Download or read book Toward a More Perfect University written by Jonathan R. Cole and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned academic leader identifies the ways America's great universities should evolve in the decades ahead to maintain their global preeminence and enhance their intellectual stature and social mission as higher education confronts the twenty-first-century developments in technology, humanities, culture, and economics. Jonathan R. Cole, former provost and current University Professor at Columbia University, addresses some of the biggest challenges facing the modern American university: • developing effective admission policies, • creating the most meaningful examinations, • dealing with rising costs, • making undergraduate education central to the university's mission, • exploring the role of the humanities, • facilitating new discoveries and innovation, • determining the place for professional schools, • developing the research campuses of the future, • assessing the role of sports, • designing leadership and governance, • and combating intellectual and legal threats to academic freedom.