Higher Education's Purpose: Intellectual and Social Progress

Is higher education in crisis? There are certainly some serious problems facing colleges and universities today. This book examines the internal and external problems facing higher education and offers some specific recommendations-addressing such issues as tenure, curriculum, administration, and funding-that are necessary for the fullest realization of purpose. There has always been a pressing need for intellectual integrity. Faculty and administrators must be honest and truthful and must embrace a unifying purpose that applies to all of higher education. Teaching, learning, and inquiry should come first on every campus. Moreover, these actions should be accomplished through a search for knowledge and truth in just institutions.

John M. Budd is a professor in the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri. He has been a faculty member for more than twenty-five years. Many of his writings relate to matters central to higher education.