New Books in Higher Education

Rebecca S. Natow, Senior Research Associate with the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, joins New Books Network to discuss her recently published book, entitled Higher Education Rulemaking: The Politics of Creating Regulatory Policy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016).In the book, she explores what happens after higher education legislation becomes law, specifically focusing on implementation of programs and rules in the sector. For the study, in-depth interviews were conducted with individuals from the US Department of Education, congressional staffers, representatives from higher educational institutions, both student and consumer representatives, mediation experts, state government officials, and representatives from the lending industry.Professor Natow previously joined New Books Network to discuss The Politics of Performance Funding for Higher Education Origins, Discontinuations, and Transformations.For any questions, comments, or recommendations for the New Books in Education podcast, you can connect with the host, Ryan M. Allen, at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is the future for Arts and Humanities in Europe? The podcast discusses these questions with Paul Benneworth, one of the authors, along with Magnus Gulbrandsen and Ellen Hazelkorn, of The Impact and Future of Arts and Humanities Research (Palgrave, 2016). Dr. Benneworth, from the University of Twente’s Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, was part of a pan-European project to consider the impact of Impact and the way Arts and Humanities narrate their public value, research which was the basis for the book. The book draws on a wealth of empirical and theoretical material, including comparative case studies from Ireland, Norway, and The Netherlands. The comparative approach allows the book to contextualise engagements with science policy, the role and purpose of the university, public value, and innovation, to offer a new vision of Arts and Humanities research that avoids instrumentalisation. The book is important and essential reading for all interested in the future of higher education and research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Time and resources are scarce for many teachers. Often times, these same teachers are under immense pressure to produce higher test scores and severely constrained with the actions they can take in their own classrooms. What are the consequences of working under conditions in which you have increasing responsibilities without sufficiently corresponding support and professional autonomy? Teachers may only prioritize the content that appears on standardized assessments and rarely address other worthwhile knowledge and skills. They may also work excessively long hours, ultimately undermining their personal well-being and their professional effectiveness. What if teachers were instead incentivized to model mindfulness and teach practices to students? Could we avoid more situations like the ones described above? In The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students (W. W. Norton and Company, 2014) and The Mindful Education Workbook: Lessons for Teaching Mindfulness to Students (W. W. Norton and Company, 2016), Daniel Rechtschaffen provides a definition for mindfulness that clearly distinguishes it from other similar or related ideas and articulates its unique benefits for teachers and students by drawing on classroom dilemmas and corresponding practices.Rechtschaffen joins New Books in Education for the interview. To share your thoughts on the podcast, you can connect with him on Twitter at @mindfuleducate.During our conversation, he also recommended the following books:Mindful Games: Sharing Mindfulness and Meditation with Children, Teens, and Families by Susan Kaiser GreenlandThe Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate by Susan Kaiser GreenlandBuilding Emotional Intelligence: Techniques to Cultivate Inner Strength in Children by Linda LantieriWherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-ZinnFull Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Illness, and Pain by Jon Kabat-ZinnMindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment and Your Life by Jon Kabat-ZinnTrevor Mattea is an educational consultant and speaker. His areas of expertise include deeper learning, parent involvement, project-based learning, and technology integration. He can be reached by email at info@trevormattea.com or on Twitter at @tsmattea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why does higher education still matter? In Academic Diary: Or Why Higher Education Still Matters, Les Back, a professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, offers a series of reflections framed by the time of the academic year. The first book from Goldsmiths Press, Academic Diary consists of short entries that think through the problems of university management, defend the idea of scholarship, and consider what ideas of being ‘honored’ as an academic might mean. Other chapters extol the virtues of the library and take a witty and wry look at the academy. Thus, the book, with its insights into academic life as well as broader analysis of the social forces shaping the university, offers a picture of the contemporary university, illuminating the pleasures and pains of working within this modern institution. Ultimately, Academic Diary offers a defense of the idea of the university and will be relevant and readable to anyone working or interested in the sector.Dave OBrien is the host of New Books in Critical Theory and is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Policy at the Institute for Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths College, University of London. His research covers a range of areas between sociology and political science, including work on the British Civil Service, British Cultural Policy, cultural labour, and urban regeneration. His most recent books are Cultural Policy: Management, Value and Modernity in the Creative Industries and After Urban Regeneration (edited with Dr. Peter Matthews). He tweets@Drdaveobrien. