Quality in Higher Education

Book excerpt: 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.