What are Universities For?

Front Cover
Penguin UK, Feb 23, 2012 - Education - 240 pages

Across the world, universities are more numerous than they have ever been, yet at the same time there is unprecedented confusion about their purpose and scepticism about their value. What Are Universities For? offers a spirited and compelling argument for completely rethinking the way we see our universities, and why we need them.

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money. Instead, he argues that we must reflect on the different types of institution and the distinctive roles they play. In particular we must recognize that attempting to extend human understanding, which is at the heart of disciplined intellectual enquiry, can never be wholly harnessed to immediate social purposes - particularly in the case of the humanities, which both attract and puzzle many people and are therefore the most difficult subjects to justify.

At a time when the future of higher education lies in the balance, What Are Universities For? offers all of us a better, deeper and more enlightened understanding of why universities matter, to everyone.

 

Selected pages

Contents

The Global Multiversity? PART
A Very Short History
Newman Revisited
The Character of the Humanities
Universities as a Public Good
Occasions for Advocacy
Bibliometry
The Business Analogy
HiEdBizUK
Impact
Brownes Gamble
A Complex Inheritance
References
Acknowledgements
Copyright

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What are Universities For?
Stefan Collini
No preview available - 2012

Common terms and phrases

A. C. Bradley academic activities argument arts assessment assumptions attempt become bibliometric methods Birmingham Oratory British universities century chapter characterize colleagues contemporary contribution course criticism cultural David Willetts decades departments disciplines discourse discussion economic example fees funding graduates HEFCE higher education humanities idea ideal impact individual intellectual enquiry interest involved Jaroslav Pelikan John Maynard Keynes judgement justification kind language least less liberal education literary matters means measure Multiversity Neil MacGregor Newman obvious Oxford particular partly perhaps philosophy political practical present proposals purposes question reason recent recognize relevant Research Assessment Exercises response Robbins Report scholarly scholars scholarship sciences scientific sense simply social society Stefan Collini subjects suggest teaching things top-up fees topic traditional trying types of institution understanding university education

About the author (2012)

In recent years, Stefan Collini has become one of the most distinctive and respected voices in public debates about the nature of universities and their place in modern society.He is a frequent contributor to The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, and other publications, as well as an occasional broadcaster.Among his books, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (2006), a major analysis of the role of the intellectual and its place in British culture, has received particularly widespread attention in both the academic world and the general media, while reviewers of his most recent collection of essays, Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics (2008), have described him as 'one of Britain's finest essaysists and writers' - 'he is astute, analytical, and often killingly funny'.His other books include Public Moralists (1991), Matthew Arnold: a Critical Portrait (1994), and English Pasts: Essays in History and Culture (1999); he is also the editor of a widely praised edition of C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures (1993).He is Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Bibliographic information

TitleWhat are Universities For?
AuthorStefan Collini
PublisherPenguin UK, 2012
ISBN0141970375, 9780141970370
Length240 pages
Subjects ›  ›  › 

Education / Adult & Continuing Education
Education / Aims & Objectives
Education / Philosophy, Theory & Social Aspects
Education / Schools / Levels / Higher
Literary Collections / Essays
  
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