cover image Checklist for Change: Making American Higher Education a Sustainable Enterprise

Checklist for Change: Making American Higher Education a Sustainable Enterprise

Robert Zemsky. Rutgers Univ., $27.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-8135-6134-9

In University of Pennsylvania higher education scholar Zemsky’s (Remaking the American University) blunt and accessible new book, he delivers a refreshing vision and outline for reforming American higher education that is neither starry-eyed nor hopeless, and thankfully free of neo-inspirational screed, flowery rhetoric, or a call-to-arms ending. His diagnosis of and solutions to escalating costs, improving scholarship, and raising completion rates are thought-provoking, and he cites many real-life innovations. For example, at the University of Minnesota’s new Rochester campus, through a collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, only one bachelor’s degree is offered—in health sciences, naturally. The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, by analyzing dismal completion rates found “barrier courses” in general education requirements, causing large numbers of students to fail and then drop out. The author ends with a long and clear checklist of how interlocking parts of the higher education world can change the American university. Though Zemsky begins by writing that “the number of people on whom change within higher education actually depends is substantially less than a thousand,” this candor makes the book a more satisfying read, cementing his clear wish to not talk down to his audience. The lay reader can only hope this book reaches those under-a-thousand decision makers. (Aug.)