Lionel S. Lewis

Faculty versus administration: A universal problem

The results of the Carnegie International Survey of the Academic Profession reveals a marked disenchantment on the part of faculty with academic administrators. Faculty are generally content with various aspects of their careers except in this one area. There is a generalized lack of trust in administrators, and a feeling that the academic profession is losing its autonomy. This pattern of hostility is quite similar in the twelve countries included in the survey.

Private Schooling and the Status Attainment Process.

This paper examines the effects of a private school education on educational, occupational, and earnings attainments. Specifically, using subsamples of respondents *vho attended private schools only and public schools only from the Occupational Changes in a Generation survey, the so-called private school advantage and its function in transmitting background-related advantages is analyzed. Although it ivas found that educational and occupational attainments are not significantly affected by private school attendance, earnings for those wvho attended private schools only are considerably greater than for those wvho attended public schools only vhen appropriate background characteristics are controlled. This seems to be due not only to a ceiling effect on earnings, but also to a substantial amount of status inheritance in the lives of private school graduates.

Internationalism and Insularity: American Faculty and the World

standing how the American academic profession the heart of the university is reacting to these trends toward internationalization on campus and in society. To examine this and other questions about the contemporary academic profession, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching carried out in 1991 and 1992 the first international study of the professoriate. The survey included 14 middle-income or wealthy countries with well-developed, well-supported higher education systems: the United States; in Europe, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, and Sweden; in Asia, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea; in Latin America, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico; in the Middle East, Israel; and Australia. Altogether, the sample was more than 20,000 respondents, with the number per country ranging from more than 3,500 to fewer than 1 ,000. To ensure that the sample was random, a common methodology was used to select institutions and individuals.

Economic Segmentation and the Course of the Occupational Career

Although most empirical assessments of the dual economy perspective have been limited to studies of sectoral differences in the earnings attainment process, the theory itself has many implications for status movements during the occupational career. In this article we develop some of these implications and attempt to determine if meaningful differences exist in the careers of workers in core and periphery sectors of the U.S. economy. Using data for a cohort of older U.S. men, we find that significant differences exist in the patterns of occupational mobility in the core and periphery sectors, both between first jobs and midcareer jobs, and between midcareer jobs and late-career jobs. In addition, educational and training factors have a greater impact on status movement at both career stages among workers in core industries.

The University and the Professional Model: Amplification on a Magnification.

mortgage. Clearly, the days when the popular image of the professor was that of an impractical, absent-minded eccentric are long past (Lewis, 1968). Today, as everyone well knows, a great deal of serious work goes on in the university. Given this airy view, it is not surprising that most people, both within and outside the university, are pretty well convinced that in the crunch academic men are guided by professional norms. In the last two decades, the proportion of the population who would agree with Jencks and Riesman’s (1968: 529) contention that individuals in the university community are judged &dquo;almost entirely on the basis of the one set of standards almost all its members accept: professional performance&dquo; has grown significantly.

The Dilemma of Higher Education Reform in the United States

contend, should teach more students in larger classes. More part-timers should be hired because they are less expensive and more easily fired. There should be more accountability and measurement of teaching, research, and other campus activities. • State legislators see reform as more governmental control over campuses and as increased efficiency so that state budgetary allocations can be further slashed. • Editorialists and off-campus pundits generally have an ideological ax to grind. Critics from the right such as Charles J. Sykes and Dinesh D’Souza see the campuses has hotbeds of radicalism and dissent, and argue that professors are a lazy bunch generally committed to subverting the youth. The critics also favor cutting campus expenditures. However, they offer the thinnest evidence to support their contentions. We believe that the focus should be mainly on the oncampus debate since the attitudes and actions of the professoriate will have the greatest impact on the everyday realities of academic life. Its influence over the curriculum remains dominant.

Scaling the Ivory Tower: Merit and Its Limits in Academic Careers.

Following in the tradition of Thorstein Veblens Higher Learning in America, Lionel S. Lewis has amassed solid evidence to support his conclusions about what leads to success in Scaling the Ivory Tower. As background to his consideration of academic freedom, sexism, merit, tenure, and other such highly charged subjects, Lewis examines the attitudes of those in universities toward academic qualification. The modern rule of thumb has become publish or perish. According to Lewis, however, research and publication may not be such prime considerations after all. Two thought-provoking chapters are devoted to an examination of letters of recommendation as important factors in hiring and promoting in the academic world. Lewis also scrutinizes academic freedom cases from the archives of the American Association of University Professors. Other intriguing issues examined by Lewis are: how spouses and significant others factor into whether or not a professor gets a promotion; a typical day in the life, both academic and personal, of a professor; how the celebrity syndrome has spread to campus; discrimination against women; and bureaucracy as a contributing factor to campus unrest. In the new introduction, Lewis affirms that the most apparent changes in higher education since Scaling the Ivory Tower was initially published have actually made the campus less meritocratic, and less a place where quality academic work is recognized and rewarded. One contributing factor is the necessity to consider age, gender, ethnicity, and race in personnel decisions. Because many on campus are convinced that academic life can only be improved when the demographics of faculty reflect those in the larger society, departments are routinely expected to explain why they did not fill an opening with someone from an underrepresented group. While showing some irreverence toward academia, Scaling the Ivory Tower should also provoke sober consideration of where our colleges and universities are headed. This is a significant volume for university administrators, academics, and graduate students.