1st Edition

Quality in Higher Education

By Brent D. Ruben Copyright 1995
    340 Pages
    by Routledge

    338 Pages
    by Routledge

    The concept of quality in higher education is by no means a new one. By one set of definitions or another, colleges and universities throughout the world have always held the pursuit of excellence as their primary goal. Why then has the quality approach, developed and popularized in industry, and how increasingly applied in health care and government, receiving so much attention in higher education at this moment? What does this perspective add to the approaches to excellence with which they have long embraced?These are the two primary questions that this book seeks to address. Chapters and contributors include: "The New Productivity" by Peter F. Drucker; "World War n and the Quality Movement" by J. M. Juran; "The Quality Approach to Higher Education: Context of Concepts for Change" by Brent Ruben; "The Big Questions in Higher Education Today" by L. Edwin Coate; "An American Approach to Quality" by Marilyn R. Zuckerman and Lewis J. Hatala; "Quality hi Higher Education: Critical Issues in Definition and Assessment" by Brent Ruben; and "Ten Areas for Future Research in Total Quality Management" by A. Blanton Godfrey. The volume is graced with an opening essay by Francis L. Lawrence, president of Rutgers University.Higher education is in the public spotlight today due to the many challenges it now faces: rising tuition costs; frustration about a tight job market for graduates; calls for increased faculty productivity; concerns about political correctness; and criticisms regarding the use of grant and research funds, among others. Quality in Higher Education is a particularly timely book that will greatly benefit educators, university administrators, students, and sociologists, and all those who are interested in higher education today.

    1: The Quality Approach in Higher Education: Context and Concepts for Change; I: The Context for Change in Business and Industry; 2: The New Productivity Challenge; 3: The Service Imperative; 4: World War II and the Quality Movement; 5: History of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award; II: The Context for Change in Higher Education; 6: The Lattice and the Ratchet; 7: Productivity or Quality? In Search of Higher Education’s Yellow Brick Road; 8: Building Responsive Universities: Some Challenges to Academic Leadership; 9: The Big Questions in Higher Education Today; III: Applying the Quality Approach in Higher Education; 10: TQM; 11: TQM; 12: Defining and Assessing “Quality” in Higher Education; 13: Quality Improvement in Higher Education; 14: What Students Remember: Teaching, Learning, and Human Communication; 15: Universities, Competitiveness, and TQM: A Plan for the Year 2000; 16: Is There Hope for TQM in the Academy?; 17: An American Approach to Quality; 18: Total Quality and the Academy: Problems and Opportunities; 19: Translating Quality for the Academy; Suggested Research, Readings and Resources; 20: Ten Areas for Future Research in Total Quality Management; 21: Selected Readings and Resources in Quality

    Biography

    Brent D. Ruben