Precipice or Crossroads?: Where America's Great Public Universities Stand and Where They Are Going Midway through Their Second Century

Abstract

Precipice or Crossroads?: Where America's Great Public Universities Stand and Where They are Going Midway Through Their Second Century by Daniel Mark Fogel and Elizabeth Malson-Huddle, eds.SUNY Press 2012 362 pages ISBN: 978-1-4384-4494-9 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY of the Morrill Act's land-grant legislation, a group of current and former university presidents and their colleagues was organized to consider the history and the future of the resulting land-grant institutions. A path forward will not be found in this book. Except for former University of Michigan President James J. Duderstadt, none of the writers attempts a diagnosis of current challenges, much less suggests a prescription concerning the future. Most of the book is an excellent recounting of the history and traditions that have gotten these institutions this far. What's next? According to most of the writers, it is more of the same; not a precipice at all, just another crossroads. This confidence about the future derives from a remarkable past. It is almost impossible to imagine American higher education without the land-grant institutions spawned by the Morrill Act of 1862. Their influence and prestige have been so great that even the most humble institution in the United States wishes to include at least one of them in its peer group. What began as the relatively modest but strategically important intention of improving agricultural sciences in the United States has produced by the beginning of the 21st century a large group of world-class institutions. Related congressional acts also led to the creation of many of the nation's historically Black institutions and laid the foundations for scores of engineering departments (originally industrial arts). A century and a half later, many of these schools are considered to be among the best in undergraduate education, research, and medical science. So vast are their current missions that many are part of global networks promoting economic and educational development. Some have established international operations to maximize their global influence and capacity. In the book's first section, Coy F. Cross II provides the 18th century context for the founding of institutions that have thrived into the first part of the 21th century. Other writers document the historically important role that these institutions have played in the development of our democracy and in promoting racial, ethnic, gender, and economic equality. Daniel Mark Fogel completes the volume with an argument for the enduring value of the liberal arts education to society. David E. Shulenburger provides a sobering account of the decades-long pattern of declining public funding of higher education. This reality has led to unprecedented increases in tuition and has placed public institutions at a disadvantage in student and faculty recruitment. This is the first hint of concern in this largely triumphalist work. If Shulenburger's analysis is correct, even these robust institutions are losing strength nationally and internationally. Due to systemic resource constraints they have a declining ability to recruit and retain the best and brightest students and faculty. As a result, these institutions can be seen as being weakened at the core. Michael M. Crow and William B. Dabars focus on the worldchanging research contributions of higher education and the land-grant institutions. There has never been a more powerful engine for scientific development than America's land-grant universities. …