In Pursuit Of Prestige

"The heart of the book is an analysis showing how these strategies are carried out based on site-visit data from 26 highly diverse colleges and universities. This broad sampling covers all geographic regions of the country and every type of institution from elite research universities to community colleges. The authors then consider what strategies are possible in particular markets and how they affect students and competing institutions. Their conclusions draws out the implications of strategy and competition for the various customers of the U.S. higher education industry. Groundbreaking and genuinely exploratory in methodology, In Pursuit of Prestige will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of higher education."--BOOK JACKET.

By almost any measure, higher education is a vital part of the U.S. economy and society. Yet there is concern that the sector is inefficient or ill equipped to adapt to a changing environment. The information revolution, an aging population, demographic shifts, and a declining fiscal base all present it with major challenges.In Pursuit of Prestige describes the results of a two-year study of higher education in the United States designed to shed light on these issues. This volume examines higher education as an industry. It focuses on how institutions serve four identifiable markets that generate revenues (student enrollment, research funding, public fiscal support, and private giving). They analyze higher educational institutions' investment, pricing, and marketing behaviors, and the nature of competition among schools. They review the industry's basic conditions and market structure, then define the three key dimensions--degree level, scope, and resource allocation--by which institutions map out strategies for competing for markets.The heart of the book is an analysis showing how these strategies are carried out based on site-visit data from 26 highly diverse colleges and universities. This broad sampling covers all geographic regions of the country and every type of institution from elite research universities to community colleges. The authors then consider what strategies are possible in particular markets and how they affect students and competing institutions. Their conclusion draws out the implications of strategy and competition for the various customers of the U.S. higher education industry. Groundbreaking and genuinely exploratory in methodology.

"The heart of the book is an analysis showing how these strategies are carried out based on site-visit data from 26 highly diverse colleges and universities. This broad sampling covers all geographic regions of the country and every type of institution from elite research universities to community colleges. The authors then consider what strategies are possible in particular markets and how they affect students and competing institutions. Their conclusions draws out the implications of strategy and competition for the various customers of the U.S. higher education industry. Groundbreaking and genuinely exploratory in methodology, In Pursuit of Prestige will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of higher education."--BOOK JACKET.

The achievement of academic excellence is inherently competitive. Deliberate government policies, globalisation and changes in communication technologies mean that competitiveness in the academic world is sharper than ever before. At the centre of this is the seeking of prestige, at all levels from the national system to the individual. Prestige in Academic Life aims to increase understanding of motivation in universities by exploring the part that prestige plays, for good and ill. The book’s focus on motivation and prestige helps to answer fundamental questions that run through much discussion on universities, such as why some problems are never solved; why change can be so difficult to achieve; and how individuals and groups can enable it to happen. Issues explored include: • What role does prestige play in academic life? • How does prestige play out in the working lives of academics, students, administrators and institutional leaders? • How can the positive aspects of prestige be encouraged and the negative ones diminished? University leaders and managers, academics, administrators and students, indeed all who are interested in universities, will find this valuable reading. It will help those in leadership positions to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and wellbeing of their institutions, and will support academic staff in negotiating their career path. Paul Blackmore is Professor of Higher Education in the International Centre for University Policy Research, Policy Institute at King’s, at King’s College London.

If wars are costly and risky to both sides, why do they occur? Why engage in an arms race when it’s clear that increasing one’s own defense expenditures will only trigger a similar reaction by the other side, leaving both countries just as insecure—and considerably poorer? Just as people buy expensive things precisely because they are more expensive, because they offer the possibility of improved social status or prestige, so too do countries, argues Lilach Gilady. In The Price of Prestige, Gilady shows how many seemingly wasteful government expenditures that appear to contradict the laws of demand actually follow the pattern for what are known as Veblen goods, or positional goods for which demand increases alongside price, even when cheaper substitutes are readily available. From flashy space programs to costly weapons systems a country does not need and cannot maintain to foreign aid programs that offer little benefit to recipients, these conspicuous and strategically timed expenditures are intended to instill awe in the observer through their wasteful might. And underestimating the important social role of excess has serious policy implications. Increasing the cost of war, for example, may not always be an effective tool for preventing it, Gilady argues, nor does decreasing the cost of weapons and other technologies of war necessarily increase the potential for conflict, as shown by the case of a cheap fighter plane whose price tag drove consumers away. In today’s changing world, where there are high levels of uncertainty about the distribution of power, Gilady also offers a valuable way to predict which countries are most likely to be concerned about their position and therefore adopt costly, excessive policies.

