The Assembly on University Goals and Governance

In 1969, during a time of great student unrest across the country, the Academy founded The Assembly on University Goals and Governance to study a series of issues in higher education that were not directly linked to the problems of disorder. The Assembly felt an examination of longer-range educational issues, not just short-term campus violence, was essential, and members of the group explored such matter as learning, teaching and evaluation; research and service; models of governance; access, scale, and quality; private versus public funding; and relations with other institutions. This multiyear project included numerous studies, seminars, conferences, and workshops investigating the past, present, and future of American institutions of higher learning. Resulting reports, books, and volumes were widely distributed to Academy Fellows, elected government officials, university and college presidents, educational associations, foundations, federal agency personnel, and other interested individuals and groups.

Resulting Publications

• Should Students Share the Power?: A study of their role in college and university governance, by Earl James McGrath. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1970. (out of print)
• “The First Report of The Assembly on University Goals and Governance,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 18, 1971.
• The American University, eds. Talcott Parsons and Gerald M. Platt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. (out of print)
• Learning and Teaching in Academe: Three Essays Prepared for The Assembly on University Goals and Governance, by Peter Caws, Walter Metzger, and Saul Touster. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1973. (out of print)
• The Trammelled University, by George Kelly. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1973. (out of print)
• “American Higher Education: Toward an Uncertain Future (Volume I),” ed. Stephen R. Graubard, Dædalus, Fall 1974.
• “American Higher Education: Toward an Uncertain Future (Volume II),” ed. Stephen R. Graubard, Dædalus, Winter 1975.