Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Abstract
Professor John Valery White argues that the crisis in higher education has been framed around discomfort with and critiques of changes that have taken place in the last few decades as universities grew and became more complex, and more expensive. These arguments raise valid and significant concerns about higher education and its subcomponents like legal education but on the whole have missed the true challenge to higher education of recent years. He argues that the significant current policy push to improve college attainment has led to the loss of academic authority and leadership by higher education institutions, their administrators, and especially their faculties. This policy challenge has focused discussion on the financial model of higher education and triggered arguments rejecting the core principle around which American higher education has been built. These changes demand faculty leadership in pursuit of what Richard Matasar has termed the "value proposition" in his critiques of legal education. He contends, however, that the existing framework for critiquing higher education obscures the current challenges institutions face and undercuts institutions' ability to meet those challenges, focused as it is on lamenting changes to higher education that are well settled.
Publication Citation
66 Syracuse L. Rev. 545 (2016)
Recommended Citation
White, John Valery, "Seeing Higher Education and Faculty Responsibility Through Richard Matasar's Critiques of Law Schools: College Completion, Economic Viability, and the Liberal Arts Ideal in Higher Education" (2016). Scholarly Works. 1032.
https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/1032