Ivy Halls of Power

...There are, of course, some difficulties in this approach...

...The differences between the Protestant and Catholic institutions are discussed, and such problems as the inability to compete for the best students against the richer secular institutions, the financial crisis of church-related education, and the local orientation of most of these colleges are dealt with...

...This methodological approach, which is increasingly rare in American social science, has yielded excellent results in this volume...

...The Academic Revolution is the best single volume on modern American higher education which has appeared in some time, and it will become a key source for anyone, layman or specialist, seeking to understand the complexity of the American university...

...The fate of the hundreds of former teachers' colleges turned universities and of the many church-related institutions groping for enough funds to keep their best teachers is important, and to date little attention has been focused on these and other crucial but often not very dramatic educational issues...

...The Academic Revolution places some of the key problems facing the universities—the issue of Negro higher education, social class and college recruitment, the future of research and teaching—into a perspective of the university as an institution and as a part of American society...

...The overall impression one has from The Academic Revolution is that while the top-ranking universities, both public and private, clearly dominate academic life, and will probably continue to do so, there is much more to American higher education than Harvard and the University of California...

...One of the main theses of The Academic Revolution is that American higher education is increasingly influenced by, and moving in, the direction of the top-ranking graduate schools...

...It would be difficult to infer from statistics the nuances of the various types of colleges in America...

...In addition, as the authors point out, even the selective liberal arts colleges which have stressed high quality instruction have had difficulties in holding their best teachers and in attracting outside funds and the best students...

...The Academic Revolution, valuable as it is, is limited in scope...

...The volume is divided into a number of chapters dealing with some of the crucial issues in American higher education...

...In a period when the use of the computer for research is considered almost a necessity, Jencks and Riesman have proved that original and useful research can be done with simple techniques and a thorough knowledge of the subject...

...Riesman is a social scientist at Harvard and author of The Lonely Crowd...

...Jencks and Riesman feel that the predominantly Negro colleges, located largely in the South, are providing a poor education for their students, and that there is little prospect for improvement...

...Jencks is currently a research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education...

...While some of this material has been published by the authors before, much of it is new, and the fact that a number of problems are discussed in one place provides needed perspective...

...It is, moreover, written in a style free from the usual scholarly jargon...

...In the era of the computer and of statistical analysis, The Academic Revolution relies on personal observation and field work rather than statistical samples or questionnaire surveys...

...It is not a complete history of higher education, nor is it a sociological analysis of a specific aspect of university life...

...Yet, where statistical information seems useful, the authors have included such data, as in their analysis of social class and the university...

...Its origins date from before the birth of the republic, but it has changed radically in the past two decades...

...It pinpoints some of the crucial issues facing the university, provides a broad perspective in discussing these issues, and shows an understanding of the problems based on careful observations and thought...

...Undergraduate instruction, with few exceptions, has become more like graduate training with increasing specialization and a lack of general education...

...Jencks and Riesman help to restore some perspective to the discussion of the American university, which often assumes that Harvard or even the University of Wisconsin is the norm of academic life...

...The reasons for this pessimism are that the most able Negroes attend white universities and that all but a few of the Negro institutions are in a precarious financial situation...

...They do have some useful suggestions for the graduate schools, such as deemphasizing the importance of academic disciplines and departments in favor of a more interdisciplinary approach, but these proposals do not seem to go to the roots of the problems...

...Some historical aspects have been slighted, and certainly not all aspects of the university have been discussed...

...The relationship of the university to private industry and to Government-sponsored research is a crucial question which has helped to cause a small revolution at Columbia University...

...The authors clearly know more about some aspects of the issues with which they deal than with others...

...Yet, the church-related college is still an important, although, as Jencks and Riesman point out, a declining element in the total university -scene...

...While the authors feel that church-related higher education will survive, its role in the mainstream of the American university will probably continue to decline...

...Reviewed by Philip G. Altbach The university in America presents a number of paradoxes...

...Despite these omissions, The Academic Revolution is a significant volume...

...These paradoxes, which indicate some of the confusion which surround American higher education, make Christopher Jencks and David Ries-man's impressive^ volume all the more useful at the present time...

...Nevertheless, as Jencks and Riesman point out, these kinds of institutions, and their white counterparts at the bottom of the academic ladder, do serve a valuable function in a period marked by a trend toward universal higher education...

...But the major contribution of the volume is a careful analysis of personal observations and field work, and a thorough understanding of the context of the American university...

...It is at once one of the most powerful institutions in society, and yet it has an image of ivory-tower aloofness...

...Their analysis of the future of Negro higher education, a portion of which was published in Harvard Educational Review not long ago, was attacked by many as unduly pessimistic or even paternalistic...

...Furthermore, as academic prestige is increasingly based on research and publication, and not on teaching, in many universities teaching becomes a relatively unimportant function...

...It is the source of knowledge about much in society, but has itself seldom been studied...

...Jencks and Riesman consider the future of religiously-based higher education in the United States, a topic often ignored when talking about the top ranking American universities...

...This problem is not analyzed in this volume, and the whole relationship of the university to the "New Left" and the cry for student power are only touched on...

...Scant attention, for example, is paid to the crucial role which the Federal Government has assumed in higher education...

...Jencks and Riesman provide a useful lesson for American social scientists...

...It is more and less...

...This volume discusses some of the key problems facing the American university in both historical and sociological perspectives...

...While clearly not sanguine about this orientation, Jencks and Riesman seem to feel that it is almost inevitable, and they have no overall plan for reform...

...Yet, these are relatively minor criticisms of a generally insightful and articulate book...