Rethinking the Future of the University

This distinguished collection of essays, edited under the direction of David Lyle Jeffrey and Dominic Manganiello, emerged from the discussions that surrounded the 1995-1996 McMartin Lectures. Dedicated to studying the relationship and contributions of historic Christian thought to the intellectual life of university disciplines, this series of lectures served as an occasion for scholars to rethink the present crisis in the relationship between the historic identity of the university and the development of the modern university.

ISBN 0776604813   Volumes 001 ISBN13 9780776604817 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 288 Publisher University of Ottawa Press   Published in Ottawa Imprint University of Ottawa Press   Series title Mentor Series Format Paperback   Height (mm) 229 Publication date 17 Dec 1998   Width (mm) 152 Library of Congress LB   Spine width (mm) 25 Pages 180   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly

		Preface and Acknowledgments
1		The Original Idea of the University by B. Carlos Bazan		3
2		Newman, Theology and the Contemporary University by George M. Marsden		29
3		The Politicization of the University and Its Consequences by Jean Bethke Elshtain		41
4		Can Humane Literacy Survive without a Grand Narrative? by David Lyle Jeffrey		51
5		The Future of Teaching by Mark R. Schwehn		73
6		The Future of Research by Roger Miller		87
7		The Future of the University: From Postmodern to Transmodern by Paul C. Vitz		105
8		Will Technology Save us? by Dominic Manganiello		117
		Contributors		133

,.".Several papers by Christian scholars gathered from a lecture series at the University of Ottawa are firts-rate contributions toward "Rethinking the Future of the University," Practitioners of what George-Marseden has dubbed the outrageous idea of Christian scholarship are in the process of gaining their marginalized status requires hard thinking about first things. As enough of them gather to produce enough valuable work, they qualify as a movement, and the Big Academy is taking some notice. The volume at hand merits greater attention than its out-of-the-way venue may generate. The countercultural force of these essays comes through from even brief sampling. In the first of the collection's three parts, "Where Did We Come From?," George Marsden counteracts the academy's amnesia about even its relatively recent history by recalling John Henry Cardinal Newman's idea of a university in which theology provided the context for other disciplines - a unifying meta-disciplinary function that later passed to philosophy and then passed out. In part 2, "Where Are We Now?," Jean Bethke Elshtain goes head-on against the phony tolerance of the politicized academy and points out the the contempt for norms and the "massive abdication of authority" by parents and educators put at risk our cultural heritage by not transmitting it to our children. (Yes, and the dereliction of just one generation can snap the tie that binds the generations together in a civilized order.) Also in part 2, David Jeffrey asks if humane literacy can survive without a grand narrative; his short answer is "probably not" (wich means "no"). In part 3, "Where Are We Going?," Paul Vitz treats postmodernism as ""really a form oflate modernism, or what I call 'morbid' modernism,"" and hopes for something better ahead, which he lays out under the term "transmodern."" - Edward E. Ericson, Jr. "The University Under the microscope," in Books&Culture, May/June 2005

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