New Book: Making the University Matter

Making the University Matteredited by Barbie ZelizerRoutledge – 252 pages
Making the University Matter investigates how academics situate themselves simultaneously in the university and the world and how doing so affects the viability of the university setting.
The university stands at the intersection of two sets of interests, needing to be at one with the world while aspiring to stand apart from it. In an era that promises intensified political instability, growing administrative pressures, dwindling economic returns and questions about economic viability, lower enrollments and shrinking programs, can the university continue to matter into the future? And if so, in which way? What will help it survive as an honest broker? What are the mechanisms for ensuring its independent voice?
Barbie Zelizer brings together some of the leading names in the field of media and communication studies from around the globe to consider a multiplicity of answers from across the curriculum on making the university matter, including critical scholarship, interdisciplinarity, curricular blends of the humanities and social sciences, practical training and policy work.
The collection is introduced with an essay by the editor and each section has a brief introduction to contextualise the essays and highlight the issues they raise.
Introduction: Pondering the University's Future | Barbie Zelizer
Part I On Teaching and Learning Introduction: Models of Teaching and Learning | Brittany Griebling and Adrienne Shaw
1. The Life of the University | Paddy Scannell 2. The Problem of General Education in the Research University | Michael Schudson 3. The University (or College) Keeps Us Honest | Robin Wagner-Pacifici 4. Rethinking Doctoral Education and Careers | Larry Gross
Part II Models of Intellectual Engagement Introduction: Against McCollege | Michael Serazio
5. University in the Age of a Transnational Public Sphere | Slavko Splichal 6. Surviving Through Engagement: The Faculty Responsibility to Defend Liberal Education | S. Elizabeth Bird 7. Monks, Managers and Celebrities: Refiguring the European University | Isabel Capeloa Gil 8. Universities and Globalization: Models and Countermodels | Marwan M. Kraidy
Part III Making Intellectual Work Public Introduction: Closing the Gap Between the Philosophical and the Practical | Susan Mello and Rocio Nunez
9. Thinking While Black | Mark Anthony Neal 10. iPhones and Eyeshades: Journalism and the University's Role in Promoting a Dynamic Public Sphere | Michael Bromley 11. Making Art Matter: Navigating the Collaborative Turn | Ien Ang and Philip Mar 12. Metaphor and Institutional Crisis: The Near-Death Experience of Antioch College | Paula Treichler
Part IV Economies of Knowledge Introduction Resistances and Affordances of the Economic "Bottom Line" | Mario Rodriguez
13. Post-Neoliberal Academic Values: Notes from the UK Higher Education Sector | Nick Couldry 14. Claims of Time(s): Notes on Post-Welfare Public Reason | Risto Kunelius 15. The Entrepreneurial University: Or, Why the University Is No Longer a Public Space (If It Ever Was) | Don Mitchell 16. Outlearning | John Hartley
Part V Institutionalization and Technology Introduction: Assessing the Influence of Institutional and Technological Change |Angela M. Lee and Deborah Lubken
17. The Institutional Transformation of Universities in the Era of Digital Information | Dominic Boyer 18. How to Read Hyper-Text: Media Literacy and Open Access in Higher Education | Richard Cullen Rath 19. Lost in Abundance? Reflections on Disciplinarity | Kaarle Nordenstreng 20. Another Plea for the University Tradition: The Institutional Roots of Intellectual Compromise | Jeff Pooley
Part VI Default Settings and Their Complications Introduction: Politics By Default and Choice | Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt
21. Models of Transnational 'Cooperation': A Site of Geopolitical Struggles? | Elizabeth Jelin 22. Legal Education and the Rise of Rights Consciousness in China | John Nguyet Erni 23. The Academic Career Pipeline: Not Breaking But Pouring | Katherine Sender 24. Producing Cosmopolitan Global Citizens in the U.S. Academy | Radhika Parameswaran