Toward a More Perfect University

by Jonathan R. Cole

Overview

Education has been disrupted dramatically by culture, technology and economics. The only certainty about the universities of the future is that they will not thrive if left unchanged. Jonathan Cole, John Mitchell Mason Professor at Columbia University, and its former provost, is one of the country's leading academic researchers into higher education. A fierce champion of the merits and benefits of the great American research university, Cole identifies the potential fault-lines that threaten the future of universities and the strategic changes that successful colleges will have to make in order to preserve their intellectual relevance, economic viability and social mission.

In turn he examines:

Admissions policies;
Examinations;
Cost;
Undergraduate education;
The role of the humanities
The place for professional schools;
Research campuses of the future;
Sports;
Leadership and governance;
The intellectual and legal threats to academic freedom.

Using his deep knowledge of the history and traditions that underpin US higher education, Cole separates the essential from the fashionable. Higher education is a vital national resource, and an economic proving ground. It is the bedrock of American business and society and it must adapt in order to remain globally competitive and intellectually valuable. The culture of the great American universities reflects the moral and social foundations of the republic itself: they are a litmus test of values and philosophies, and their future affects everyone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610392662
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	01/26/2016
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jonathan R. Cole, currently the John Mitchell Mason Professor at Columbia University, is widely known throughout the United States for his fourteen years (1989-2003) as Columbia's provost, holding the position for the second-longest tenure in the university's 250-year history. He has also served as dean of faculties and vice president for arts and sciences. He lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Getting In 17

Chapter 2 Thoughts on Undergraduate Education and Its Future 43

Chapter 3 A House Built on a Firm Foundation 67

Chapter 4 The Contours of the University 97

Chapter 5 The Affordability and Value of Higher Education: Fact and Fiction 117

Chapter 6 An Accessible, High-Quality Education for All 147

Chapter 7 Creating New Academic Leagues and Knowledge Communities 171

Chapter 8 Reimagining the University Campus 185

Chapter 9 The Central Dogma of a Great University 213

Chapter 10 Reconstructing the University-Government Compact 239

Chapter 11 Structural Change 273

Afterword: A United States That Can Accommodate Great Universities in 2040 317

Acknowledgments 325

Notes 331

Index 391

Editorial Reviews

I can think of no one better than Jonathan [R.] Cole to lead the critical discussion of what the American university ought to look like as the preeminent seat of scholarly achievements and scientific discoveries.” —Professor Brian Greene

“Jonathan Cole takes on many of the problems faced by the modern university, including the role of athletics, the challenges of affordability and access, the rise and potential of MOOCs, and the deteriorating relationship between government and academia. He offers concrete and practicable suggestions to addressing these problems. He even acknowledges the difficulty of making structural changes in academia and suggests how such changes might be more easily accommodated. Cole has written a masterful assessment of where our universities have come from, where they are now, and how they must change to ensure they remain world leaders in education and research.” —John L. Hennessy, president, Stanford University

“Has the feel of a long memo from a central administrative office….But there is serious content in the book and I very much hope the memo gets read…. Mr. Cole is surely right that rebuilding the trust between the people's representatives and great universities is essential—not just for the benefit of the happy few on campus but for the country as a whole.” —Wall Street Journal

“Cole's book ranks him with classical, medieval, Renaissance, and modern US educational thinkers, including Thomas Jefferson, Jacques Barzun, Laurence Veysey, Parker Palmer, and Frederick Rudolph... A classic.” —CHOICE, a publication of the American Library Association

“Cole knows higher education inside and out…. [TOWARD A MORE PERFECT UNIVERSITY] deserves a wide readership.” —Library Journal

"Eminently well-informed and pragmatic, Cole's work not only offers a clear-eyed analysis of the current state of higher education in the U.S. It also provides a detailed starting point for dialogues about the function and shape of the great American universities of the future. An ambitious and visionary examination of American universities and ‘how to develop them still further so that they may maximize their full potential.'” —Kirkus Reviews

“Jonathan Cole's new work is a magnificent description of the history, evolution, and rise to global preeminence of America's research universities. With a mastery reflecting a deep understanding of the academic world, Jonathan unflinchingly confronts the challenges facing these institutions in an increasingly skeptical environment. He offers bold, sometimes provocative, innovative, and concrete proposals for insuring academic leadership for the United States. This is a must-read for those who care about our collective future.” —Mary Sue Coleman, president emerita, University of Michigan, and president elect, Association of American Universities