"By almost any measure, higher education is a vital part of the U.S. economy and society. Yet there is concern that the sector is inefficient or ill equipped to adapt to a changing environment. The information revolution, an aging population, demographic shifts, and a declining fiscal base all present it with major challenges.In Pursuit of Prestige describes the results of a two-year study of higher education in the United States designed to shed light on these issues. This volume examines higher education as an industry. It focuses on how institutions serve four identifiable markets that generate revenues (student enrollment, research funding, public fiscal support, and private giving). They analyze higher educational institutions' investment, pricing, and marketing behaviors, and the nature of competition among schools. They review the industry's basic conditions and market structure, then define the three key dimensions--degree level, scope, and resource allocation--by which institutions map out strategies for competing for markets.The heart of the book is an analysis showing how these strategies are carried out based on site-visit data from 26 highly diverse colleges and universities. This broad sampling covers all geographic regions of the country and every type of institution from elite research universities to community colleges. The authors then consider what strategies are possible in particular markets and how they affect students and competing institutions. Their conclusion draws out the implications of strategy and competition for the various customers of the U.S. higher education industry. Groundbreaking and genuinely exploratory in methodology."--Provided by publisher.

Popular culture portrays college Greek organizations as a training ground for malevolent young aristocrats. Films such as Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, Old School, and Legally Blonde reinforce this stereotype, but they fail to depict the enduring influence of these organizations on their members. Inside Greek U. provides an in-depth investigation of how fraternities and sororities bolster traditional, and potentially damaging, definitions of gender and sexuality. Using evidence gathered in hundreds of focus group sessions and personal interviews, as well as his years of experience as a faculty advisor to Greek organizations, Alan D. DeSantis offers unprecedented access to the world of fraternities and sororities. DeSantis, himself once a member of a fraternity, shows the profoundly limited gender roles available to Greeks: "real men" are taught to be unemotional, sexually promiscuous, and violent; "nice girls," to be nurturing, domestic, and pure. These rigid formulations often lead to destructive attitudes and behaviors, such as eating disorders, date rape, sexual misconduct, and homophobia. Inside Greek U. shows that the Greek experience does not end on graduation day, but that these narrow definitions of gender and sexuality impede students' intellectual and emotional development and limit their range of choices long after graduation. Ten percent of all college students join a Greek organization, and many of the nation's business and political leaders are former members. DeSantis acknowledges that thousands of students join Greek organizations each year in search of meaning, acceptance, friendship, and engagement, and he illuminates the pressures and challenges that contemporary college students face. Inside Greek U. demonstrates how deeply Greek organizations influence their members and suggests how, with reform the worst excesses of the system, fraternities and sororities could serve as a positive influence on individuals and campus life.

Although academics have never lacked for critics, publications on the profession tend to be either popularized polemics, which are engaging but misleading, or scholarly analyses, which are intellectually responsible but of little interest to anyone but specialists. In Pursuit of Knowledge offers an alternative: a unique portrait of academic life that should appeal to both experts and a general audience. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, including higher education, history, law, sociology, economics, and literature, the book focuses on the ways in which the pursuit of status has undermined the pursuit of knowledge. Deborah Rhode argues that both individual scholars and institutions in higher education are caught in an arms race of reputation. The result has been to skew priorities in scholarship, erode commitments to teaching, compromise efforts of public intellectuals, and impede effectiveness in administration. The book offers several solutions to counter these pervasive problems in our research institutions. Rhode makes a case for increasing accountability and realigning reward systems. She argues that what is needed is a greater sense of responsibility among universities and their faculties to narrow the gap between academic ideals and practices. In Pursuit of Knowledge is meticulously researched and elegantly written. It is also exceptionally entertaining in its use of quotations culled from over a hundred academic novels, including works by Kingsley Amis, Saul Bellow, David Lodge, and C.P. Snow.(For example, from P.G. Wodehouse's The Girl in Blue, "The Agee womantold us for three quarters of an hourhow she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.") The result is a highly readable but also deeply reflective analysis of the academic profession.