cover image In the Company of Scholars: The Struggle for the Soul of Higher Education

In the Company of Scholars: The Struggle for the Soul of Higher Education

Julius Getman. University of Texas Press, $24.95 (312pp) ISBN 978-0-292-72755-7

His tone is dignified, but Getman--a University of Texas law professor and a former president of the American Association of University Professors--gets down in the dirt for this disquisition on our halls of ivy. Many academics are sneering, posturing, mind-wandering, lazy, turf-fighting snobs and liars, he avers, naming names while making confessions of his own. With this assortment of pensees, anecdotes and memories of his efforts as labor negotiator of academic disputes, Getman claims a loftier goal than expose. He intends to reveal how elitism and teaching in higher education are competing impulses--which he does make clear, though with some meanderings off course. Interviews with other academics illustrate his observation that the term ``academic community'' is a misnomer, with Stanford University appearing as a place of feverish scholarly territoriality. Getman cunningly skewers academic snobbery and pretense, but he offers few suggestions for reform. (Jan.)