BiblioVault - Books about Universities and colleges

Dangerous Ideas on Campus

Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK

Matthew C. Ehrlich

University of Illinois Press, 2021

In 1960, University of Illinois professor Leo Koch wrote a public letter condoning premarital sex. He was fired. Four years later, a professor named Revilo Oliver made white supremacist remarks and claimed there was a massive communist conspiracy. He kept his job.

Matthew Ehrlich revisits the Koch and Oliver cases to look at free speech, the legacy of the 1960s, and debates over sex and politics on campus. The different treatment of the two men marked a fundamental shift in the understanding of academic freedom. Their cases also embodied the stark divide over beliefs and values--a divide that remains today. Ehrlich delves into the issues behind these academic controversies and places the events in the context of a time rarely associated with dissent, but in fact a harbinger of the social and political upheavals to come.

An enlightening and entertaining history, Dangerous Ideas on Campus illuminates how the university became a battleground for debating America's hot-button issues.

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Dark Academia

How Universities Die

Peter Fleming

Pluto Press, 2021

“Fleming's books are sparklingly sardonic and hilariously angry”—Guardian
“An excellent and important book''—Journal of Education, Innovation, and Communication

To Professor Peter Fleming, there is a strong link between the neo-liberalization of higher education over the last 20 years and the psychological hell now endured by its staff and students. He believes that impersonal and unforgiving management hierarchies have supplanted academic judgement, collegiality, and professional common sense. He bemoans the modern system of higher education and shines a spotlight on what’s gone wrong and why.

While academia was once thought of as the best job in the world, one that fosters autonomy, craft, intrinsic job satisfaction, and vocational zeal, you would be hard-pressed to find a lecturer who believes that now.

Fleming delves into this new metrics-obsessed, overly hierarchical world to bring out the hidden underbelly of what he terms the 'zombie university'. He examines:

*Commercialization
*Mental illness and self-harm
*The rise of managerialism
*Students as consumers and evaluators
*The competitive individualism which casts a dark sheen of alienation over departments
*And much more!

Arguing that time has almost run out to reverse this decline, this book shows how academics and students need to act now if they are to begin to fix this broken system.

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Decolonizing the University

Edited by Gurminder K. Bhambra, Kerem Nisancioglu and Dalia Gebrial

Pluto Press, 2018

"A must-read for anyone interested in enhancing a historical understanding of our present through a consideration of what it means to decolonize."—Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge

In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town demanded the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the imperialist, racist business magnate, from their campus. Their battle cry, #RhodesMustFall, sparked an international movement calling for the decolonization of universities all over the world.

Today, as the movement develops beyond the picket line, how might it go on to radically transform the terms upon which universities exist? In this book, students, activists, and scholars discuss the possibilities and the pitfalls of doing decolonial work in the heart of the establishment. Subverting curricula, demanding diversity, and destroying old boundaries, this is a radical call for a new era of education. Chapters include:

*Rhodes Must Fall: Oxford and Movements for Change (Dalia Febrial)
*Race and the Neoliberal University ((John Holmwood)
*Black/Academia (Robbie Shilliam)
*The Challenge for Black Studies in the Neoliberal University (Kehinde Andrews)
*Open Initiatives for Decolonising the Curriculum (Pat Lockley)
*Decolonising Education: A Pedagogic Intervention (Carol Azumah Dennis)
*Understanding Eurocentrism as a Structural Problem of Undone Science (William Jamal Richardson)

As the book’s insightful Introduction states, "Taking colonialism as a global project as a starting point, it becomes difficult to turn away from the Western university as a key site through which colonialism—and colonial knowledge in particular—is produced, consecrated, institutionalized and naturalized." Offering resources for students and academics to challenge and resist colonialism inside and outside the classroom, Decolonizing the University provides the tools for radical change in educational disciplines, pedagogies, and institutions.