“Jonathan Cole brings to bear on the problem of higher education's future viability his years of experience as an education theorist and university leader. He calls for communities and institutions to address the roadblocks we all see in higher education—access and rising costs among them—and to nurture the will to invest in and fortify the path of learning from pre-school to graduate school. Cole's prescription is bold and imaginative and will compel the best minds to undertake the challenge he poses.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

“Jonathan Cole knows his stuff, and it is once again on display in this new book. Drawing on deep expertise and experience he writes cogently and candidly about that complex gem of American culture, the research university. Yes, he argues, American research universities are clearly the best in the world, but they can and should be even better. On a wide range of subjects from admissions and student debt to the value and cost of high-powered scientific research, he offers ideas for reform and improvement, some of them controversial, all of them smart. This is a book by an insider that insiders and outsiders alike need to read.” —Hunter R. Rawling III, president, Association of American Universities, president emeritus, Cornell University

“Jonathan Cole's engaging book—filled with new ideas—proposes significant structural and other reforms that universities should consider if they are to enhance their stature as major contributors to our innovative and open society.” —George Soros

From the Publisher

12/01/2015
Cole (John Mitchell Mason Professor of the Univ., provost & dean of faculties emeritus, Columbia Univ.) is part of a long line of university leaders who are outspoken about their thoughts on higher education. In his first book, The Great American University, Cole's questions were historical and ethical; he even established a set of core values that should guide leaders in academia. This time around, the author walks the reader through the major issues affecting the contemporary institution, dispensing plenty of provocative policy advice along the way. Skeptical of the value of many professional degrees, Cole urges a series of independent reviews similar to the 1910 Carnegie Foundation report that transformed U.S. medical education. Hoping to provide more opportunities for junior scholars, he believes Congress should impose a mandatory retirement age of 75 for all faculty members, and deeply concerned about the runaway costs of funding a college education, he calls for a substantial increase in support for federal Pell Grants. Cole knows higher education inside and out, but he tends to illustrate his points with examples from top-flight Ivy League institutions. He claims, without giving any evidence, that the way these great universities operate has a "substantial influence" on lesser-known, underresourced schools. VERDICT Readers who want to hear more about public institutions would do well to pair Cole's book with Designing the New American University, coauthored by Michael M. Crow and William B. Dabars. Despite some deficiency, Cole's book deserves a wide readership. Recommended for academic libraries.—Seth Kershner, Northwestern Connecticut Community Coll. Lib., Winsted

Library Journal

2015-11-03
A distinguished Columbia University sociology professor and former provost examines how American universities must evolve to maintain their global pre-eminence. By most accounts, the United States has the best system of higher education in the world, with "roughly 80 percent of the top twenty universities." However, as Cole (The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected, 2010, etc.) argues, that system faces many difficult challenges. Funding from federal, state, and private sources, for example, is decreasing every year. K-12 schools are teaching students to pass standardized competency tests rather than helping them to expand their "creativity and curiosity." Furthermore, college educations at selective schools are becoming too expensive—and of questionable relevance—for students who come from middle- or working-class backgrounds. Drawing on his many years as both a high-ranking university administrator and research professor, Cole methodically examines the ways that universities can remake themselves in coming decades. He argues that those involved with traditional liberal arts programs must rethink how to best use what those disciplines teach to young people to succeed in a world dominated by science, technology, and commerce. Professional schools should look more closely at how their programs and curricula prepare students and open themselves up to "cross-fertilization" with arts and sciences divisions at both their home and similar outside institutions. The government must work in tandem with universities to rebuild what the author sees as a "compact" that has been damaged by mutual distrust. All schools, especially those without large endowments, should actively work to curb administrative costs, reduce reliance on adjunct faculty, and collaborate with like universities. Eminently well-informed and pragmatic, Cole's work not only offers a cleareyed analysis of the current state of higher education in the U.S. It also provides a detailed starting point for dialogues about the function and shape of the great American universities of the future. An ambitious and visionary examination of American universities and "how to develop them still further so that they may maximize their full potential."

Kirkus Reviews