Collini, Stefan

What are universities for? - NewYork: Penguin Press [c2013] - 215 p

PART - I
1. The Global Multiversity?
2. Universities in Britain
3. The Useful and the Useless: Newman Revisited
4. The Character of the Humanities
5. The Highest Aspirations and Ideals:
Universities as a Public Good

PART - II
6. Bibliometry
7. The Business Analogy
8. HiEdBizUK
9. Impact
10. Browne's Gamble

Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money. Instead, he argues that we must reflect on the different types of institution and the distinctive roles they play. In particular we must recognize that attempting to extend human understanding, which is at the heart of disciplined intellectual enquiry, can never be wholly harnessed to immediate social purposes - particularly in the case of the humanities, which both attract and puzzle many people and are therefore the most difficult subjects to justify.

9781846144820

LB2322.2