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Defending Diversity

Affirmative Action at the University of Michigan

Patricia Gurin, Jeffrey S. Lehman, and Earl Lewis, with Eric L. Dey, Gerald Gurin, and Sylvia Hurtado

University of Michigan Press, 2004

Even as lawsuits challenging its admissions policies made their way through the courts, the University of Michigan carried the torch for affirmative action in higher education.

In June 2003, the Supreme Court vindicated UM's position on affirmative action when it ruled that race may be used as a factor for universities in their admissions programs, thus confirming what the UM had argued all along: diversity in the classroom translates to a beneficial and wide-ranging social value. With the green light given to the law school's admissions policies, Defending Diversity validates the positive benefits gained by students in a diverse educational setting.

Written by prominent University of Michigan faculty, Defending Diversity is a timely response to the court's ruling. Providing factual background, historical setting, and the psychosocial implications of affirmative action, the book illuminates the many benefits of a diverse higher educational setting -- including preparing students to be full participants in a pluralistic democracy -- and demonstrates why affirmative action is necessary to achieve that diversity.

Defending Diversity is a significant contribution to the ongoing discussion on affirmative action in higher education. Perhaps more important, it is a valuable record of the history, events, arguments, and issues surrounding the original lawsuits and the Supreme Court's subsequent ruling, and helps reclaim the debate from those forces opposed to affirmative action.

Patricia Gurin is Professor Emerita, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan. Jeffrey S. Lehman, former Dean of the University of Michigan Law School, is President of Cornell University. Earl Lewis is Dean of Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan.

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Dethroning historical reputations

universities, museums and the commemoration of benefactors

Edited by Jill Pellew and Lawrence Goldman

University of London Press, 2018

The campaigns in universities across the world to reject, rename and remove historic benefactions have brought the present into collision with the past. In Britain the attempt to remove a statue of one of Oxford’s most famous benefactors, the imperialist Cecil Rhodes, has spread to other universities and their benefactors, and now also affects civic monuments and statues in towns and cities across the country. In the United States, memorials to leaders of the Confederacy in the American Civil War and to other slaveholders have been the subject of intense dispute. Should we continue to honour benefactors and historic figures whose actions are now deemed ethically unacceptable? How can we reconcile the views held by our ancestors with those we now hold today? Should we even try, acknowledging, in the words of the novelist L. P. Hartley, that ‘the past is another country; they do things differently there’? The essays in this interdisciplinary collection are drawn from a conference at the Institute of Historical Research in the University of London. Historians, fundraisers, a sociologist and a museum director examine these current issues from different perspectives, with an introductory essay by Sir David Cannadine, president of the British Academy. Together they explore an emerging conflict between the past and present, history and ideology, and benefactors and their critics. The open access edition of this book can be found at http://humanities-digital-library.org/index.php/hdl/catalog/book/pellewgoldman.

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Developing Faculty in Liberal Arts Colleges

Aligning Individual Needs and Organizational Goals

Baker, Vicki L.

Rutgers University Press, 2017

Developing Faculty Members in Liberal Arts Colleges analyzes the career stage challenges these faculty members must overcome, such as a lack of preparation for teaching, limited access to resources and mentors, and changing expectations for excellence in teaching, research, and service to become academic leaders in their discipline and at these distinctive institutions.

Drawing on research conducted at the thirteen institutions of the Great Lakes Colleges Association, Vicki L. Baker, Laura Gail Lunsford, and Meghan J. Pifer propose a compelling Alignment Framework for Faculty Development in Liberal Arts Colleges to show how these colleges succeed—or sometimes fail—in providing their faculties with the right support to be successful.

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Digital Futures of Graduate Study in the Humanities

Gabriel Hankins

University of Minnesota Press, 2024

A resource for planning, reimagining, and participating in the digital transformation of graduate study in the humanities

How are the humanities adapting to the rise of digital technologies, and what are some of the tried and tested ways that postsecondary institutions are proving the importance of humanities training at the graduate level? Bringing together a diverse group of scholars and students, Digital Futures of Graduate Study in the Humanities invites a reimagining of current models of graduate education to address ongoing challenges to the humanities and to create sustainable and humane pedagogies, classes, and institutions.

