Customer Reviews

How Scholars Trumped Teachers: Constancy and Change in University Curriculum, Teaching, and Research, 1890-1990

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In this case study of 2 departments at Stanford University, Larry Cuban shows that, despite repeated "reforms" and the installation of new leaders, the university's basic reward structure has remained more or less the same for a century. Indeed, similar "reform" proposals have re-cycled through the university over the years, dressed up in new rhetoric but with the same result: power and influence flow to those faculty who meet the highest standards in their disciplines, rather than those most interested in pedagogy. Scholars want to teach graduate students and work on their research. When required to teach undergraduates, they want to offer small seminars in their specialty area, rather than foundational courses in their discipline. Cuban uses data from other highly selective American universities to show that the same pattern obtains elsewhere. We could read Cuban's book as a tragedy, from a student's point of view, but then, who listens to them?