Big Man on Campus

A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439159309
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Biografías de ciencias sociales

An eye-opening and at times controversial insider's look at the current state of higher education in America, from one of the nation's most distinguished and down-to-earth university presidents.

At a time when daily news headlines scream of competitive college enrollments, skyrocketing tuition, campus violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and other campus scandals, the former president of The George Washington University tells it like it really is.

Educated at Columbia, Yale, and Harvard universities, with a membership in Phi Beta Kappa, more than fifteen honorary doctorates, four books, and numerous published articles, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is one of the leading voices in American higher education. Here he brings his thirty years of experience, wisdom, and wit to reveal what goes on behind the scenes in the difficult and rewarding challenge of running a university. Using wonderful anecdotes from his own life, Trachtenberg explains with compassion and his trademark humor the insight he has gained from the halls of learning.

For parents who will write big checks to send their sons and daughters to college, for businesspeople of all kinds looking for leadership lessons, and for anyone invested in America's system of higher education, this book is a major work about the importance of sustaining our nation's natural brain trust.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Also by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. ENROLLMENT IS LIFE
• 2. YOUNG ENOUGH TO STILL DO SOME DAMAGE
• 3. BELIEVE IN THE UNPROVEN
• 4. TO GET THINGS DONE, RISK BEING WRONG
• 5. DONT MAKE EVERYBODY MAD AT YOU AT THE SAME TIME
• 6. NO TIRED BUREAUCRATS NEED APPLY
• 7. THE BEST FOUR YEARS OF YOUR LIFE ARE THE NEXT FOUR YEARS OF YOUR LIFE, FOREVER
• 8. FACULTY ENGAGEMENTS
• 9. SCHMOOZING FOR DOLLARS
• 10. SEIZE THE DAY
• 11. DESCARTES GOES INTO A BAR AND ORDERS A MARTINI
• 12. THE VIRTUES OF COLLEGE ATHLETICS
• 13. THE BRIDE IS TOO BEAUTIFUL
• 14. YOU CANT ANTICIPATE EVERY CRISIS
• 15. THE BENEFITS OF BEING A TWENTIETH-CENTURY MAN
• 16. THE IDEAL UNIVERSITY?
• 17. PERPETUAL INSTITUTIONS, MORTAL LEADERS
• Acknowledgments