Reconstructing the “Uni-versity”

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.

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsAbbreviationsIntroduction1. New Beginnings Based in Part on Re-interpreting and Learning from the Past2. 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 StudentsConclusion. Pasts, Present, FuturesReferences and BibliographyAbout the AuthorIndex

Harvey J. Graff maintains that we will not be able to see the future possibilities of colleges and universities clearly without a sense of the history of higher education. He argues passionately against reform initiatives which seem to be more firmly rooted in meaningless marketing slogans than concrete policies. His vision of a dynamic and humane university, and the reforms needed to make that vision a reality, are at once common sense and a marked departure from current practices.