The essays cover a wide range of topics, including the skills required to learn and practice digital methods, the resources needed to support students and faculty in this enterprise, the lack of meaningful credit for undertaking this time-intensive work, and the diminished employment possibilities within academia for graduate students who emerge with these skills. Mapping the broad terrain through which to address and intervene in these particular issues and beyond, this book offers deep insights into the digital futures of graduate studies in the humanities.

Contributors: Maria José Afanador-Llach, U de los Andes, Bogotá; Maria K. Alberto, U of Utah; Agnieszka Backman; Travis M. Bartley, CUNY Graduate Center; Peggy Bockwinkel, U Stuttgart; Alison Booth, U of Virginia; Donna Alfano Bussell, U of Illinois Springfield; Joshua Casmir Catalano, Clemson U; Laura Crossley, George Mason U; Quinn Dombrowski, Stanford U; Stuart Dunn, King’s College London; Jennifer Edmond, Trinity College Dublin; Natalia Ermolaev, Princeton U; Laura Estill, St. Francis Xavier U; Malte Gäckle-Heckelen; Vicky Garnett, Trinity College Dublin; Daniel Gorman Jr., U of Rochester; Sabrina T. Grimberg, Stanford U; Tena L. Helton, U of Illinois Springfield; Jeanelle Horcasitas; Melissa A. Hosek, Stanford U; Hoyeol Kim; Brady Krien, U of Iowa; Benjamin Charles Germain Lee, U of Washington; Pamela E. Mack, Clemson U; Meredith Martin, Princeton U; Germán Camilo Martínez Peñaloza, U de los Andes, Bogotá; E. L. Meszaros, Brown U; Sara Mohr, Hamilton College; Sethunya Mokoko, U of Virginia; Rebecca Munson; Erin Francisco Opalich; Olivia Quintanilla, MiraCosta College; Cecily Raynor, McGill U; Amanda E. Regan, Clemson U; Heather Richards-Rissetto, U of Nebraska–Lincoln; Jacob D. Richter, George Washington U; Stephen Robertson, George Mason U; Katina L. Rogers; Claus-Michael Schlesinger, Humboldt U Berlin; Douglas Seefeldt, Clemson U; Kayla Shipp, Yale Digital Humanities Lab; Serenity Sutherland, SUNY Oswego; Toma Tasovac, Belgrade Center for Digital Humanities; Hannah Taylor, Duke U; Manfred Thaller, U of Cologne; Madeline Ullrich, U of Rochester; Ted Underwood, U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Gabriel Viehhauser, U Stuttgart; Brandon Walsh, U of Virginia Library; Sean Weidman, Lycoming College; Alex Wermer-Colan, Temple U; Adrian S. Wisnicki, U of Nebraska–Lincoln; Alexander J. Zawacki, U Göttingen.

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Divergent Paths to College

Race, Class, and Inequality in High Schools

Holland, Megan M

Rutgers University Press, 2019

In Divergent Paths to College, Megan M. Holland examines how high schools structure different pathways that lead students to very different college destinations based on race and class. She finds that racial and class inequalities are reproduced through unequal access to key sources of information, even among students in the same school and even in schools with well-established college-going cultures. As the college application process becomes increasingly complex and high-stakes, social capital, or relationships with people who can provide information as well as support and guidance, becomes much more critical. Although much has been written about the college-bound experience, we know less about the role that social capital plays, and specifically how high schools can serve as organizational brokers of social ties. The relationships that high schools cultivate between students and higher education institutions by inviting college admissions officers into their schools to market to students, is a particularly critical, yet unexplored source of college information.

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The Division of Literature

Or the University in Deconstruction

Peggy Kamuf

University of Chicago Press, 1996

Where does the university begin and the "outside" end? How has literature become established as a separate domain within the university? Demonstrating that these questions of division are intricately related, Peggy Kamuf explores the space that the university devotes to the study of literature.

