Reaffirming Higher Education

How should universities balance the requirements of teaching with those of scholarship? The consensus that scholarship counts first and teaching comes second has lost its hold, for in an academic world in which few publish (95 percent of publications come from 5 percent of the professors), insisting on the priority of scholarship rings hollow. The American college and university today must assess what difference scholarship makes to teaching and what teaching means to scholarship. Reaffirming Higher Education asks who teaches, what, to whom, and why.The authors maintain that what matters in higher learning is learning, while denying that scholarship detracts from teaching. Chapter 1 discusses who should teach in a university and touches upon such topics as tenure and teaching. Chapter 2 defines what universities should teach, and the mutuality of scholarship, research, and teaching. Chapter 3 answers who should go to college and why. Chapter 4 assesses the future of higher education in the American university and what is at stake on campus. William Scott Green places into perspective the authors' observations and ideals about higher education and what it means to make one's major field of study, the "major," into a primary path to a liberal education.In this intelligent and insightful volume, the authors outline reform and renewal for both' the institutional and personal dimensions of higher learning that would encompass the ideal of the academic ethic. This book should be read by all those who strive to make universities more humane, educators, parents, and students alike.

Neusner, Noam