The Worth Of The University

DIV Published on the occasion of Richard C. Levin’s retirement as president of Yale University, this captivating collection of speeches and essays from the past decade reflects both his varied intellectual passions and his deep commitment to university life and leadership. Whether discussing the economic implications of climate change or speaking to an incoming class of Yale freshmen, he argues for the vital importance of scholarship and the critical role that universities play in educating students and promoting the overall well-being of our society. This collection is a sequel to The Work of the University, which contained the principal writings from Levin’s first decade as Yale’s president, and it enunciates many of the same enduring themes: forging a strong partnership with the city of New Haven, rebuilding Yale’s physical infrastructure, strengthening science and engineering, and internationalizing the university. But this companion volume also captures the essence of university leadership. In addressing topics as varied as his personal sources of inspiration, the development of Asian universities, and the university’s role in promoting innovation and economic growth, Levin challenges the reader to be more engaged, more creative, more innovative, and above all, a better global citizen. Throughout, his commitment to and affection for Yale shines through. /div

A selection of speeches and essays from the author's second decade as president of Yale University.

A former United States Secretary of Education and a liberal arts graduate expose the broken promise of higher education.

For many students, a bachelor's degree is considered the golden ticket to a more financially and intellectually fulfilling life. But the disturbing reality is that debt, unemployment, and politically charged pseudo learning are more likely outcomes for many college students today than full-time employment and time-honored knowledge. This raises the question: is college still worth it? Who is responsible for debt-saddled, undereducated students, and how do future generations of students avoid the same problems? In a time of economic uncertainty, what majors and schools will produce competitive graduates? Is College Worth It? uses personal experience, statistical analysis, and real-world interviews to provide answers to some of the most troubling social and economic problems of our time.

A timely examination of the attachments we form to objects and how they might be used to reduce waste Rampant consumerism has inundated our planet with pollution and waste. Yet attempts to create environmentally friendly forms of consumption are often co-opted by corporations looking to sell us more stuff. In Things Worth Keeping, Christine Harold investigates the attachments we form to the objects we buy, keep, and discard, and explores how these attachments might be marshaled to create less wasteful practices and balance our consumerist and ecological impulses. Although all economies produce waste, no system generates as much or has become so adept at hiding its excesses as today’s mode of global capitalism. This book suggests that managing the material excesses of our lives as consumers requires us to build on, rather than reject, our desire for and attraction to objects. Increasing environmental awareness on its own will be ineffective at reversing ecological devastation, Harold argues, unless it is coupled with a more thorough understanding of how and why we love the things that imbue our lives with pleasure, meaning, and utility. From Marie Kondo’s method for decluttering that asks whether the things in our lives “spark joy” to the advent of emotionally durable design, which seeks to reduce consumption and waste by increasing the meaningfulness of the relationship between user and product, Harold explores how consumer psychology and empathetic design can transform our perception of consumer products from disposable to interconnected. An urgent call for rethinking consumerism, Things Worth Keeping shows that by recognizing our responsibility for the things we produce, we can become better stewards of the planet.

Previously published as part of HIGHER EDUCATION? A quarter of a million dollars. It's the going tab for four years at most top-tier colleges. But is it worth it? In this provocative work, the renowned sociologist Andrew Hacker and New York Times writer Claudia Dreifus investigate whether the most high-ranking and sought-after American colleges and universities are worth their haloed reputations. Hacker and Dreifus refer to this top-tier group as "the Golden Dozen"—the top twelve ultra-desired schools that inspire the fiercest competition and elitist devotion amongst college applicants and their parents. But what exactly are these applicants and their parents embracing when they anxiously seek admission to the Golden Dozen? Do these schools really represent the "best" education in the nation? And what does "the best" mean anyway?

"A harrowing account of the profoundly consequential decisions American universities made about refugee scholars from Nazi-dominated Europe. The United States' role in saving Europe's intellectual elite from the Nazis is often told as a tale of triumph, which in many ways it was. America welcomed Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, Hannah Arendt and Herbert Marcuse, Rudolf Carnap and Richard Courant, among hundreds of other physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, historians, chemists, and linguists who transformed the American academy. Yet for every scholar who survived and thrived, many, many more did not. To be hired by an American university, a refugee scholar had to be world-class and well connected, not too old and not too young, not too right and not too left and, most important, not too Jewish. Those who were unable to flee were left to face the horrors of the Holocaust. In this rigorously researched book, Laurel Leff rescues from obscurity scholars who were deemed "not worth saving" and tells the riveting, full story of the hiring decisions universities made during the Nazi era."--Provided by publisher.

Improving transparency is critical to the future of higher education. This book articulates the role and necessity of transparency to creating substantial opportunities for innovation and transformation. Current global crises imperil exactly the kinds of progress higher education has helped to create. The sector must contribute now like never before. But it must put its own house in order first, and do a better job conveying its value and transformative potential. The book offers a transparency roadmap: it reveals the pressures reshaping higher education, clarifies the value and nature of transparency, examines emerging reporting platforms, reviews improvement opportunities for students, faculty, institutions and systems, and forecasts how to engineer important next steps. The text synthesises diverse theoretical and empirical perspectives, incorporating analysis of quality and productivity, academic work and leadership, indicators and metrics, commercial trends and institutional models, as well as student learning and outcomes. It creates new futures for higher education by integrating and opening up issues that have been confined largely to insiders.