What We’re Reading: Democracy’s Education

Congratulations to our many ADP participants, partners and friends on their contributions to this exciting new book! Democracy’s Education: Public Work, Citizenship, and the Future of Colleges and Universities – it’s what we’re reading!

Educators Can Be Agents, Not Victims, of Change
New book shows how stakeholders in higher education are responding to a new era

Today Americans feel powerless in the face of problems on every front. Such feelings are acute in higher education, where educators experience an avalanche of changes, from cost cutting to new technologies to demands that higher education be narrowly geared to the needs of today’s workplace. College graduates face mounting debt and uncertain job prospects, and worry about an erosion of authentic human relationships. Higher education is increasingly seen, and often portrays itself, as a ticket to individual success—a private good, not a public one.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. The contributors to Harry Boyte’s new book, Democracy’s Education: Public Work, Citizenship, and the Future of Colleges and Universities (Vanderbilt University Press, February 1, 2015), each reflect on and wrestle with the ways colleges and universities can make better citizens, and thus a better country.

Contributors: Harry C. Boyte; David Mathews; Scott Peters; Albert Dzur; Martha Kanter; Nancy Cantor and Peter Englot; Robert Bruininks, Andy Furco, Robert Jones, Jayne K. Sommers, and Erin A. Konkle; Judith A. Ramaley; Adam Weinberg; Maria Avila; Romand Coles and Blase Scarnati; KerryAnn O’Meara; Timothy Eatman; Jamie Haft; Cecilia Orphan; David Hoffman; Julie Ellison; Jenny Whitcher; Robert Woodson; Sam Daley-Harris; Benjamin Barber; Peter Levine; John Spencer; Shigeo Kodama; Xolela Mangcu; Lisa Clarke; Paul Markham

About the Editor:
Harry C. Boyte is Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy at the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College, a Senior Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and Visiting Professor at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa. He is the author of eight previous books. Boyte’s work has appeared in more than 150 publications including Huffington Post, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Political Theory, and Change. His commentary has appeared on CBS This Morning, CBS Evening News, and National Public Radio.

BOOK INFORMATION
Democracy’s Education: Public Work, Citizenship, and the Future of Colleges and Universities
Edited by Harry C. Boyte288 pages • 7×10 inches
Publication date: February 1, 2015hardcover ISBN 978-0-8265-2035-7 $59.95
paperback ISBN 978-0-8265-2036-4 $27.95
ebook ISBN 978-0-8265-2037-1 $9.99

To order this book, click here.