Universities must adapt to deregulated society, Frank Rhodes says in new book

By Linda Grace-Kobas

America's major research universities have enjoyed a long period of unprecedented success, but they are facing a rapidly changing environment in which higher education is becoming deregulated and subject to ever-increasing scrutiny, writes Frank H.T. Rhodes in his new book, The Creation of the Future: The Role of the American University (Cornell University Press, 2001).

Rhodes, who was president of Cornell for 18 years (1977 to 1995), draws on his experiences at the Ivy League institution and at the University of Michigan, where he held academic and administrative posts, to review the essential role universities play in modern society and to make recommendations for changes he believes are essential if they are to maintain public understanding and support.

"In an age of limits and constraints, of cynicism and suspicion, the universities must reaffirm the soaring possibilities that enlightened education represents," Rhodes writes. "In an era of broken families, dwindling religious congregations and decaying communities, our nation desperately needs a new model of community -- knowledgeable but compassionate, critical but concerned, skeptical but affirming -- that will serve the clamoring needs of our fragmented society and respond to the nobler, unuttered aspirations of our deeper selves."

The changes Rhodes urges universities to undertake are significant:

• Class size: "... reduce the number of courses universities now offer, many of which represent the fragmentation and pulverization of knowledge to a degree inappropriate for undergraduates."

• Grade inflation: "The goal must be to help more students meet rigorous standards, not to compromise the standards themselves."

• Undergraduate education: "Simply stated, faculty members must recapture the curriculum. They must collectively determine a list of educational objectives and then design an effective way to achieve them. That is easier said than done. It will require critical rethinking, rather than fine-tuning."

• Graduate education: "Each college, program, field and department should develop a rolling, comprehensive plan of graduate enrollment targets, based on available financial support, faculty numbers and expertise, facilities available, and a responsible assessment of the 'job market.' ... Every program should be the expression of a systematic faculty discussion of the comprehensive needs of students in their chosen field, rather than serving primarily the self-interests of faculty members and their institutions."

• The cost of higher education: "... the growing disparity between family income and tuition levels cannot continue unchecked. If universities do not themselves put a brake on rapid cost escalation, others, less informed and less sympathetic to their mission, will do it for them ..."

• Tenure: "Tenure should be one of several career options available to a faculty member. ... Colleges need to find the midpoint between faculties that grow stale and stay in place no matter what and faculties of migrants [poorly paid, part-time faculty] dashing to and from their cars."

Rhodes also is a strong advocate of the public-service role of universities and urges research universities to develop and support productive town-gown partnerships and technology transfer. Cooperative extension programs should be updated and remodeled to address social problems, especially in urban areas. He also feels that teacher-training programs at universities must be "overhauled and improved" in order to improve public education.

Rhodes holds honorary degrees from more than 30 institutions in the United States and abroad. He has served as chair of the American Council on Education, the American Association of Universities and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. At Cornell, he is president emeritus and professor of geology.