Stanford Humanities Center
Where does higher education stand after the tumultuous 2010s, a decade bookended by a once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis and a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic? The American Public Research University: Eight Questions on its Recent Past and Open Future explains how the missions and values of public research universities have been reshaped by shifts in politics and finance. Focusing on an illustrative case study of a major university in dramatic transition during the 2010s, it first narrates the impact of public disinvestment on the lives and careers of students, faculty, and administrators. It then considers what will be needed to maintain and improve public universities as leaders in research, teaching, and social impact in years to come. In this workshop, Professor McNeely will present an overview of the book along with a sample chapter.
About the Speaker
Ian McNeely specializes in German history and European cultural history, but also has deep roots in global, comparative history and in historical sociology. As an historian of knowledge, he has always been drawn to "practical intellectuals"—thinkers who also do. Typically this leads him to study groups and individuals who found or reform institutions, infusing ideas from the Western intellectual tradition into the redesign of bureaucracies, parliaments and other political bodies, corporations, and schools. He has a particular interest in figures who found or reform institutions of knowledge and higher learning. His current project centers on American higher education during the 2010s, between the Great Recession and COVID-19. It builds in part on his experiences as a 2016-17 American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow, during which he shadowed academic leaders across the country. He has also served in several administrative roles, including as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences (2012-17), Department Head of German and Scandinavian (2018-21), and Founding Executive Director of the School of Global Studies and Languages (2021-22).
About the Series
Claire and John Radway Research Workshop
Sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center and made possible by support from Claire and John Radway, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities
When
Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa Street
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