Skip to content

Marketing Thought

Clarifying management/marketing theory

Menu
  • Neil Bendle
  • Popular Marketing Metrics: How Not To Mess Them Up
  • Marketing Metrics 4th Edition Book
  • Marketing PhD Applications
  • Advice For The Marketing Academic Job Market
  • Sustainable Marketing Strategy
  • Public Policy, Behavioral Economics and Marketing
Menu

American Higher Education’s Uncertain Future

Posted on October 30, 2020November 2, 2021 by neilbendle

Moving to the US I thought I should get up to date with US higher education. Daniel Johnson’s book, on American Higher Education’s Uncertain Future, is a critique of where we are. I was expecting criticism of government funding levels, lack of appreciation of the benefits of academic thought, and maybe students themselves. It isn’t that.

University gate, American Higher Education's Uncertain Future
What is the future of this?

Johnson Doesn’t Love All Academics

Johnson was an administrator. This may have led to his frustrations with his fellow academics are obvious in the book. Some of the problems he sees comes from the actions of the academics themselves. He tries to focus on how we can help students. This is a running theme and so it makes it a little hard to place his views at times.

Trending
The Destiny of Accounting Measures of Customer Assets

Furthermore, he thinks things are too expensive from fees to textbooks (and some textbooks are really, really expensive). He is certainly not a fan of athletics programs. Johnson also thinks we haven’t done enough for students from backgrounds traditionally under-represented and that academic leadership hasn’t changed as much as you think in his career.

Following this he had some interesting points on governance and the credit system. (I don’t really have enough experience to comment more on this.) He has also been involved in accreditation and clearly has a lot of sympathy with the idea of changing that whole process.

Is Tenure Part of American Higher Education’s Uncertain Future?

What else is a theme in American higher education’s uncertain future? Probably his most controversial comment (for academics) is his view of tenure. “Lifetime job security to ensure academic freedom is, to be very clear, a costly scam…Tenure that means lifetime job security, irrespective of the needs of students and the costs imposed on universities, students and the state is an unaffordable anachronism….” (Johnson, 2019, page 57). Johnson is much clearer than most on the topic to the point of vehemence. This is something I would like to think more about. I do personally have some worries about tenure and how we square that with the goal of diversifying the academic workforce. That said there are benefits to tenure. I would love to hear more perspectives.

Read: Daniel M. Johnson (2019) The Uncertain Future of American Public Higher Education: Student-Centered Strategies For Sustainability, Palgrave Macmillan

For more an academia see here and here.

*** The forth edition of our Marketing Metrics book is now out***

Share on Social Media
twitter facebook linkedin reddit

  • Using Data In Decisions
  • The Brussels Effect
  • Communicating Numbers
  • Market Research Lessons

MASB’s Universal Marketing Dictionary

Need a marketing definition? Use MASB’s Universal Marketing Dictionary. Click for the MASB Universal Marketing Dictionary

Pages in Marketing Thought

  • A Plea About Language Used In Marketing
  • Advice For The Marketing Academic Job Market
  • Behavioral Econ For Kids: The Cartoon Book
  • Data Visualization Advice
  • Machine Learning (ML) And Marketing: What Should You Know?
  • Marketing In The Movies
  • Marketing Metrics 4th Edition Book
    • Chapter of Marketing Metrics 4th Edition, Free Sample
  • Marketing PhD Applications
  • Marketing Thought Website Data
  • Neil Bendle
  • Popular Marketing Metrics: How Not To Mess Them Up
    • Brand Valuation: Progress But Lots More Needed
    • Customer Equity: Nice Idea, Bit Of A Mess In Execution
    • How To Use, And Misuse, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
    • Is ROI The Most Abused Term In Marketing?
    • Market Share: Always An Indicator Never A Target
    • Marketing Accounts: A Better Way To Measure Marketing Performance
    • Measuring Competition With The Bendle Panda Index
    • Net Promoter Score: Sadly Not As Magical As Supporters Suggest
    • Profit Measurement: Choose Your Own Level Is Problematic
    • Tobin’s Q: Why Academics Should Listen To Managers
    • Total Q, A New Improved Tobin’s Q? Not By Much
    • Value Of A Like: Do Not Use For Budgeting
  • Public Policy, Behavioral Economics and Marketing
  • Recommended Books
  • Sustainable Marketing Strategy
    • B Corp Research Papers
    • Marketing Strategy
      • Measuring Culture Is A Challenge, But Don’t Be Silly
      • Rationality And Marketing Strategy
      • Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
      • Strategy And Evolutionary Thinking
  • Sustainable Marketing Strategy Cases
©2023 Marketing Thought | Built using WordPress and Responsive Blogily theme by Superb
Go to mobile version