Exploring the current state of relationships between public universities, government leaders, and the citizens who elect them, this book offers insight into how to repair the growing rift between higher education and its public. Higher education gets a bad rap these days. The public perception is that there is a growing rift between public universities and the elected officials who support them. In What's Public about Public Higher Ed?, Stephen M. Gavazzi and E. Gordon Gee explore the reality of that supposed divide, offering qualitative and quantitative evidence of why it's happened and what can be done about it. Critical problems, Gavazzi and Gee argue, have arisen because higher education leaders often assumed that what was good for universities was good for the public at large. For example, many public institutions have placed more emphasis on research at the expense of teaching, learning, and outreach. This university-centric viewpoint has contributed significantly to the disconnect between our nation's public universities and the representatives of the people they are supposed to be serving. But this gulf can only be bridged, the authors insist, if people at the universities take the time to really listen to what the citizens of their states are asking of them. Gavazzi and Gee draw on never-before-gathered survey data on public sentiment regarding higher education. Collected from citizens residing in the four most populous states-California, Florida, New York, and Texas-plus Ohio and West Virginia, the authors' home states, this data reflects critical issues, including how universities spend taxpayer money, the pursuit of national rankings, student financial aid, and the interplay of international activities versus efforts to create "closer to home" impact. An unflinching, no-holds-barred exploration of what citizens really think about their public universities, What's Public about Public Higher Ed? also places special emphasis on the events of 2020-including the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst racial unrest seen in half a century-as major inflection points for understanding the implications of the survey's findings.
Stephen M. Gavazzi (COLUMBUS, OH) is a professor of human development and family science at The Ohio State University. He is the author of Families with Adolescents: Bridging the Gaps between Theory, Research, and Practice. E. Gordon Gee (MORGANTOWN, WV) is the president of West Virginia University. He is the coeditor of Leading Colleges and Universities: Lessons from Higher Education Leaders. Together, Gavazzi and Gee are the coauthors of Land-Grant Universities for the Future.
Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Opportunities and Threats to Higher Education Chapter 2. What Citizens Think about Their State's Public Universities: Steps toward Ground Truthing Chapter 3. Public Funding for Teaching, Research, and Community Engagement Chapter 4. Focusing Attention on Rural and Urban Communities Chapter 5. Global Footprint versus Closer to Home Chapter 6. Merit-Based Aid and Needs-Based Aid for Students Chapter 7. National Rankings: The Scourge of Higher Education Chapter 8. Jobs and Politics and Sports, Oh My! Chapter 9. Disdain the Beaten Path: The Year 2020 as a Turning Point for the American Public University Appendixes 1. Study Survey 2. Multivariate Tests 3. Tests of Between-Subjects Effects 4. Multiple Comparisons Notes Index
Exploring the current state of relationships between public universities, government leaders, and the citizens who elect them, this book offers insight into how to repair the growing rift between higher education and its public.
