to escalating costs, improving scholarship, and raising completion rates are thought-provoking, and he cites many real-life innovations. For example, at the University of Minnesota's new Rochester campus, through a collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, only one bachelor's degree is offered in health sciences, naturally. The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, by analyzing dismal completion rates found "barrier courses" in general education requirements, causing large numbers of students to fail and then drop out. The author ends with a long and clear checklist of how interlocking parts of the higher education world can change the American university. Though Zemsky begins by writing that "the number of people on whom change within higher education actually depends is substantially less than a thousand," this candor makes the book a more satisfying read, cementing his clear wish to not talk down to his audience. The lay reader can only hope this book reaches those under-a-thousand decision makers.
