The State of the Academy: A Review Essay
Abstract
Two recent books (Professor X, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower and Arum and Roksa, Academically Adrift) both indict American higher education and, at least implicitly, compare its situation today with that of an idealized past when college students were better and professors had it easy. In the Basement of the Ivory Tower describes the experiences “Professor X,” who writes colorfully and provocatively about the time he had spent as an adjunct instructor of English teaching evening classes at two regional schools. Academically Adrift is written by two sociologists, with the assistance of several graduate students, and it received very wide press coverage when it appeared in 2011 because of its claim that despite the vast amounts of money being spent by American students to get a college education, most of them aren’t learning very much. Together, these works lead us to ask whether progress is possible in the diverse and baffling environment of current college teaching and to wonder what that progress would look like.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
