Gone for Good: Tales of University Life after the Golden Age [Hardcover]

Stuart Rojstaczer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 1999

Amid the clamorous debates on political correctness, the Western canon, and alcohol abuse on campus, many observers have failed to notice the most radical change in the American University: the Golden Age of massive government funding is gone. And, as Stuart Rojstaczer points out in this incisive look at higher education, the consequences are affecting virtually every aspect of university life.
Laced with humorous and insightful anecdotes, Gone for Good is a highly personal tour of the university system as it has evolved from the glory days of phenomenal post-WWII growth to the financial stresses that now beset it. Stuart Rojstaczer, professor of Hydrology at Duke, shows how almost unlimited funding during the Cold War years encouraged universities to become unwieldy behemoths--with ever-enlarging faculties and administrative staffs, an explosion of new buildings that are proving costly to maintain, and a parade of programs designed largely to impress other universities. Rojstaczer asserts that despite the scarcity of new funding sources, universities continue to strive for unlimited growth--with disastrous results: skyrocketing tuition (well over $20,000 per year at top tier schools); desperate attempts to increase enrollments (lower standards, inflated grades, and new majors in some rather implausible areas of study); and increasing pressure on faculty who already spend more time researching than teaching to raise more money through research grants. The time has come, Rojstaczer argues, to abandon an outmoded idea of growth and create a leaner university system more beneficial to both students and society.
For parents, students, and anyone interested higher education, Gone for Good offers a vivid account of the crossroads where universities now stand--and a compelling argument about which path they should take.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

University life would be wonderful--if only it weren't for the students. Teaching takes time away from important research, which, according to Rojstaczer, seems to be the real reason Ph.D.'s take their appointments. That's the feeling one gets from his analysis of higher education. During the "golden age," research money flowed freely. But the end of the cold war reduced competition within the international research community and government dollars diminished correspondingly, forcing schools to seek funding elsewhere. These days, Rojstaczer writes, overburdened professors must deal with making their courses easier for students (who seem more interested in heading out into the job market than in getting a quality education), which in turn increases the teachers' popularity and assures future full classes. The educators must also contend with writing grant proposals, student athletes, and campus politics. Rojstaczer's is not a pretty picture, but Gone for Good is an important book that suggests that the halls of ivy are not as green and fresh as one might hope. Ron Kaplan

From Kirkus Reviews

A serious, although informal, introduction to the realities of the university world today. A scientist who writes about a university is about as rare as a duck in a tree. Most recent reflections on changes in the academic world have come from humanists and social scientists and most of them have been disgruntled, many bitter. Rojstaczer, a geologist and environmental engineer (Duke), shares their concerns but, by contrast, is refreshingly balanced and calm. His chatty style never betrays anger or despair. He humanizes his subject where others have often parodied it. He recognizes that a brief postwar ``golden age,'' perhaps a third of a century long, in universities' wealth, confidence, and freedom from accountability is forever gone. He doesn't like many qualities of today's research institutions: grade inflation, a reduction in course loads and requirements for the major, students who won't work hard, universities' failure to live within their means, the corruption of athletic programs, the dependence upon fund-raising, and the difficulties of attracting graduate students and getting research grants. But who does like them? If his concerns about intellectual fashions, faculty politics, and lazy students are scarcely unique, what is distinctive is Rojstaczer's refusal to succumb to nostalgia and his recognition that today's universities face realities that didn't exist in the 1960s. Yet his book would have been improved by more extended reflections about what has in fact improved in American higher education since the 1960s its greater diversity of students, faculty members, and concerns, and its greater openness to ideas chief among them even if these improvements have exacted their costs. An anecdotal yet insightful tour of American universities by an insider. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195126823
• ISBN-13: 978-0195126822
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,568,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perceptive insights into American research universities, June 16, 2000

By 

John C. Whitmer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gone for Good: Tales of University Life after the Golden Age (Hardcover)

