What Does Higher Ed Need Now?

Expanding on my contribution to a series

One of my favorite online publications is Current, whose editors seek “to provide commentary that clarifies and explains our political and cultural moment, summoning readers to intelligent, constructive responses.” While Current is grounded “in the broad tradition of American democracy,” I also appreciate that it attends to “practices and institutions” beyond politics. For example, this month it has hosted a range of essays that respond to the overarching question, What does higher education need now?

The series has included longer pieces — like Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn on the mission of the university and reviews of books on the liberal arts and education as pilgrimage — but yesterday I was honored to add my voice to a chorus offering shorter reflections on particular needs of higher ed. (Part two of that forum went up today.)

I don’t know who at Current chooses its images, but I appreciate that yesterday’s forum appeared under a photo of Butler Library at Columbia University, whose classical facade is inscribed with the names of Greek and Roman writers, thinkers, and statesmen — CC BY-SA 4.0 (JSquish)

Of course, there are dozens of problems I’d like to address — and often have, here at Substack. But given 500 words to work with, I chose to revisit one of the findings in Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner’s The Real World of College (MIT Press, 2022).¹

Not only did they discover that college students were three times as likely to affirm a transactional as a transformational “mental model” for college, but faculty and administrators were four times as likely as trustees to view of college as a site of deep personal transformation, rather than practical preparation for whatever career or graduate study comes next. That led me to my central argument:

So what does higher education most need now? Greater alignment on the purpose of college among the people who make the decisions that shape students’ actual experience of college, from the boardroom to the classroom. Instead, misalignment causes institutions either to try to be all things to all people or to set priorities that frustrate, enervate, and alienate key constituents

Click here to read that reflection — plus others by writers like my fellow historians Daniel G. Hummel, Daniel K. Williams, and

Dixie Dillon Lane

. But since 500 words doesn’t leave a lot of room to flesh out complicated ideas, I thought I’d give paid subscribers a bit more of what lay behind those few sentences…