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CAU > Seminars and Study Tours > A Pre-Reunion Seminar: America's Best Product: Higher Education at a Crossroads

A Pre-Reunion Seminar: America's Best Product: Higher Education at a Crossroads

June 6-9, 2010

There is still space available in this program.
You may register online or by mail.

Its students diverse and mobile, its forms almost too numerous to count and many without peer, higher education in the United States remains the dream of students from around the world. But with its costs rising at a pace that has long outstripped inflation, can it remain so successful? Significant change might well result from answers to a daunting range of questions: What kinds of higher education—public and private—should we provide, and to whom? How autonomous should its institutions be? At what cost comes such education, and who will bear that cost? It has never been more important than now to fashion answers to these questions. We will talk about appropriate roles for government, private philanthropy, and tuition-paying parents, with a view to imagining what a national policy in the new century might be for higher education, which currently—like health care—may serve individuals better than it does the whole.

Leading our inquiry of this timely subject will be Don Randel, professor emeritus of music, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and former provost at Cornell. Don is also the former president of the University of Chicago and current president of the Mellon Foundation, which provides a wealth of grants to higher education for both scholarship and teaching. Our inquiry will take place right here at Cornell University, an institution distinguished by profound democratic ideals from its very founding. We will begin with a welcome dinner, meet morning and afternoon for lectures and lively discussion, and end with a valedictory dinner.

Program fee:$980
Double occupancy:$570
Single supplement:$360
Fitness scale:Easy. Walking is generally over level ground for short distances. May require ability to climb stairs or to stand for periods of time.

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