This is an incisive, readable assessment of the present American research university. Gone (and probably for good) is the growth of federal funding to universities beginning shortly after WWII, spurred by Sputnik in 1957, and continuing almost unabated until the end of the cold war. Although the benefits of this funding are undeniable, the inevitable shift of priorities has had an impact -- not entirely positive -- on almost every aspect of American universities. Those in academia will find this familiar territory. Others, e.g., tuition-paying parents or aspiring academics, will find many aspects of university life described with clarity, wit, and candor: faculty hiring and tenuring, the scramble for external funds, the influence of sports programs, research and graduate education, to name just a few. Chapters on grade inflation (no, the students aren't getting smarter) and on why women are underrepresented in faculty ranks (no, it's not just a "pipeline" problem) are especially perceptive.

Rojstaczer, an environmental geologist at Duke, begins each chapter with a personal anecdote or reflection, adding interest and credibility. The book is without rancor; the academic system has worked well for the author, and much about American universities is admirable. In the chapter "Why Research?" the author emphasizes he loves it, has been successful at it, and is a better teacher because of it. But he is critical of the pressure to publish every bit of minutia or to publish work quickly even before the work is complete. The chapter "Getting Tenure" contains excellent advice for the untenured, and closes with this revealing comment: "...the book you are reading would never have been written by the author if he didn't have tenure." But his success within the system has not clouded his vision to those current priorities at odds with education and learning, and some of which are a direct result of the golden age of federal funding. "Gone for Good" should be of interest to anyone with a stake in higher education.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good "saturday afternoon read", October 17, 1999

By 

paranjpe (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gone for Good: Tales of University Life after the Golden Age (Hardcover)

normally nobody would read a book about university life written by a young recently tenured professor of hydrology on a beautiful saturday afternoon as i did. but this book is different.given that you are interested in academic life in US, once you start reading this book, its difficult to put it down soon. excellent first hand account of the inside stories of universities in US. a must read for anyone hoping to get tenure or aspiring to be a professor himself !!!! good show professor !!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the continuing failure of our major universities, December 25, 2008

By 

Ellis Glazier (La Paz, BCS, Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gone for Good: Tales of University Life after the Golden Age (Hardcover)

this is written by a student who went to university and grad school in the golden age. my time (cornell '51) was just after WW II when much of the student body was made of vets, who drove much of the feelings about university life for all the rest of us who were there. my grad school (u. of rochester '57)was as a vet myself who had the goal of preparing to enter the real world. at both times i learned lessons that have stood me in good stead for the rest of my life, along with those i had learned in the military.
the book 'gone for good' tells me what happened from the years of my studies to the time, 1999, the book was published. it ain't a pretty sight, especially because duke and cornell are so much alike.

in this present day, almost 2009, we find the universities, who had changed from the task of training future citizens to becoming adjuncts of the financial world, suffering the ills they did not see whan they made that change. business has suddenly been turned on its ear and these nontaxpaying institutions find themselves endlessly calling their alumni to help bail them out while at the same time attempting to increase their tuition and fees for a population that is suffering far more from the financial collapse and depression than the universities. they are beginning to know how this affects them also. here we have institutions who though they have lost little in their endowment funds perceive the present day value as being a calamity. but except those who had invested in the collapsed mortgage market or have been hit by the large madoff ponzi scheme, they have lost only perceived value, which will eventually return over time as our finances slowly get better and we recover from this depression.

the universities, for all the expertise within their walls, have found they are no better than the financial mavens of wall street in protecting themselves against crooks, many of whom sit on their board of directors (i know at least one at cornell).

the universities, leaving their prime purpose behind, have turned instead to become big businesses and now know they are not insulated from either the vagaries of the market or the thieves therein.

it has been difficult to watch this all happen and stuart rojstaczer explains the result in easy to read and entertaining fashion, entertaining if one does not know what life was like during the golden age. for anyone with children now going to university or with those who will attend in future, it is a course in what their children will face and for what they will pay outrageous amounts of money for the privilege.

there is hope that schools will learn there is a time to use the endowments for the benefit of the students and that deficit spending is at times needed, just as our government is now beginning to understand.

other reviews listed tell one about the book. here is a review that i hope will tell you what it means and has meant.