Month: May 2018

Busch, L. (2017). Knowledge for sale: The neoliberal takeover of higher education. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

This timely volume critiques the effect of relying on market forces, the main tenant of Neoliberalism, on higher education.  None of these factors are new, but Busch brings them together under the mantra of “neoliberalism” and argues that collectively they represent a crisis for both higher education and society.  Continue reading “Knowledge for Sale”

Berg, M., & Seeber, B. K. (2016). The slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Two Canadian faculty members in the humanities take inspiration from the “slow food” movement and apply a similar concept of resisting corporatization to academia.  The “slow professor manifesto … challenges the frantic pace and standardization of contemporary culture”.   This book is a “must read” for faculty and administrators. Continue reading “the Slow Professor”

Clydesdale, T. (2015). The purposeful graduate: Why colleges must talk to students about vocation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 This book tells a story about “systematically inviting and supporting reflection about life’s purpose [an initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment’s Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation, PTVE] on dozens of college and university campuses, and among thousands of students, faculty, and staff”.  Continue reading “The Purposeful Graduate”

Reynolds, G. H. (2012).  The higher education bubble. New York: Encounter books (Broadside #29).

This brief book (“broadside”) is a sobering account of the rising costs of higher education, and the heights reached by student educational indebtedness.  Reynolds describes this as an unsustainable “bubble” similar to the recent housing bubble (and equally likely to crash). Continue reading “The Higher Education Bubble”

Collini, S. (2012). What are universities for? London: Penguin.

The author is a professor of English and History at Cambridge University, and the book is primarily from a British, secular and research institution perspective.  But it is interesting to compare the issues he discusses with those in US Catholic higher education.  Of particular note, Collini discusses Newman’s “ideal university” in a contemporary light. It is a highly readable and provocative book. Continue reading “What are Universities for?”

Jacobsen, D., & Jacobsen, R. H. (2012). No longer invisible: Religion in university education. New York: Oxford University Press.

This book does not focus on  Catholic universities, but rather the place of religion generally in any university.  The authors address ways that “religion” (broadly defined) can successfully be incorporated on modern campuses. Their book is “not about the eternal truths of heaven, it is about the place of religion in the rough-and-tumble educational realities of the here and now”. Continue reading “No Longer Invisible”

Arthur, J. (2006). Faith and secularisation in religious colleges and universities. New York: Routledge.

Arthur examines the trend for religious colleges and universities to become more “mainstream” in response to modernity and, for Catholic institutions, especially in response to Vatican II.  Much of the Catholic response is covered in other readings , but Arthur’s work is informative in placing it in broader comparative context.   Continue reading “Faith and Secularisation”

Reuben, J. A. (1996). The making of the modern university: Intellectual transformation and the marginalization of morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Reuben’s work examines development of the American university during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially the roles of religion and morality. Her socio-historical analysis is dominated by the prevailing American Protestantism, and its focus is primarily larger research universities  However, many of the trends that Reuben identifies affected the development of Catholic universities. Continue reading “The Modern University”