Home Tag "Book Reviews"

The Uncertain Future of American Public Higher Education by Daniel M. Johnson

Former University of Toledo President Daniel Johnson’s career, spanning many years and roles at multiple institutions, provides him with an insider’s perspective on higher education. In his introduction, while he acknowledges defending the system for the last 25 years of his career, he also notes that assessing it from the outside gives him a new point of view.

According to Dr. Johnson, paradigms can change and “the paradigm that provides the conceptual, pedagogical, legal, regulatory and financial structures for advanced learning and certification has multiple cracks – some large and some small – all seriously weakening the infrastructure, the very framework, and foundation upon which our public colleges and universities currently rest.” The failure of the higher education paradigm to meet the challenges of today’s education environment brings substantial pressure for change. He maintains that the current manners and modes in which higher education functions are costly and ineffectual and have been for years. Our future success depends on how we prepare our students to find meaningful roles in an economy driven by artificial intelligence, robotics, and an explosion of digitally-based enterprises and industries.

The Value and Virtue of a Book List

Warren Buffet has noted that the key to innovation and success is the voracious consumption of information. Amid today’s unceasing push of content and media to your mobile device, it might surprise some that many luminaries ranging from investors to leading technology companies undertake their information gathering the old-fashioned way: through books.

‘THE END OF COLLEGE: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere’ by Kevin Carey

The best non-fiction tells a story rather than provides an analytical narrative. Kevin Carey’s new book, The End of College, weaves a compelling story about innovations in information technology that will disrupt the meritocracy of elite colleges and universities and enable low-cost education for hundreds of millions of people worldwide: “The University of Everywhere.”

Instead of attending traditional institutions, students will access books, lecture videos, and digital learning environments through the Internet.