What are Universities For? by Stefan Collini (PDF)

Description

Across the world, universities are more numerous than they have ever been, yet at the same time there is unprecedented confusion about their purpose and scepticism about their value. What Are Universities For? offers a spirited and compelling argument for completely rethinking the way we see our universities, and why we need them. Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money. Instead, he argues that we must reflect on the different types of institution and the distinctive roles they play. In particular we must recognize that attempting to extend human understanding, which is at the heart of disciplined intellectual enquiry, can never be wholly harnessed to immediate social purposes – particularly in the case of the humanities, which both attract and puzzle many people and are therefore the most difficult subjects to justify.At a time when the future of higher education lies in the balance, What Are Universities For? offers all of us a better, deeper and more enlightened understanding of why universities matter, to everyone.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Colleges and universities are undergoing internal and external examination like I have never seen in my 40 years of teaching in an elite private research university. Collini does a good job of giving a brief background of higher education followed by less focused analysis of the current state. It is probably as unbiased and fair as could be written by someone with as much experience and and interest as he has. His presentation can be a bit tedious, but his content is solid. Every faculty member, administrator, and board member of a college or university, public or private, should read this book. Every politician or citizen who feels higher education is central to the future of our society should read the book. Another important book with a somewhat different spin is: College, What it was, Is, and Should Be by Delbanco. You might also read Bok’s Higher Education in America and/or Higher Education in the digital Age by William Bowen.This increase in interest and conversation is exciting and important. An old and venerable institution is changing and it really needs to be done right. But, before we can answer that questions, we need to make sure to pose the question properly and that is what Collini is trying to provide the background for.

⭐Directly tackles the standard nonsense that sees university training as (a) solely vocational, “for the economy” of either the student personally or of “society”, and (b) mainly, or solely, a matter of learning a bunch of facts. Asks the obvious question: “what’s the economy for?” Discusses the value of actually thinking, seeking to understand, appreciating beauty of many kinds, and of formulating and wrestling with questions that can never be completely answered. Notes how the assessment of creative work (of all kinds) depends on the time and place of the assessment as well as on the work itself. A bit more about science and mathematics could have been good – many of the great people in these fields were not motivated mainly by “the economy” either.

⭐This book is obliged reading for continental politicians too. Will they understand? Well, having received their education in the humanities and appreciated it in the end, they will probably understand. Though I am not sure.In addition Collini is a great author.Leen Noordzij.www.leennoordzij.me

⭐I found this work a bit to esoteric for my liking. It is well written but not quite what I was looking for. I would recommend it to all academics with plenty of time on their hands.

⭐Very positive purchase experience.

⭐Written from the point of view of an embattled British academic trying to survive in a culture where government funding has been stopped for the humanities, WHAT ARE UNIVERSITIES FOR? calls for a return to what might be described as humanist values: a university education cannot always be measured in financial terms, but should be judged in terms of learner development. Any government minister involved in higher education should be forcibly ordered to read this book.

⭐The author provides an excellent discussion of the role of universities, leading on to a devastating critique of the current dire state of English universities, increasingly dominated as they are by the business/managerial ways of thinking of those who run them – i.e., their overpaid vice-chancellors (or should that be ‘CEOs’ ?) – who have happily implemented the anti-intellectual neo-liberal policies of successive governments, both Conservative and Labour.

⭐Collini provides a highly readable discussion of the unique nature and purpose of universities. His critique of the influx of marketisation and managerialism within the UK university system is provocative and insightful, and provides an informed defence of the value (in the broadest sense) of the humanities. His straw-men arguments are occasionally exaggerated and unconvincing, and Collini offers no concrete alternatives to our present fixations with consumer choice and ‘measures’ of performance. But perhaps we should not be too harsh on him, because no-one else has yet come up with obvious solutions. The only way forward has to be through continued discourse between academics, politicians and the citizenry. ‘What are universities for?’ is at the very least an essential contribution to that debate.

⭐If you care about science and culture you will want to read what the author has to say.By subjecting intellectual inquiry to short term economic goals there is a danger of destroying what makes them special.You can’t corporatise the mind and its endeavours.

⭐Great product 🙂

⭐Great condition and a good price.

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