Learning Resources

Abstract: Book review: The Power of the Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions, by Winifred Gallagher. Harper Perennial, 1994. 240 pages. ISBN 0-06-097602-0

Abstract: Book review: Visions of the Future, by robert Heilbroner. Oxford university Press, 1995. 128 pages. ISBN 0-19-509074-8

Abstract: A primer for planners about higher education's "cost disease" and its future effects. Subtitles: Why the cost disease?; Can we afford higher education?; Reallocating national resources; The huge job of persuasion. Pull quotes: "The cost of American higher education has quadrupled over the 42-year period." "In higher education the nature of the products make their production a handicraft activity." "Personal services are condemned to slower productivity growth." "By 2040 education and health care alone could well absorb over half of the entire GNP." "Higher education is an example of the need for reconceived practices."

Abstract: Subtitles: Anatomy of benchmarking; The vital parts; How do colleges learn?; It's no one's responsibility; What's the corrective?; How does it work? Pull quotes: "Benchmarking is not a simple matter of visiting the finest competitors." "There are really two parts to benchmarking." "Universities can learn a great deal from the best non-educational enterprises." "It is most effective when performed by a team." "The first impression of a campus can have a powerful effect." "Faculty members tend to see money spent on campus grounds as a frivolous expenditure." "Newer campus plantings look like those around large suburban homes." "The campus landscape assessment is a different animal."F

Abstract: Should we prefer standardized tests or high standards for everyone? Subtitles: A choice of intelligences; Those intelligence tests; How universities select the cognitive elite; Troubles in the methodology; Ethnicity, IQ, and social policy. Pull quotes: "Perhaps the most important social trend is the growing establishment of a new class." "Rating human intelligence is complex.: "People with lower IQ's are more likely to experience the greatest problems." "Only 10 percent of the 1952 entering class at Harvard would be competitive in the admissions process today." "It is peculiar how their fetish for the normal distribution is suspended when defining dependent variables other than IQ." "Is the cognitive elite among African Americans also attending college...and living a better life?" "What should the nation's policies be toward individuals and groups who rate at various points throughout the distribution?"

Abstract: How should higher education deal with the variability of genetic differences? Subtitles: How much are IQ differences inherited?; The fruits of meritocracy; Defining the Cognitive Classes; What is IQ?; Cognition and social behavior; Are some groups more intelligent?; What social policies are needed? Pull quotes: "Individual variability is the biological norm, and humans are no exception." "As society reduces barriers, genetic differences become more important." "Today's elite college and university students come from all strata and backgrounds." "The United States has increasingly become a meritocracy of intelligence." "IQ test are not culturally biased, as is often alleged." "There is little evidence that current programs have any long-lasting effects on IQ scores." "They claim U.S. education has been 'dumbed down." "The book points to the ironies of achieving a new society based more fully on intellectual merit."

Abstract: Book review: The Art and Politics of College teaching, edited by R. McLaran Sawyer, Keith Prichard, adn Karl Hostetler. Peter Lang, 1992. 344 pages. ISBN 0-8204-1684-3 The New Faculty Memeber: Supporting and Fostering Professional Development, by Robert Boice. Jossey-Bass, 1993. 364 pages. ISBN 1-5542-423-6. University Politics: F.M. Cornford's Cambridge and His Advice to the Young Academic Politician, by Gordon Johnson. Cambridge University Press, 1994. 112 pages. ISBN 0-521-46919-8.

Abstract: Viewpoint Subtitles: Recreate, not restore; Digging into the structure. Pull quotes: "The economics of being a professor have changed." "Liberal education cannot return to the past." "Colleges may need to experiment with two kinds of tenure."