Ivory tower blues : a university system in crisis /

Ivory tower blues : a university system in crisis /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Côté, James E.
Imprint:Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, c2007.
Description:vii, 251 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Language:English
Subject:
Universities and colleges -- Canada.
Education, Higher -- Canada.
Education, Higher.
Universities and colleges.
Canada.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/6487915
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Allahar, Anton.
ISBN:9780802091819 (cloth)
0802091814 (cloth)
9780802091826 (paper)
0802091822 (paper)
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (p. [201]-244) and index.
Summary:"In this book, James E. Cote and Anton L. Allahar provide a frank account of the contemporary Canadian university, drawing on their own research and personal experiences as well as conversations with students, counsellors, professors, administrators, educational researchers, and policy-makers past and present. The authors also examine educational and employment statistics and various academic studies and administrative records, which raise important concerns about the social and economic implications of 'credentialism' and increased post-secondary education participation. Challenging official reports and accepted wisdom, the authors argue that many students have been falsely promised, hampered by insufficient preparation at the secondary school level, and indulged in a variety of ways that set them up for failure and disappointment, either in university or as they make their way into the workplace." "Timely and controversial, Ivory Tower Blues is essential reading for students, parents, educators, policy-makers, and indeed anyone with a stake in our current education systems."--Jacket.
Other form:Online version: Côté, James E. Ivory tower blues. Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, c2007
Table of Contents:
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Canada's World-Leading University System: Image versus Reality
  • Who Should Read This Book?
  • 1. Troubles in Paradise
  • The Disengaged Student
  • Higher Expectations, Lower Effort
  • Credentialism and Grade Inflation
  • Credentialism and Academic Disengagement
  • Roots of Student Disengagement
  • The New Functions of Higher Education
  • Sorting, Weeding, and Cooling
  • The Obsession with High Grades: Grade Inflation Up Close
  • Conclusion
  • 2. The Professor as Reluctant Gatekeeper
  • How the New Functions Have Affected the Interpersonal Dynamics of Teaching and Learning: Faculty Disengagement
  • The Growth of Education as a Business
  • Life in the Credential Mart
  • Deskilling of the Professoriate
  • The Cult of Self-esteem and Other Sources of the Sense of Entitlement
  • Learning to Live with Student Disengagement
  • Awareness of the Issues: Sliding Standards
  • Perceptions of Student Engagement: Institutionalized Indifference
  • The Downward Spiral: The New Normal
  • Job Satisfaction and Job Stress: Being Thick-Skinned
  • Student Evaluations: Necessary Evils?
  • Sharing the Blame
  • Conclusion: Higher Education as a Big Business
  • 3. The Student as a Reluctant Intellectual
  • The Hazardous Passage to Adulthood
  • The Millennial Generation
  • The Gamut of Student Engagement
  • Voices of Disengagement
  • Student Empowerment
  • The Retreat of Faculty
  • Grade Inflation and the Democratization of Education
  • Education as a Commodity
  • Standards and Criteria
  • Edubusiness: University as Corporation
  • Conclusion: System Failure of Students
  • 4. Parents as Investors and Managers: The Bank of Mom and Dad (BMD)
  • Education as an Investment
  • Setting the Right Goals
  • Estimating Costs
  • Baby Boomer Parents and the Experiences of Their Children
  • The Mini-Me and the Helicopter Parent
  • In Defence of the Helicopter Parent
  • How Parents Influence and Support Their Children
  • Aspirations
  • Finances: The Bottom Line
  • Conclusion
  • 5. Policy Implications: So What Is University Good For? What Is Added beyond Alternatives?
  • Credentialism Revisited: A Brief History
  • You Can Lead Them to Water, but...
  • Grade Inflation Revisited: Underlying Causes
  • The Science of Grade Inflation and the Route to Reform
  • The University Graduate Revisited: What Is Added beyond Other Trajectories to the Workplace and Adulthood?
  • Show Me the Numbers: What Science Says about the High End of Benefits of Higher Education
  • Monetary Rates of Return
  • Looking beyond Statistical Averages: What Science Says about the Low End of the Benefits of the University Education
  • Underemployment Revisited
  • The Accessibility Issue
  • The Relative Merits of Soft and Hard Sorting Systems: Dealing with Accessibility
  • Conclusion: The Idea of the University - Education versus Training
  • Appendix
  • Methodological Considerations
  • Defining and Measuring Grade Inflation
  • Notes
  • Index
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