Crisis in the Academy: Rethinking Higher Education in America - Hardcover

Lucas, Christopher J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031212936X ISBN 13: 9780312129361

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996

Synopsis

A thorough evaluation and critique of higher education addressing the key problems confronting academia as demographics and goals shift into the millennium. Lucas (higher education, U. of Arkansas) overviews the present state of affairs, missions and goals, entrance standards, curriculum, and academic priorities and accountability, detailing a failed attempt to be everything to everyone and suggesting that the academy must reinvent itself to meet future challenges. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher J. Lucas is Professor of Higher Education and Head of the Department of Educational Leadership, Counseling, and Foundations at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

Reviews

Few readers want another book that merely catalogs the ills of American higher education. Fortunately, Lucas has done much more than collect academic horror stories; he has probed deeply into the history and causes of campus confusion. As he traces the evolution of the nation's modern institutions of higher learning, he describes a perplexing metamorphosis. For while growing in size and influence, the university has lost its sense of mission. Rejecting the elitist pretensions of the traditional university, modern administrators have opened their doors to a much more inclusive student body, even as many top faculty have fled the classroom for the library, leaving behind colleagues interested only in catechizing students in the slogans of political correctness. Not surprisingly, assessing the returns on the phenomenal sums spent on higher education has grown ever harder--and public confidence in the university has waned. Regaining that confidence, Lucas concludes, will require the university community to repudiate its self-serving myths and to rekindle an authentic intellectual vision for the future. A provocative analysis. Bryce Christensen

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 031212936X
• ISBN 13: 9780312129361
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288