Work and Integrity: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in America: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Author: William M Sullivan
Work and Integrity is a timely resource that examines the crisis as well as the promise of professionalism in contemporary society. This vital book argues for the importance of a new civic professionalism that reflects the ideals of democracy and public service in our ever more complex economic environment. A publication of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Work and Integrity explores the most current thinking on the various (and often conflicting) ways in which the concept of professional work is understood. Using examples from the United States and Europe, the author describes how the professions evolved from a limited kind of genteel occupation into one of the most widely emulated and sought-after models of work. The book also explores the rise of complex institutions of industrial and postindustrial society, especially the university and the bureaucratic structures of business, government, health care, and education.
Library Journal
Sullivan examines the historical role of professionals in American society, pointing out that the professions have been affected and changed by new work patterns. He argues that, given increasing global interdependence coupled with emerging information technology, professionals in the public and private sector must re-examine their responsibility to larger society. Reinventing professionalism as a civic art is a central theme of the book. Thus, integrity in professional work includes the social dimensions of caring for people and purposes and making commitments to the social good. This is a well-documented scholarly treatise, more theoretical than applied. Highly recommended for academic libraries.-Jane M. Kathman, Coll. of St. Benedict Lib., St. Joseph, Minn.
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Sullivan is a professor at LaSalle University and has previously coauthored thoughtful works such as "The Good Society" (1991), which analyzes our social institutions, and "Habits of the Heart" (1985), which considers individualism and commitment. Here he reflects on the role of professionals and the idea of professionalism in today's society. He traces the rise of professionalism and considers what it means to be a professional. He also muses over whether the decline in professional ethics and standards is the cause or the result of a general social malaise; consequently, Sullivan issues a call for those in the professions to return to the values that originally defined professionalism.
Books about economics: How the West Grew Rich or Pattern Classification
Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much
Author: Ronald G Ehrenberg
America's elite colleges and universities are the best in the world. They are also the most expensive, with tuition rising faster than the rate of inflation over the past thirty years and no indication that this trend will abate.
Ronald G. Ehrenberg explores the causes of this tuition inflation, drawing on his many years as a teacher and researcher of the economics of higher education and as a senior administrator at Cornell University. Using incidents and examples from his own experience, he discusses a wide range of topics, including endowment policies, admissions and financial aid policies, the funding of research, tenure and the end of mandatory retirement, information technology, libraries and distance learning, student housing, and intercollegiate athletics.
He shows that elite colleges and universities, having multiple, relatively independent constituencies, suffer from ineffective central control of their costs. And in a fascinating analysis of their response to the ratings published by magazines such as U.S. News & World Report, he shows how they engage in a dysfunctional competition for students.
In the short run, these colleges and universities have little need to worry about rising tuition, since the number of qualified students applying for entrance is rising even faster. But in the long run, it is not at all clear that the increases can be sustained.
Library Journal
Unlike businesses, which strive to keep costs at a minimum, universities must spend to make themselves as attractive as possible to their constituents. Ehrenberg, a senior administrator and professor of economics at Cornell University, examines the factors influencing the spiraling tuition costs of the past decade: the need to spend money to have the best facilities, faculties, and learning tools in order to attract the best and brightest students, the need to spend for athletics and other programs to keep alumni support strong, the self-governing nature of university faculty, and the increasing pressure to spend in order to increase ratings in external publications. Observes Ehrenberg, "As long as lengthy lines of highly qualified applicants keep knocking at its door no institution has a strong incentive to unilaterally end the spending race." This highly readable examination of the American higher education system is an excellent addition to any public or academic library.--Mark Bay, Univ. of Houston Lib. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Table of Contents:
I Setting the Stage
1 Why Do Costs Keep Rising at Selective Private Colleges and Universities?
2 Who Is in Charge of the University?
II Wealth and the Quest for Prestige
3 Endowment Policies,Development Policies, and the Color of Money
4 Undergraduate and Graduate Program Rankings
5 Admissions and Financial Aid Policies
III The Primacy of Science over Economics
6 Why Relative Prices Don't Matter
7 Staying on the Cutting Edge in Science
IV The Faculty
8 Salaries
9 Tenure and the End of Mandatory Retirement
V Space
10 Deferred Maintenance, Space Planning, and Imperfect Information
11 The Costs of Space
VI Academic and Administrative Issues
12 Internal Transfer Prices
13 Enrollment Management
14 Information Technology, Libraries, and Distance Learning
VII The Nonacademic Infrastructure
15 Parking and Transportation
16 Cooling Systems
VIII Student Life
17 Intercollegiate Athletics and Gender Equity
18 Dining and Housing
IX Conclusion
19 Looking to the Future
20 A Final Thought
Appendix. Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Retirement
Plans
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
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