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rajika Bhandari, Deputy Vice President, Research and Evaluation Institute of International Education (IIE), and Mirka Martel, Assistant Director of Research and Evaluation at IIE, join New Books in Education to discuss a new report from the organization, Social Justice and Sustainable Change: The Impacts of Higher Education (IIE, 2016). This new report is part of a ten-year study of the Ford Foundations International Fellowship Program alumni and their impacts in their communities globally. The report is free to read on IIEs website and very assessable, with data displayed in easy-to-read charts and graphics showing the link between higher education and social justice and the effect that higher education can have on marginalized populations and leadership around the world. For any questions, comments, or recommendations for the New Books in Education podcast, you can connect with the host, Ryan Allen, at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AirBnB has dramatically altered the landscape for the hotel, tourism, and real estate sectors. Uber and Lyft have done the same to transportation. But, how come we haven't seen the same in American higher education? Ryan Craig, Managing Director of University Ventures, engages that question in his new book, entitled College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education (Palgrave McMillan, 2015). The author is critical of the current higher educational system in the US, which he says focuses too much on the "four Rs": Rankings, Research, Real Estate, and Rah! (college sports) rather than on teaching and learning. For this reason, students graduate (or don't) without the skills needed to actually get a job. In the book, Craig suggests that universities should unbundle the various services they offer and allow students to choose things that they need or want. He compares this unbundling to the current trend in cable providers, as many people are leaving behind the mammoth packages with 300 channels and instead pairing down their wants to more specific options, especially via the web. We haven't really seen this in higher education, yet, but this book shows that the current system could be moving in that direction.Ryan Craig joins New Books in Education for the interview to discuss the book. You can find him on Twitter at @ryancraiguv. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ellen Hazelkorn, Policy Advisor to the Higher Education Authority (Ireland) and Director of the Higher Education Policy Research Unit (HEPRU), Dublin Institute of Technology, provides an in-depth analysis of higher educational rankings and what they mean globally in the second edition release of Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education: The Battle for World-Class Excellence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). The author explores the measurements, metrics, and processes used by the most influential university rankings, such as Academic Ranking of World Universities, QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education’s the World University Rankings, and others. From the perspective of higher education institutions, to students and policymakers, the book is an essential resource for understanding this pressurized educational discourse, which now impacts almost every country throughout the world.Professor Hazelkorn, who is also President of the European Association of Institutional Research (EAIR) and on the Management Committee of ESRC/HEFCE at the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), Institute of Education, UCL, joins New Books in Education for the interview to discuss the book. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. William Elliott III, associate professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, and Melinda Lewis, associate professor of practice in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, explore the landscape of the US higher education student loan situation in The Real College Debt Crisis: How Student Borrowing Threatens Financial Well-Being and Erodes the American Dream (Praeger 2015). Using real-life examples along with academically rooted studies, the authors attempt to answer the question, “Does the student who goes to college and graduates but has outstanding student debt achieve similar financial outcomes to the student who graduates from college without student debt?”Co-author Melinda Lewis joins New Books in Education for the interview to discuss the book. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd. You can also find the authors on Twitter at @melindaklewis and Dr. Elliott’s organization at @AssetsEducation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Universities across the world have become more attuned to a global competition in higher education. International rankings and world class status are now critical focuses for these institutions. Academics have also gotten swept into this perceived competition, as their research plays a key factor for rankings and prestige. This phenomenon has pressed Dr. Chuing Prudence Chou to edit a volume chronicling these concerns and implications, entitled The SSCI Syndrome in Higher Education: A Local or Global Phenomenon (Sense Publishers, 2013), a series in Comparative and International Education: A Diversity of Voices. The authors contend that the completion and pressure of high stakes publishing has created an unhealthy environment, even lessening collaboration. For the social sciences, being published in a journal listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index has become a must for professors. However, Dr. Chou and her colleagues contend that the focus on SSCI has marginalized other journals and also academics whom come from non-English speaking countries. While the book’s roots are in Taiwan, the lessons are far reaching for higher education globally.Dr. Chou joins New Books in Education for the interview. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The development of higher education in Asia has been as dramatic as the region’s rapid economic rise. The landscape of this diverse and ever-changing sector is thoroughly explored in Asia: The Next Higher Education Superpower? (Institute of International Education [IIE] and the American Institute For Foreign Study Foundation, 2015). Dr. Rajika Bhandari, IIE’ Deputy Vice President for Research and Evaluation, and Dr. Alessia Lefebure, Director of the Alliance at Columbia University and Adjunct Professor at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs, edited this in-depth volume exploring Asian higher education by bringing together a globally and culturally diverse group of experienced academics, up-and-coming researchers, and even practitioners.The multiple perspectives provided throughout the book weave an expansive analysis of the region’s rich higher educational tapestry–from the reverence of international rankings, to issues of quality control, the branch campus phenomenon, and a myriad of other focused and fascinating inquiry.Dr. Lefebure joins New Books in Education for the interview. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices