Introduction.
Chapter 1. A Philosophy of Prudence and the Purpose of HIgher
Education Today
by Lee Trepanier
Chapter 2. Relevance in Higher Education: A Modest Proposal
by Jon M. Fennell
Chapter 3. The Expanding Circuit of Life: Higher Education, Wit,
and Relevance
by Bryan R. Warnick
Chapter 4. Virtue, Happiness, and Balance: What Jefferson Can Still
Teach us about Higher Education
by Michael Schwartz
Chapter 5. Toward a Neo-Perennialist Philosophy of Liberal
Education
by Wayne Willis
Chapter 6. Academic Freedom and the Role of the Humanities
by James Scott Johnston
Chapter 7. The University and the Polis in an Age of Relevance
by Bradley C.S. Watson
Chapter 8. Order and Educational Relevance: Crisis and Conservancy
in Western Civilization
by Michael Wayne Hail
Chapter 9. American Democracy and Liberal Education in an Era of
"Relevance"
by Jason R. Jividen
Chapter 10. The Social Relevance of Egoism and Perfectionism:
Nietzsche's Education for the Public Good
by Mark Jonas
Chapter 11. Irrelevance is Not an Option: Higher Education and the
American Socio-economic System
by Stephen Clements
Chapter 12. Institutional Diversity and the Future of American
Higher Education: Reconsidering the Vision of David Riesman
by Wilfred M. McClay
About the Authors
Timothy L. Simpson is an associate professor of education at Morehead State University.
The Relevance of Higher Education: Exploring a Contested Notion. .
. .pushes back against the narrow, market-oriented notion of
relevance that dominates higher education policy today. Arguing
overall that higher education’s most noble calling is to form
individuals, cultivate their characters, and shape their souls,
contributors to The Relevance of Higher Education are critical of
the larger consumer society, which increasingly pressures colleges
and universities to serve its immediate needs for expertise,
employees, leaders, and problem-solvers.
*Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning*
With the university under constant calls to justify its costs and
prove its relevance, this volume of essays couldn’t be more timely.
Here we have sober reflections on the liberal arts in an age of
productivity, assessment, career readiness, and political
correctness, each trend threatening in one way or another the
cardinal ideals of higher education. Some of the contributors
proceed historically, others ethically and philosophically; they
invoke Aristotle, Tocqueville, Nietzsche, Dewey, David Rieseman,
and Allan Bloom; they range from the highs of liberal education for
its own sake to the lows of university marketing strategies; and
they expose relevance as a flexible and tactical concept, both an
engine of curriculum, a social validation, and a burden of public
financing. People confounded by amazing developments such as the
labeling of students as 'customers' and data on how little students
typically learn during their undergraduate career will find them
explained in these pages. Indeed, as the debates over the value and
purpose of higher education move forward in the coming years,
participants will prosper by assimilating the contents of this
volume.
*Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital
Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future*
The Relevance of Higher Education is a thought-provoking and
highly-readable text that will challenge anyone who proclaims to
have the 'final word' on the purpose of universities today. I
encourage anyone who cares about the future of higher education to
read this text carefully and learn from the impressive collection
of authors, from a wide variety of fields, who contributed to
it.
*Wesley Null, Baylor University*
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