Reconstructing the "Uni-versity"
From the Ashes of the "Mega- and Multi-Versity" to the Futures of Higher Education
Published on 14. September 2025
384 pages
979-8-216-26037-0 (ISBN)
Description
Slogans, myths, and isolated anecdotes are inadequate substitutes for documented history and contextual understanding.
Literature on the history of higher education is dominated by ahistorical and contextually ignorant slogans. Seldom acknowledged, in discussions of the "decline" or "failure" of the modern university, is 1) how long it has been going on (at least since the 1960s); and 2) universities' own complicity in this long, complicated, and contradictory process. Myths intertwine inseparably with slogans to echo yet another "lost cause." Our collective, as well as individual, pasts provide essential lessons if we know how to read and learn from them. More complicated is imagining a plausible better future for universities. In Reconstructing the "Uni-versity": From the Ashes of the "Mega- and Multi-versity" to the Futures of Higher Education, Harvey J. Graff, bringing experience from over 50 years as a professor, provides an accurate history of higher education, redefining the issues and terms to establish a new agenda.
Literature on the history of higher education is dominated by ahistorical and contextually ignorant slogans. Seldom acknowledged, in discussions of the "decline" or "failure" of the modern university, is 1) how long it has been going on (at least since the 1960s); and 2) universities' own complicity in this long, complicated, and contradictory process. Myths intertwine inseparably with slogans to echo yet another "lost cause." Our collective, as well as individual, pasts provide essential lessons if we know how to read and learn from them. More complicated is imagining a plausible better future for universities. In Reconstructing the "Uni-versity": From the Ashes of the "Mega- and Multi-versity" to the Futures of Higher Education, Harvey J. Graff, bringing experience from over 50 years as a professor, provides an accurate history of higher education, redefining the issues and terms to establish a new agenda.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
File size
2,81 MB
ISBN-13
979-8-216-26037-0 (9798216260370)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Harvey J. Graff
Reconstructing the "Uni-versity"
From the Ashes of the "Mega- and Multi-versity" to the Futures of Higher Education
Book
approx. 12/2025
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
€134.40
Not yet published
Person
Harvey J. Graff is Professor Emeritus of English and History, inaugural Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies, and Academy Professor at The Ohio State University.
Content
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. New Beginnings Based in Part on Re-interpreting and Learning from the Past
2. First Steps toward the new "Uni-versity"
3. Ways and Means: The impossible dream of changing "incentive structures" and
"business models"
4. The End of Slogans for Self-Promotion and Mis-direction of Multiple Publics: Can or Will
Administrators Rejoin Universities? Can Presidents Preside? Can Trustees be Trusted?
5. The Return, or Reconstruction/Remaking, of the Faculty, and the Disappearing "Missions"
of universities. Can Faculty "Share Governance"?
6. Student Life or Student Lives? Where, What, When, and How? Preparing for Both Lives
and work.
7. University Districts and Civic Lives: Universities. Communities, and Students
Conclusion. Pasts, Present, Futures
References and Bibliography
About the Author
Index
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. New Beginnings Based in Part on Re-interpreting and Learning from the Past
2. First Steps toward the new "Uni-versity"
3. Ways and Means: The impossible dream of changing "incentive structures" and
"business models"
4. The End of Slogans for Self-Promotion and Mis-direction of Multiple Publics: Can or Will
Administrators Rejoin Universities? Can Presidents Preside? Can Trustees be Trusted?
5. The Return, or Reconstruction/Remaking, of the Faculty, and the Disappearing "Missions"
of universities. Can Faculty "Share Governance"?
6. Student Life or Student Lives? Where, What, When, and How? Preparing for Both Lives
and work.
7. University Districts and Civic Lives: Universities. Communities, and Students
Conclusion. Pasts, Present, Futures
References and Bibliography
About the Author
Index
