Mark Van Doren, the noted literary scholar, once remarked, -The college is meaningless without a curriculum, but it is more so when it has one that is meaningless.- Many current critics of undergraduate curricula in America assent to the crucial need for programmatic renewal in our colleges and universities. They bemoan the cookie-cutter sameness in far too many of them. The oddity is that U.S. colleges have long touted their -diversity- while largely holding fast to rather traditional pathways. This illuminating volume goes beyond formulaic nuts-and-bolts recipes for constructing curriculum:...

This book has received the AESA (American Educational Studies Association) Critics Choice Award 2012.
Against a formidable national discourse that emphasizes academic standardization, accountability, and high-stakes testing in educational policy, Character and Moral Education: A Reader seeks to re-introduce and revive the moral mission of education in public conversation and practices in America s schools. With contributions from a prominent array of scholars and practitioners, the book critically analyzes moral education, broadly defined as both an academic field that...

America s undergraduates truly represent a mind-boggling diversity. Today s College Students: A Reader looks at a wide variety of student groups and identities, which sets it apart from other texts on contemporary college students that do not cover such a broad spectrum. The editors and contributors also invite students, their instructors, and other college/university practitioners to be mindful of the crucial, yet sometimes overlooked, connection between extra-curricular campus activities and learning. Sustaining educational moments throughout the undergraduate experience, in and out...

Higher education and society are becoming increasingly intertwined. Both act as a transmitter of culture, yet many colleges and universities also ideally seek to create a more perfectible society and more enlightened, engaged citizens. When the connections between social structures and post-secondary education are closely entangled, the university's aims can take on a contentious struggle for identity in a vexing web of competing external interests - especially in light of scarce economic resources, corporate pressures, technological questions, and globalizing trends. Higher Education and...

Higher education and society are becoming increasingly intertwined. Both act as a transmitter of culture, yet many colleges and universities also ideally seek to create a more perfectible society and more enlightened, engaged citizens. When the connections between social structures and post-secondary education are closely entangled, the university's aims can take on a contentious struggle for identity in a vexing web of competing external interests - especially in light of scarce economic resources, corporate pressures, technological questions, and globalizing trends. Higher Education and...

The last half century has created deep tensions in how we analyze educational and social change. Educators, policymakers, and concerned citizens have had to cope with competing belief systems in evaluating and acting upon school policies and practices. This illuminating book untangles many of the roots of those persistent debates that have divided the nation for so long. It offers readers a critical opportunity to reflect on our continuing ideological struggles by examining popular books that have made a difference in educational discourse.
The editor has specifically selected key books...

The last half century has created deep tensions in how we analyze educational and social change. Educators, policymakers, and concerned citizens have had to cope with competing belief systems in evaluating and acting upon school policies and practices. This illuminating book untangles many of the roots of those persistent debates that have divided the nation for so long. It offers readers a critical opportunity to reflect on our continuing ideological struggles by examining popular books that have made a difference in educational discourse.
The editor has specifically selected key books...

Focusing on crucial issues in higher education, Colleges at the Crossroads: Taking Sides on Contested Issues challenges readers to go beyond taken-for-granted assumptions about America's colleges and universities and instead critically examine important questions facing them in today's troubled world.

Focusing on crucial issues in higher education, Colleges at the Crossroads: Taking Sides on Contested Issues challenges readers to go beyond taken-for-granted assumptions about America's colleges and universities and instead critically examine important questions facing them in today's troubled world.

This timely book, Making College Better: Views from the Top, offers more rational and practical responses to that public outcry by allowing college presidents and chancellors from a wide variety of postsecondary institutions the opportunity to address, in measured ways, many complex issues and how they might be untangled.