Full Description
What is the reason for the American university's global preeminence? How did the American university succeed where the development of the German university, from which it took so much, stalled? In this closely-argued book, Meyer suggests that the key to the American university's success is its institutional design of self-government. Where other university systems are dependent on the patronage of state, church, or market, the American university is the first to achieve true autonomy, which it attained through an intricate system of engagements with societal actors and institutions that simultaneously act as amplifiers of its impact and as checks on the university's ever-present corrosive tendencies.
Built on a searching analysis of the design thinking of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Adam Smith and closely tracing the learning process by which Americans adapted the German model, The Design of the University dismisses efforts to copy superficial features of the American university in order to achieve world-class rank. Calling attention to the design details of the university and the particulars of its institutional environment, this volume identifies the practices and choices that produced the gold standard for today's world class higher education.
Contents
Part 1: Glimpses of a New Design 1. Introduction: The "World Class" Discourse and the Perspective of Institutional Design 2. Ticknor in Göttingen: The Discovery of a New Institution 3. Adam Smith and "The Very Absurd Constitution of the English Universitys" 4. Humboldt's Design Revolution: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back Part 2: Institutional Learning: Events, Actors, and Beliefs 5. The Migration of an Institution: From Boston to Berlin and Back 6. Contested Designs: Scholars and Patricians 7. Protestants and Philanthropists 8. Centralizers and Localizers 9. Purity or Utility? The Business School in the Academy 10. Fortuitous Idiosyncrasies: How Humboldt Flourished in America Part 3: Achieving Self-Government: Six American Design Shifts 11. Collegial Self-Government 12. Executive Presidents 13. Infrastructure of Independence 14. Hierarchies and Heterarchies 15. From State to Civil Society 16. Shared Governance17. Systemic Design Properties: Autonomy as Complex Self-Organization Part 4: Conclusion 18. Self-Government as Fragile Equilibrium Afterword: Towards "World Class" Managerialism?
