Cracks in the Ivory Tower

Abstract

Ideally, universities are centers of learning, in which great researchers dispassionately search for truth, no matter how unpopular those truths must be. The marketplace of ideas assures that truth wins out against bias and prejudice. Yet many people worry that there's rot in the heart of the higher education business. This book reveals the problems are even worse than anyone suspects. Marshalling an array of data, the authors systematically show how contemporary American universities fall short of these ideals and how bad incentives make faculty, administrators, and students act unethically. While universities may at times excel at identifying and calling out injustice outside their gates, the text contends that individuals within them are primarily guided by self-interest at every level. It finds that the problems are deep and pervasive: Most academic marketing and advertising are semi-fraudulent; colleges and individual departments regularly make promises they do not and cannot keep; and most students cheat a little, while many cheat a lot. Trenchant and wide-ranging, the text elucidates the many ways in which faculty and students alike have every incentive to make teaching and learning secondary.

Teaching epistemic integrity to promote reliable scientific communication

“…In recent years, some philosophers and social scientists have expressed doubts about the efficacy of education in improving reasoning skills, critical thinking, or moral virtues (Deresiewicz, 2015;Caplan, 2018;Brennan and Magness, 2019). Although empirical research in these domains is scarce (El Soufi and See, 2019;Tuononen et al, 2022), we are not convinced that this scepticism reflects the overall trends reported in the scientific literature.…”

The More Divided Academy: Did the Fall of the Faculty and the Rise of the All-Administrative University Increase Racial Conflict in Higher Education?

“…As early as President Eisenhower’s military industrial complex speech (Ledbetter, 2011), observers have raised concerns that external funding has shifted higher education missions from serving undergraduates to revenue maximizing research, and administrative compliance supporting that research, and to satisfy ever growing public regulations affecting any institution taking public funding. This has led to an ever-thicker higher education administrative class (Brennan & Magness, 2019; Ginsburg, 2011; Greene, 2010). Further, perhaps ironically, the neoliberal reforms of higher education linking funding with measured results have led colleges and universities, including private institutions, to focus more on prestige seeking behaviors raising official rankings, as indeed some university presidents (e.g., Trachtenberg, 2012) and journalists (Washington Monthly editors, 2013) lament, and to enhance public relations functions such as college athletics (Levine, 2014).…”

“…Further, faculty growth has come disproportionately among adjunct and renewable contract rather than tenured or tenure track posts, generally undermining the ability of faculty to challenge large and well-compensated administrative staff (Cross & Goldenberg, 2009; Smith, 2015). Indeed Brennan and Magness (2019) speculate that administrators prefer adjunct faculty since they are more compliant, and subject to downsizing before administrators.…”

“…Anecdotal evidence suggests that such teaching administrators have faded in number, in part as leadership salaries have risen far more rapidly than those of faculty, undermining the economic logic of having (highly paid) administrators fill classroom positions when their talents might bring more value elsewhere. Further, as noted above, administrative staff have expanded (Brennan & Magness, 2019; Ginsburg, 2011; Levine, 2011). In combination these changes have increased the social and organizational distance between administrative leaders and faculty, reducing the informal exchange of information across hierarchical levels.…”

“…Both anecdotes (e.g., Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Professor, 2012; Zimmerman, 2016) and data (Arum & Roksa, 2011; Brennan & Magness, 2019) suggest that full time students study far fewer hours than in the 1960s, and in most majors at most universities, learn relatively little content and few skills even while earning degrees. This has long-term costs to students (Arum & Roksa, 2014).…”