Catholic Higher Education Bibliography
A TLTC Blog
This section focuses on recent challenges for higher education that are not specifically from the perspective of Catholic higher education, but help to situate it within a more global context. Indeed, many of the challenges are the same, especially those associated with the assimilation of education into a market economy (aka corporatization, consumerism, Neoliberalism). The most frequently-referenced problems include a focus on profitability (or at least financial sustainability) with associated competition and marketing; rising costs and reduced state and private financial support, resulting in high tuition costs, massive student debt, and a growing “underclass” of contracted term instructors and adjuncts; scarce resources diverted to administration and assessment; an emphasis on faculty research and publication rather than teaching; belief that higher education is a pathway to a better (or better-paying) job rather than an individual and societal good; declining support for the humanities; failing to consider “the whole student” (even in secular works, religion and/or “spirituality” are often mentioned); loss of community; student and faculty disengagement, and a lack of unified purpose. The selected works are only a small representation of the literature on this topic, chosen on the basis of accessibility for the non-expert and diversity of perspective.
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”
Shore, P. J. (1992). The myth of the university: Ideal and reality in higher education. Lanham: University Press of America
This is an interesting and readable book, and although it was not well reviewed (largely on account of being impractical, and perceived as elitist and reactionary) I felt the author made some important points. At the crux is the dialectic between the university as an intellectual “community of scholars” (with a nostalgic look back to medieval times) and the socio-political reality of universities as training for profitable employment and the entry of universities into a competitive marketplace.
Pieper, J. (2015). What does “academic” mean? : Two essays on the chances of the university today. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press. (These are translations of lectures originally presented in 1950 and 1963).
Pieper asserts that there is continuity between our universities and Plato’s original academy, which is the basic model for our universities. He holds that the intrinsic characteristic of Plato’s school was the philosophical way of looking at the world, and that the defining characteristic of an academic institution is that it is based on philosophy. “A subject of study that has no philosophical orientation is not academic”.