College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be by Andrew Delbanco
My rating:Â 4 of 5 stars
Andrew Delbanco opens this book describing a faculty meeting early in his tenure at Columbia where the end of “needs blind†admissions was being debated. He described this debate as the beginning of a journey of thinking about not only his chosen discipline but the whys and wherefores of the university, of which this book is a product.
The book follows the schema of the title. He looks at the origins of colleges in this country, particularly dwelling on the church-related character of their beginnings, the changes in college education post-Civil War driven by our industrial economy and the influence of the German research university model, and the current state of the collegiate world. [Read more…] about Book Review: College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be