Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities

The Evolution of Higher Education

Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities [Hardcover]

Richard A. DeMillo (Author)

The vast majority of American college students attend two thousand or so private and public institutions that might be described as the Middle--reputable educational institutions, but not considered equal to the elite and entrenched upper echelon of the Ivy League and other prestigious schools. Richard DeMillo has a warning for these colleges and universities in the Middle: If you do not change, you are heading for irrelevance and marginalization. In Abelard to Apple, DeMillo argues that these institutions, clinging precariously to a centuries-old model of higher education, are ignoring the social, historical, and economic forces at work in today's world. In the age of iTunes, open source software, and for-profit online universities, there are new rules for higher education. DeMillo, who has spent years in both academia andin industry, explains how higher education arrived at its current parlous state and offers a road map for the twenty-first century. He describes the evolving model for higher education, from European universities based on a medieval model to American land-grant colleges to Apple's iTunes U and MIT's OpenCourseWare. He offers ten rules to help colleges reinvent themselves (including "Don't romanticize your weaknesses") and argues for a focus on teaching undergraduates. DeMillo's message--for colleges and universities, students, alumni, parents, employers, and politicians--is that any college or university can change course if it defines a compelling value proposition (one not based in "institutional envy" of Harvard and Berkeley) and imagines an institution that delivers it.

Amazon.com: Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book will provoke debate. Presidents and trustees would do well to ponder the set of 10 rules for the 21st century set out in the final chapter. They seem pretty smart to me. Survival may well depend upon it.

Charles Middleton (Times Higher Education)

Full review: timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=417810&c=1

DeMillo believes that the leaders of the "universities in the middle" in the US are often too inward-looking, set in their ways and inclined to romanticise their weaknesses.
Their UK equivalents might be well advised to sit up and take notice.
Matthew Reisz (Times Higher Education)
timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=417823

"Both those who welcome and those (like me) who view with alarm the linking of undergraduate education to student career goals should read this wide-ranging and deeply informed analysis of the issues." -- Stanley Fish, Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Law, Florida International University, New York Times columnist, author of How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One

(Stanley Fish )

"This thoroughly engaging book provides a view of higher education that is future-oriented and technology-savvy yet rooted in the sweeping historical pageant of the world's universities. It brings more than a little tough love to our sometimes self-satisfied American research universities while acknowledging and encouraging boldness in facing today's challenges, opportunities, and responsibilities. It is a unique volume and should be read by all who care about the future of higher education." -- Charles M. Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering, and President Emeritus, MIT

(Charles Vest )

"Using a plethora of examples, quotes from intellectuals, and his own analysis and experience, DeMillo beautifully and forcefully argues for change. University administrators, including the Presidents, Provosts, and the Deans, will find this book an asset as they consider curricular and structural changes in the face of the immense popularity of the Internet." -- Aditya P. Mathur, Professor of Computer Science, Purdue University

(Aditya Mathur )

"This book will provoke debate." -- Charles R. Middleton, Times Higher Education

From the Author

When academics get together to talk about the future, they talk mainly to each other, but the American system of higher education has many more stakeholders than that. Over the course of months, the intended audience for what was now clearly becoming a book manuscript shifted noticeably from my academic colleagues to a more general readership--parents, students, taxpayers, elected officials, employers, decision makers at all levels--citizens who have a stake in what happens to the nation's colleges and universities and want to be informed about the forces shaping their future.

This book is intended to reach the many stakeholders in America's higher education system who are outside the academy, who are not involved in higher education on a daily basis, and whose voices are seldom heard from within. It is not a book of secrets, but I suspect that many readers will be surprised by what they read here. Some of my colleagues will be shocked that the curtain has been parted, but many more will welcome the daylight.


I resisted the temptation to write a business book for universities, although I have tried to identify the milestones that should be on any roadmap for change. I have no recipes for success. Beyond the Rules for the Twenty-First Century inchapter 20, there are no concise chapter summaries that can be transcribed to executive briefings. This book should be read like a novel. Each chapter reveals a little more about the forces shaping our institutions, the character of American higher education, and why some universities make good choices while others do not.