Creating the Future: ‘New Directions’ in American Research Universities     

Brint  Steven 《Minerva》2005,43(1):23-50

This paper assesses the causes and consequences of recent American efforts to configure the research university as an engine of economic and social change. Drawing upon interviews and strategic plans, the paper describes recent policies to encourage interdisciplinary creativity, in a context of increasing income from private gifts and endowments.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the text on page 26.  相似文献   

University–industry collaboration: Patterns of growth for low- and middle-level performers     

Lori Turk-Bicakci  Steven Brint 《Higher Education》2005,49(1-2):61-89

Following landmark legislation passed more than 20 years ago, university–industry relationships have now become central to understanding the changing role of research universities in American Society. The paper analyzes the development of university–industry partnerships during the 1990s. Past studies have used a broad array of measures of ties and a variety of research methodologies, but they have shared a focus on top collaborators or on samples of universities skewed toward the top. However, findings based on top collaborators may not be valid for other universities. Universities involved in mid- to low-levels of collaboration are qualitatively different in many ways from the more extensively studied set of top collaborators, suggesting that characteristics affecting university–industry ties may not be the same for these institutions. The paper shifts the focus away from top collaborators to this sizable and less studied majority. In general, we find that the same characteristics predicting high levels of involvement for the sample as a whole also predict high levels of involvement for the sub-sample of mid- and low-level collaborators. However, We find some particular characteristics of these institutions, such as land grant status, are also associated with stronger ties to industry, and that some characteristics of 25 top institutions do not predict the level of involvement of these lower-level collaborators. We will discuss whether the licensing of new technology is likely ever to become an important source of net revenues for current middle and low-level collaborators. Our findings raise doubts about whether many universities below the top 25 will earn substantial net revenues from licensing, though they do not dispute the potential service value of these ties. The study is based on examination of a wide range of potential influences on university–industry collaboration for institutions that are not currently among the most heavily involved in partnerships. These include status, other institutional characteristics (such as size and control), investment in science and engineering, and characteristics of offices or technology transfer.  相似文献   

Who governs? Academic decision-making in US four-year colleges and universities, 2000–2012     

Apkarian  Jacob  Mulligan  Kerry  Rotondi  Matthew B.  Brint  Steven 《Tertiary Education and Management》2014,20(2):151-164

This study compares the explanatory power of two models of academic governance: dual and managerial control. The research is based on characterizations by chief academic officers of the primary decision-makers involved in 13 types of recurrent academic decisions. We examine change between responses to surveys fielded to US four-year colleges and universities in 2000 and 2012. We find limited support for the dual control and the managerial control models in both years. As an alternative to the two dominant conceptual models, we develop an empirically grounded classification based on multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. In each year we find high faculty participation and management-dominant clusters. The other identified clusters do not map well onto either of the two dominant conceptual models. Given these results, we argue that configurational analysis should be used as a supplement to future studies monitoring the incidence of dual and managerial control in academic governance.  相似文献   

American education,meritocratic ideology,and the legitimation of inequality: the community college and the problem of American exceptionalism     

Steven Brint  Jerome Karabel 《Higher Education》1989,18(6):725-735

This article examines American education in comparative perspective, suggesting that the distinctive structure of the school system is both an embodiment and a source of the felt fluidity of class boundaries in the United States. Several characteristic features of the American educational system are identified: the avoidance of early selection, the lack of sharp segmentation between different types of institutions, relative freedom of movement both among and within institutions, openness to new fields of study, high levels of enrollment, and the provision of opportunities for educational mobility well into adulthood. The two-year public community college, it argues, is an essential expression of these patterns which, through its very accessibility, reinforces the American ideology that it is never too late for individual talent to reveal itself - and to be rewarded. The article concludes with a discussion of the effects of the nation's distinctive school system on American culture and politics, suggesting that the perceived classlessness of American society may in part be a product of its seemingly open and democratic structure of education.The research reported here has been supported by grants from the National Institute of Education (NIE-O-77-0037), the National Science Foundation (SOC77-06658, SES-80-25542 and SES-83-19986) and the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California, Berkeley. This article is a fully collaborative effort by the two authors and is part of a larger study of American public two-year colleges, The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900–1985, forthcoming from Oxford University Press.  相似文献   

Who are the early adopters of new academic fields? Comparing four perspectives on the institutionalization of degree granting programs in US four-year colleges and Universities, 1970–2005     

Steven Brint  Kristopher Proctor  Robert A. Hanneman  Kerry Mulligan  Matthew B. Rotondi  Scott P. Murphy 《Higher Education》2011,61(5):563-585

This paper investigates the characteristics of US colleges and universities that were early adopters of post-1970 academic growth fields. It examines hypotheses drawn from four analytical perspectives on sources of organizational change: organizational ecology, inter-institutional stratification, demographic composition, and historical traditions. Focusing on 20 “newly established” and “emerging” growth fields, we find strong support for density-dependence and organizational size as influences on early adoption for all fields, as well as support for institutional status variables as influences on the early adoption of new liberal arts and basic sciences fields.  相似文献   

Disciplinary Categories, Majors, and Undergraduate Academic Experiences: Rethinking Bok’s “Underachieving Colleges” Thesis     

Steven Brint  Allison M. Cantwell  Preeta Saxena 《Research in higher education》2012,53(1):1-25

Using data from the 2008 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, we show that study time and academic conscientiousness were lower among students in humanities and social science majors than among students in science and engineering majors. Analytical and critical thinking experiences were no more evident among humanities and social sciences majors than among science and engineering majors. All three academically beneficial experiences were, however, strongly related to participation in class and interaction with instructors, and participation was more common among humanities and social sciences students than among science and engineering students. Bok’s (Our underachieving colleges: A candid look at how much students learn and why they should be learning more. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006) influential discussion of “underachievement’ in undergraduate education focused on institutional performance. Our findings indicate that future discussions should take into account differences among disciplinary categories and majors as well.  相似文献   

The Two Cultures of Undergraduate Academic Engagement   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Steven Brint  Allison M. Cantwell  Robert A. Hanneman 《Research in higher education》2008,49(5):383-402

Using data on upper-division students in the University of California system, we show that two distinct cultures of engagement exist on campus. The culture of engagement in the arts, humanities and social sciences focuses on interaction, participation, and interest in ideas. The culture of engagement in the natural sciences and engineering focuses on improvement of quantitative skills through collaborative study with an eye to rewards in the labor market. The two cultures of engagement are strongly associated with post-graduate degree plans. The findings raise questions about normative conceptions of good educational practices in so far as they are considered to be equally relevant to students in all higher education institutions and all major fields of study.

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