The Still Divided Academy: How Competing Visions of Power, Politics, and Diversity Complicate the Mission of Higher Education

by Stanley Rothman, April Kelly-Woessner, Matthew Woessner

Overview

The Still Divided Academy is a wonderful examination of the academic community that shows their inner workings by addressing a broad range of issues including: academic politics, tenure, perceived and real political imbalance, academic freedom, and diversity. Administrators, professors, and students have very different priorities, values, and expectations and therefore, often have conflicting opinions on these issues. Drawing on data collected in a specially commissioned public opinion survey as well as other recent research on higher education, Rothman, Kelly-Woessner, and Woessner, create an incredibly readable presentation of both the similarities and differences between those running our universities and those attending them. The authors manage to remain impressively neutral; instead they give us a fuller perspective of the people on our college campuses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442208087
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/16/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Stanley Rothman is Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of Government Emeritus at Smith College and the director of the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change. April Kelly-Woessner is associate professor of political science at Elizabethtown College. Matthew Woessner is an associate professor of political science and public policy at Penn State University at Harrisburg.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Acknowledgements
Part 2 Preface
Part 3 Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 4 Previous Studies of the Academy
Chapter 5 The NAASS Survey
Chapter 6 Layout of the Book
Part 7 Chapter 2: Visions of the University
Chapter 8 Goals of Education
Chapter 9 Encouraging Cultural Understanding and Minority Perspectives
Chapter 10 Perceptions of Educational Quality
Chapter 11 Problems Facing Higher Education
Chapter 12 Conclusion
Part 13 Chapter 3: Perceptions of Power and Control in the American University
Chapter 14 The Faculty-Administrative Divide
Chapter 15 Varied Perceptions of Influence
Chapter 16 Conflict as a Predictor of Influence
Chapter 17 Collective Bargaining
Chapter 18 Student Demands and Influence
Chapter 19 Conclusion
Part 20 Chapter 4: Politics and Culture Wars
Chapter 21 Political Views of the Faculty
Chapter 22 Politics of the Administration
Chapter 23 Students' Political Values
Chapter 24 Divisions within the Professoriate
Chapter 25 Generational Differences Among Faculty
Chapter 26 Politics and Scholarly Achievement
Chapter 27 Conclusion
Part 28 Chapter 5: Campus Diversity
Chapter 29 The Campus Climate for Diversity
Chapter 30 Personal Experiences with Ongoing Discrimination or Harassment
Chapter 31 Campus Support for Diversity
Chapter 32 Impact of Diversity
Chapter 33 Conclusion
Part 34 Chapter 6: Academic Freedom, Tenure, and the Free Exchange of Ideas
Chapter 35 The Politics of Academic Freedom
Chapter 36 Other Sources of Threat
Chapter 37 Perceptions of Academic Freedom
Chapter 38 Support for Tenure
Chapter 39 Free expression on campus
Chapter 40 Spiral of Silence?
Chapter 41 Conclusion
Part 42 Chapter 7: Conclusion
Chapter 43 Access and Affordability
Chapter 44 Accountability and Assessment
Chapter 45 Social Change
Chapter 46 Politics and Ideology in American Higher Education
Chapter 47 Campus Dialogue
Part 48 Appendix 1: A List of Questions Used in the NAASS Survey
Part 49 Appendix 2: A Professor's Assessment of Institutional Success in Educating Students
Part 50 Appendix 4: A University Rankings by Tier
Part 51 Appendix 5: A Models of Trust for Students, Faculty and Administrators
Part 52 Appendix 5: B The Impact of Varying Exclusion Methods on College Satisfaction Results
Part 53 Appendix 6: A Why Professors Think Academic Tenure is Important
Part 54 Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

The report on the major NAASS survey is important and timely. The survey instrument goes in novel directions and yields rich results. The report is clear, thorough, and accessible. The results bring important confirmations, new insights, and surprises that will challenge folks from various quarters.

Daniel Klein

As universities hire more administrators from outside the faculty ranks, the gulf between those officials and the faculty widens and professors feel less influence on university governance, says a new book on conflict in higher education. The book, The Still Divided Academy: How Competing Visions of Power, Politics, and Diversity Complicate the Mission of Higher Education, relied on surveys of about 4,060 administrators, faculty members, and students at four-year institutions. Like The Chronicle' s own reporting, the surveys found that confidence in the impact of faculty governance is low.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

There is simply no book that does what The Still Divided Academy does. The authors tackle important matters: conflict over the very purpose of universities, who should (and does) run universities, political imbalance at universities, tenure, academic freedom, and most importantly, the role of diversity. Their work is potentially controversial, but without bias. There is much here that will comfort and annoy both liberals and conservatives, and that is so rare in this area. One cannot have a good understanding of academic freedom and political correctness at universities without reading The Still Divided Academy.

Robert Maranto

As universities hire more administrators from outside the faculty ranks, the gulf between those officials and the faculty widens and professors feel less influence on university governance, says a new book on conflict in higher education. The book, The Still Divided Academy: How Competing Visions of Power, Politics, and Diversity Complicate the Mission of Higher Education, relied on surveys of about 4,060 administrators, faculty members, and students at four-year institutions. Like The Chronicle' s own reporting, the surveys found that confidence in the impact of faculty governance is low.

Chronicle of Higher Education