Customer Reviews

Remaking the American University: Market-Smart and Mission-Centered

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Based on the need of contemporary colleges in managing markets in light of decreased sources of secured revenues, I anticipated this book. I was somewhat disappointed. The biggest problem is that the author narrows his focus to the most selective institutions. While critical of the system that rewards and provides prestige for these institutions, beyond a few standard recommendations and a few standard (and light) criticisms, the author does not lay the blame on them. Rather, the author asserts it is decreased funding and a system that rewards prestige over educational quality, absolving the institutions of blame.

Second, many of the recommendations lack substance and are really nothing that have not been recommended before. The one exception is the description of the academic audit, which is a great idea. However, hundreds of institutions (including community colleges), are already doing reviews and evaluations very similar to audits. Of course, these institutions, despite enrolling the vast majority of U.S. college students, are outside the author's radar and aren't dealt with in this book. Zemsky has the unfortunate fate of falling into two categories - a Stanford professor who can't imagine a student ever attending an institution that is not one of the top 50 or so in the nation and a higher ed. researcher who is more interested in impressing his colleagues than in impacting any real policy change or making a difference in the lives of the other 98% of college students.

Much better books that cover similar terrain written by someone with practical experience are Duderstadt's "A University for the 21st Century" & "The Public University." These texts provide recommendations that can provide substantive, not theoretical, change.

Zemsky's mission-centered, market-smart, politically-savvy theme is the foundation for many, if not all, future strategy for public universities. This book sets the stage for the introduction of America's fourth major genre of university starting with the private, liberal arts (often religious)college of colonial days, the land-grant institution of the 1860s and the research-centered multiversity of the post-WWII era. Colleges and university leaders that need to rethink their approach and strategy after 10 years of declining contributions from state governments and a federal government that spends more in Iraq in a month than what was spent on the first GI Bill have to read and understand Zemsky, Wegner and Massey's Remaking the American University. Call it the "enterprise" or the "entrepreneurial" knowledge networking organization, this book explains the genre well and represents a must read for academic administrators at any level.