Kamuf begins by analyzing the complex history of literary study within the modern university, critically reading developments from the French Revolution through the nineteenth century and beyond in Europe. She then turns to one of the most troubling works in the American literary canon—Melville's The Confidence-Man—to show how academic literary history has avoided confronting the implications of works in which meaning is never solely confined within a past. By engaging a future readership to which it applies for credit, Kamuf argues, literature cannot serve as a stable object of study. It locates, rather, a site of "the university in deconstruction."

Ranging from disciplinary histories of literature to our current culture wars, Kamuf offers a fascinating critique of academic literary study.

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Doing Diversity in Higher Education

Faculty Leaders Share Challenges and Strategies

Brown-Glaude, Winnifred R

Rutgers University Press, 2008

Using case studies from universities throughout the nation, Doing Diversity in Higher Education examines the role faculty play in improving diversity on their campuses. The power of professors to enhance diversity has long been underestimated, their initiatives often hidden from view. Winnifred Brown-Glaude and her contributors uncover major themes and offer faculty and administrators a blueprint for conquering issues facing campuses across the country. Topics include how to dismantle hostile microclimates, sustain and enhance accomplishments, deal with incomplete institutionalization, and collaborate with administrators. The contributors' essays portray working on behalf of diversity as a genuine intellectual project rather than a faculty "service."

The rich variety of colleges and universities included provides a wide array of models that faculty can draw upon to inspire institutional change.

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The Dons

Mentors, Eccentrics and Geniuses

Noel Annan

University of Chicago Press, 1999

For two hundred years Oxford and Cambridge Universities were home to some of Britain's greatest teachers and intellects, each forming the minds of the passing generations of students and influencing the thinking and practice of university learning throughout the country and the world.

In this entertaining, informative book, Noel Annan is at his incisive best. Displaying his customary mastery of his subject, he describes the great dons in all their glory and eccentricities: who they were, what they were like, why they mattered, and what their legacy is. Written with love and wisdom, the great minds of the past—figures such as John Henry Newman, John Sparrrow, and Isaiah Berlin—are brought alive. In addition, Annan's often quoted article "The Intellectual Aristocracy" is included in this book.

No other work has ever explained so precisely and so intimately the significance of the dons and their important role in shaping higher education—at a time when the nature of learning is ever more the subject of dissension and uncertainty.

"With a charming mixture of analyses and anecdotes, Annan builds up a picture of the changing Oxbridge scene that keeps a reader's imagination. . . . [T]he comical-satirical narrative of which he was a master is a joy to read, and The Dons will deservedly be enjoyed as a bedside book by those who treasure English eccentricity."—Stephen Toulmin, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"[A]n affectionate elegy for a class that has largely expired."—Robert Fulford, National & Financial Post

"[A] wonderfully gifted and energetic writer. . . . Noel was one of the few figures in English public life known simply by his first name. There was no mistaking him for anyone else."—Jonathan Mirsky, New Yorker

"A sparkling collection of essays."—Michael Davie, Times Literary Supplement

"[A] highly affectionate . . . look at some of the more remarkable academic personages to distinguish-and sometimes dumbfound-Oxford and Cambridge over the last two centuries. . . . For all that it cherishes eccentricity and abounds in Oxbridge gossip, The Dons is at heart a deeply serious book, one dedicated to a conception of learning and culture that is at once increasingly rare . . . yet very far from being outmoded."—Mark Feeney, Boston Globe

"Annan writes elegantly and winningly throughout his book. . . . Leaving arguably the best for last, Annan ends The Dons with a reprinting of his celebrated essay 'The Intellectual Aristocracy,' . . . [B]oth a dazzling tour de force and a clever jeu d'esprit."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World

"A witty, erudite, insider account-exactly what one would expect from the best of their type."—Andrew Lycett, Sunday Times

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