The Responsive University: Restructuring for High Performance

"This book is about getting out of the box. It is about rethinking fundamental assumptions of higher education. To survive and thrive in the next century, colleges and universities will have to be responsive in the eyes of those being served." -- Future Survey

In The Responsive University, William G. Tierney brings together a distinguished group of practitioners and scholars to describe how colleges and universities might respond effectively to changing social, demographic, and political forces. In each chapter, the contributors diagnose a specific problem and show how solutions can be found by reorienting basic work structures and designing nimbler, more creative organizations. Their goal is to encourage systemic change throughout the academy, and they propose far-reaching changes in such areas as management, marketing, and assessment. The Responsive University provides practical, real-world solutions for achieving high performance in colleges and universities.

"Tierney's discovery of core crisis in the academy's systems and structures is thought-provoking and intriguing. This fascinating book offers extremely valuable prescriptions for higher education's survival in the twenty-first century." -- Barry Munitz, President and Chief Executive Officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust and former Chancellor of the California State University System.

"Framing the right questions is always the hardest part of restructuring or of even thinking about restructuring higher education. The contributors to this book are some of the very few I would trust to reorganize my institution -- and while I would fight them on many points, I would trust them to do it right in the end. This book is an easy read on a hard subject." -- Michael A. Olivas, William B. Bates Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance, University of Houston Law Center

William G. Tierney is the Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and the director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California. His books include Promotion and Tenure: Community and Socialization in Academe and Building Communities of Difference: Higher Education in the 21st Century.