A few years ago, after finding a copy of my college transcript in a box of papers, I sent notes of thanks to the undergraduate professors who made a difference. Many teachers have helped me over the years and I am increasingly aware of just how much they have mattered. It is fascinating just how…
The Feds and Higher Education Through A Different Lens
The story the American higher education over the past century is a tale of increased access, influence, scope, and scale. Viewed at a macro level, American higher education has become central to the nation’s economy, power, and role in the world. How that happened is the focus of Christopher P. Loss’s Between Citizens and the…
Clarity and Chaos: Words, Ideas, and Universities
History is difficult. Comparative history is harder. And comparative policy – the study of ideas, power, history and practice across countries – is more challenging still. If I have learned one lesson from reading about comparative educational policy, it is to tread very carefully. Assumptions and comparisons are fraught with local complexity. Stefan Collini is a…
Vision and Elite Institutions
Many of the forces that make for quality in higher education are isomorphic: impactful faculty scholarship and research, bigger libraries, better prepared students, more opportunities for academic and student support. Many of them simply boil down to more institutional money. It is a challenge to be different and to be better. That question is at…
Scandalous Schools
I don’t read Vanity Fair all that often. A few years back, when my dentist was fancy, copies of the magazine were in her waiting room. I read it. She consistently tried to up sell dental improvements, though, and once I tired of saying “no thanks” to the filling upgrades and invisible braces, I changed…
Locating the Finish Line: Completion Several Years On
Eight years ago, William Bowen, Matthew Chingos, and Michael McPherson wrote Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities. A massive longitudinal study of student completions at a host of four-year public flagship institutions and state systems, the book was immediately recognized as an important work, a milestone in the effort to improve…
Political Science Prescience
Many years ago, as an undergraduate at Rice University, I took a course on political ideology. I wasn’t a political science major and I didn’t know anything about the professor, Fred Von der Mehden, before signing up. The class fit my schedule and completed a distribution requirement. My expectations were not high. I remember getting…