February 25, 2009
American and International Higher Education: is There a Crisis?
Neil Rudenstine
Former President, Harvard University
Minutes of the 20th Meeting of the 67th Year
The President called to order the 20th meeting of the 67th year at precisely 10:15 AM and Don Edwards presented the invocation. William Summerscales read the minutes of last week’s meeting to the over 90 attenders. John Brinster introduced his guest Meg Michael, as did John Lasley his guest Alison Lahnston and Harold Borkan his guest Hazel Stix, his wife. Landon Jones announced the opportunity for members at this meeting to buy a book about the Cheney vice-presidency by a forthcoming speaker, Bart Gellman, at a reduction in price from $27.95 to $10.00. The President then reminded us of the venue of next Wednesday’s session.
Joe Bolster, departing from the usual dubious Princeton custom of endless introductions, succinctly introduced our speaker, Neil Rudenstein, a Princeton A.B., a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, a Harvard Ph.D., Princeton professor of English, Dean of the College and Provost, former executive vice-president of the Mellon Foundation, president of Harvard. He is also author of at least three books.
Members’ delight was furthered by a minute-taker’s dream: a talk characterized by precise wording, conciseness of expression, and audibility, and which, moreover, took just thirty minutes and allowed for numerous questions voiced by often inaudible questioners, which he repeated briefly for our edification. Mr. Rudenstein said he was glad to be here and to be sandwiched between two other talkers on education, making for a threefold discussion of the subject – his talk being entitled “American and International Higher Education – is There a Crisis?” He answered that query forthwith: there is always a crisis in higher education. He began by examining three points. First, American higher education dominates its field from every point of view.
Second, other countries have woken up. But their investment is selective, in science, engineering, management, economics, information sciences and medicine; in other words subjects which avoid the humanities and social sciences. This means they are not developing great universities which, in any case, take years to build.
He noted, third, bifurcations between wealthy private institutions and public ones – budgets for the latter, since the 1980s, have remained the same or been cut. No state furnishes as much as 60 percent of the budget. This has a bad effect on their ability to attract first-rate students and has a demoralizing effect on faculty. He then noted a second factor: the deleterious effect of politicization in state institutions. When the governor appoints, appointees come with political agenda, not university agenda. Such divisions can be bitter. Thus superior teachers tend to drift to private institutions, adding to the divisions between universities and colleges. Unlike fifty years ago, universities now recruit faculty members from other universities or their own ranks, not from colleges. With increased attention to sciences, colleges cannot afford to produce people the universities want to snap up. Colleges can produce first-rate students in the arts and humanities, but not in sciences or in the international sphere.
A fourth concern has to do with what students study. Until ca. 1965, the majority went for the humanities, but not now. History remains a strong subject, but not what he called “deeper history”, history before the last hundred years. Economics, politics, biological sciences, information sciences, pre-law, pre-medicine departments are swamped. While notable exceptions to this depressing picture exist, the general trend is unmistakable.
Globalization could be good in the sense of collaborative studies of problems shared with others, like Chinese-U.S. study of climate. But he disliked universities creating mirror-images of themselves abroad because they would not get quality faculty, nor, looking ahead, is the chance of finding resources abroad for such institutions good.
Questions followed on the fact that half of those who matriculate do not graduate, the dominance of SATs in the selection process, the moral need to foster minorities’ education with realism and depth, fostering knowledge beyond one’s borders, our need for foreign students to fill the gap in mathematics, engineering, physics and chemistry which our students do not study enough for our needs, the growing incoherence of our humanities curricula, the vast expense of maintaining laboratories and libraries, and the subject of tuition rates After a round of appreciative applause, the meeting was adjourned at 11:25 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
John Frederick
Joe Bolster, departing from the usual dubious Princeton custom of endless introductions, succinctly introduced our speaker, Neil Rudenstein, a Princeton A.B., a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford, a Harvard Ph.D., Princeton professor of English, Dean of the College and Provost, former executive vice-president of the Mellon Foundation, president of Harvard. He is also author of at least three books.
Members’ delight was furthered by a minute-taker’s dream: a talk characterized by precise wording, conciseness of expression, and audibility, and which, moreover, took just thirty minutes and allowed for numerous questions voiced by often inaudible questioners, which he repeated briefly for our edification. Mr. Rudenstein said he was glad to be here and to be sandwiched between two other talkers on education, making for a threefold discussion of the subject – his talk being entitled “American and International Higher Education – is There a Crisis?” He answered that query forthwith: there is always a crisis in higher education. He began by examining three points. First, American higher education dominates its field from every point of view.
Second, other countries have woken up. But their investment is selective, in science, engineering, management, economics, information sciences and medicine; in other words subjects which avoid the humanities and social sciences. This means they are not developing great universities which, in any case, take years to build.
He noted, third, bifurcations between wealthy private institutions and public ones – budgets for the latter, since the 1980s, have remained the same or been cut. No state furnishes as much as 60 percent of the budget. This has a bad effect on their ability to attract first-rate students and has a demoralizing effect on faculty. He then noted a second factor: the deleterious effect of politicization in state institutions. When the governor appoints, appointees come with political agenda, not university agenda. Such divisions can be bitter. Thus superior teachers tend to drift to private institutions, adding to the divisions between universities and colleges. Unlike fifty years ago, universities now recruit faculty members from other universities or their own ranks, not from colleges. With increased attention to sciences, colleges cannot afford to produce people the universities want to snap up. Colleges can produce first-rate students in the arts and humanities, but not in sciences or in the international sphere.
A fourth concern has to do with what students study. Until ca. 1965, the majority went for the humanities, but not now. History remains a strong subject, but not what he called “deeper history”, history before the last hundred years. Economics, politics, biological sciences, information sciences, pre-law, pre-medicine departments are swamped. While notable exceptions to this depressing picture exist, the general trend is unmistakable.
Globalization could be good in the sense of collaborative studies of problems shared with others, like Chinese-U.S. study of climate. But he disliked universities creating mirror-images of themselves abroad because they would not get quality faculty, nor, looking ahead, is the chance of finding resources abroad for such institutions good.
Questions followed on the fact that half of those who matriculate do not graduate, the dominance of SATs in the selection process, the moral need to foster minorities’ education with realism and depth, fostering knowledge beyond one’s borders, our need for foreign students to fill the gap in mathematics, engineering, physics and chemistry which our students do not study enough for our needs, the growing incoherence of our humanities curricula, the vast expense of maintaining laboratories and libraries, and the subject of tuition rates After a round of appreciative applause, the meeting was adjourned at 11:25 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
John Frederick