Welcome to My Blog

On this website, I will be offering my comments on issues in higher education that touch on those discussed in my book Saving Alma Mater: A Rescue Plan for America’s Public Universities, (Univ. of Chicago Press, publication date October 1, 2009). These issues include marketplace forces and public university financing, the rising cost of a college education, the academic culture, shared governance traditions, the university presidency, academic administration and governing boards, state legislatures and public criticism of higher education, and higher education policy.

All the postings to follow are in service to the basic premise of my book, which is (a) that public universities are in a longterm state of decline brought about by economic forces over which they have no control, and (b) that this decline cannot be reversed absent systemic reform of both public higher education’s “business model” and the reform of a campus culture that has become defensive and change resistant. I plan to express my opinions freely, but I welcome different viewpoints and ideas. In an era of extreme stress on public universities, none of us can lay claim to an unclouded crystal ball.