Citing this report and other similar studies, experienced university administrator, Dr. Mel Scarlett criticises the deficits of the current undergraduate educational system and suggests improvements that would ensure that college students get the education they're paying for. This hard-hitting critique will serve as a wake-up call to university administrators and faculty, as well as to the average parent or prospective college student facing ever-increasing tuition costs.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Are we, as the title suggests, about to discover the academic equivalent of the Enron scandal? Not exactly. This repetitive, somewhat disjointed indictment of undergraduate teaching offers little of substance in terms of radically rethinking the mission, purpose and form of college learning. Scarlett, president emeritus of Middle Tennessee State University, here addresses, in a simplified way, well-known problems in undergraduate education. His arguments-that undergraduate teaching could be improved significantly with better-prepared professors; that classes taught in huge lecture halls do not represent meaningful learning; that too many full-time tenured professors spend more time doing research than teaching; and that universities' reward systems need to be altered to acknowledge excellent teaching-are sound. But the book is rife with contradictions. For example, the author critiques the use of graduate students as teaching assistants, while elsewhere noting that future professors (who are current graduate students) need supervised internships. He also says colleges must become more efficient and cost effective, but stop using adjuncts and part-time teachers (who cost much less). Scarlett, also a former professor and dean, has clearly thought at length about how to improve the undergraduate experience, and there's much food for thought in these pages. And with tuition costs constantly rising, the time is probably ripe for a national conversation about the state of higher education. But Scarlett's presentation is too plodding and systematic to grab the attention of many other than trustees and higher education administrators.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"...good reading for faculty administrators, and those concerned with issues in higher education." -- Education Book Review, November 2004
"The solutions offered to these problems will certainly promote dialog and get people to consider such issues seriously." -- Library Journal
"The solutions offered to these problems will certainly promote dialog and get people to consider such issues seriously." -- Library Journal
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
In the early 1980s, America's schools-kindergarten through high school-were in a terrible state, as revealed in books such as A Nation at Risk and Why Johnny Can't Read. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Boyer Commission, United States, Chronicle of Higher Education, Doctor of Arts, Wingspread Group, University of Arizona, Ernest Boyer, Clark Kerr, George Keller, World War, American Association of Colleges, Association of Governing Boards, Choosing Quality, Committee of Fifteen, President Clinton, Abraham Flexner, Harvard School of Public Health, Henry Wechsler, Middle Tennessee State University, National Institute of Education, Professor Huston New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
In the early 1980s, America's schools-kindergarten through high school-were in a terrible state, as revealed in books such as A Nation at Risk and Why Johnny Can't Read. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Boyer Commission, United States, Chronicle of Higher Education, Doctor of Arts, Wingspread Group, University of Arizona, Ernest Boyer, Clark Kerr, George Keller, World War, American Association of Colleges, Association of Governing Boards, Choosing Quality, Committee of Fifteen, President Clinton, Abraham Flexner, Harvard School of Public Health, Henry Wechsler, Middle Tennessee State University, National Institute of Education, Professor Huston New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 4
books:
- Presidents Make a Difference by Clark Kerr on page 217
- College: The Undergraduate Experience in America (The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching) by Ernest L. Boyer on page 147
- Accent on Learning (The Jossey-Bass series in higher education) by Kathryn Patricia Cross on page 129
- Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate by Ernest L. Boyer on page 131
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