Kendell calls book on higher ed too broad

A new book about higher education accuses faculty at colleges and universities of spending less time on teaching and more on research, publishing and outside consulting.

"The Future of Higher Education: Rhetoric, Reality, and the Risks of the Market" also says institutions are focused on recruiting the "best and wealthiest students" to enhance the "prestige" of an institution while attention to need-based financial aid programs lags.

The three authors of the book warn that without "thoughtful and strategic interventions of government," the purposes of higher education will be distorted, further widening the gap between "rhetoric and reality."

It's a book that Utah Commissioner of Higher Education Rich Kendell says paints with "too broad a brush." He said that on Utah campuses there is a "genuine" commitment to students and to creating successful programs.

Kendell said efforts here are ongoing to improve the undergraduate experience, with at least 20 presentations by public higher education officials planned for the next several months. The goal is to get feedback from all of those with a stake in higher education.

"We think it will be a great reality test for us," Kendell said.

Already he's hearing that some who want a higher education can't afford classes or even books, that it's taking people longer to get their degrees and that not enough attention is being paid to students.

The new book, however, does not paint an "accurate" picture of higher education, according to Kendell.

The book is the result of four years of investigating by a group called The Futures Project, a nonprofit think tank based at Brown University. It's billed as a "wake-up call" to leaders of colleges and universities and to policymakers.

On page 66 of the 284-page book, the authors write that some gaps in the overall system's performance are becoming more visible as demands on higher education escalate.

"The rhetoric calls for service to the community while attention is focused on improving rankings such as those in U.S. News & World Report," the book states. "The rhetoric proclaims the importance of fundamental and trustworthy scholarship that serves society, while in fact impartiality is undercut by growing corporate control of research and faculty conflicts of interest."

Utah State University President Kermit Hall said those criticisms are "exaggerations," albeit appropriate for conditions that exist on some levels in higher education.