Higher Education as Its Own Worst Enemy

In his new book, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”: Resistance to Change in Higher Education (Harvard Education Press), Brian Rosenberg, president emeritus of Macalester College (MN), distills a career’s worth of experiences and observations into a trenchant critique of the industry he both loves and laments. He argues that the institutions designed to foster critical inquiry and the open exchange of ideas are themselves staunchly resistant to both. The very structures that have become the hallmarks of postsecondary education in America—classroom lectures, shared governance, faculty tenure—are in fact key obstacles to what he calls “transformational” change.