The Attack on Higher Education

The Dissolution of the American University
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-108-47192-3
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 370 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 662 g

American higher education is under attack today as never before. A growing right-wing narrative portrays academia as corrupt, irrelevant, costly, and dangerous to both students and the nation. Budget cuts, attacks on liberal arts and humanities disciplines, faculty layoffs and retrenchments, technology displacements, corporatization, and campus closings have accelerated over the past decade. In this timely volume, Ronald Musto draws on historical precedent - Henry VIII's dissolution of British monasteries in the 1530s - for his study of the current threats to American higher education. He shows how a triad of forces - authority, separateness, and innovation - enabled monasteries to succeed, and then suddenly and unexpectedly to fail. Musto applies this analogy to contemporary academia. Despite higher education's vital centrality to American culture and economy, a powerful, anti-liberal narrative is severely damaging its reputation among parents, voters, and politicians. Musto offers a comprehensive account of this narrative from the mid-twentieth century to the present, as well as a new set of arguments to counter criticisms and rebuild the image of higher education.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Musto, Ronald G

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Verwaltungswissenschaft, Öffentliche Verwaltung
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Universitäten, Hochschulen
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Schulleitung, Schulentwicklung
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Pädagogik Bildungssystem Bildungsökonomie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part I. Historical Background: 1. Medieval monasteries; 2. The university in Europe; 3. The American University to 1968; 4. The retreat from 1968; Part II. Dissolution? Introduction: 5. Governance and boards; 6. Budget wars; 7. The scandal of academe; 8. Exchanging beliefs: the anti-enlightenment, from humanities to technologies; 9. Transformations, takeovers, closings; 10. Conclusions: new directions?

Über Autor(innen)

Musto, Ronald G
Award-winning historian Ronald Musto has taught at three universities and served at ACLS Humanities E-Book (co-director), Medieval Academy of America (executive director, editor of Speculum), and Italica Press (co-publisher). He is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. He is co-author, with Eileen Gardiner, of The Digital Humanities.