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For U.S. research universities, cluster hiring has become a popular means to add faculty members in university-defined priority fields. The expectation of advocates is that these faculty members will collaborate on high-impact research. Utilizing a national sample of 168 cluster-hire faculty members from eight U.S. research universities, we find statistically significant gains in research output, collaborations, and research impact from pre- to post-hire. However, these gains are not distributed equally. Some output and impact measures show greater gains for white and Asian researchers relative to under-represented minorities and for men relative to women. Significant gains in research output are associated with fields like advanced materials and health sciences for which generous external support is available. Significant research impact is associated with researchers located in wealthy, prestigious universities. The findings indicate that cluster hiring is no cure-all for fields that are disadvantaged in the competition for external funding or for non-elite universities that are disadvantaged in the competition for prestige.

Extending and expanding Geiger and Feller’s (1995) analysis of increasing dispersion in R&D expenditures during the 1980s, the paper analyzes publication and citation counts as well as R&D expenditures for 194 top producers using Web of Science data. We find high and stable levels of inequality in the 1990s and 2000s, combined with robust growth both in the system and on individual campuses, considerable opportunities for short-range mobility and very limited opportunities for long-range mobility. Initial investments in research, private control, and the capacity of wealthy institutions to attract productive faculty are associated with high levels of scientific output. New entrants to the system and those that leave the system are both clustered near the bottom of the hierarchy.

The chapters in this volume add new empirical evidence and new thinking to issues of system-level, campus-level, and classroom-level effectiveness. They were chosen by the editors from among sixty-two proposals submitted to the Russell Sage Foundation. Our choices were based on the quality of the

My vision of the sociology of education comes out of identification with the aspirations of the nineteenth-century founders of sociology, many of whom, in Comte’s ([1851–1854] 1896) words, saw the new discipline as the ‘‘queen of the sciences.’’ For this founding generation, sociology could aspire to be the most important of the social sciences because it took the widest view, focusing not on a single set of social institutions but on all social institutions examined in comparative and historical perspective. Many of my teachers at Berkeley and Harvard shared something of this aspiration, and it was consequently easy for me to maintain it, however at odds it may have been with the main lines of development of the specialization area in which I was most interested. For someone who comes from this tradition, the questions are not, ‘‘What is the government funding now?’’ or ‘‘What is the most efficient way to obtain tenure?’’ Instead, the questions are, ‘‘How have human beings lived together over the centuries under different demographic and different technological conditions?’’ ‘‘What institutions and cultural understandings have they erected to organize action?’’ ‘‘How have they sustained social order?’’ and, ‘‘How and why did their institutions and social relations change over time?’’ When this perspective is applied to the institutions of schooling, a comparative and historical framework is clearly important. We would want to investigate, as Max Weber did, what the educational experience of sons of aristocrats trained for leadership and heroism looked like, what the education of mandarin Chinese preparing for a place in the imperial bureaucracy looked like, what the education of a middle-class German brought up under the philosophy of bildung looked like, and what the education of technical specialists in the age of bureaucracy looks like. And of course we would also want to look beyond the education of elites, as Weber failed to do. We would want to draw on those who studied the Lancasterian system of drilling the urban poor in industrializing England and the anthropologists who have studied the far-from-regimented schooling typical of rural areas in many developing countries. Not only do the worldwide sweep and comparative focus tell us about the possibilities of schooling in human societies; they can also bring our own situation into clearer relief. It is hard, for example, to know that the social status and pay of school teachers can vary dramatically with significant effects on professional style and expectations if one looks only at the contemporary United States, in which teachers are paid relatively poorly compared to other educated workers. Such a narrow perspective misses out altogether on the value the Germans and Japanese have placed on the teaching profession as evidenced by their teachers’ salaries and status in society. We might also be in a better position to judge how well our two-year community college system works in producing technically qualified labor if we compare it to the German dual system of apprenticeship training or the Japanese system of institutionalized network ties between secondary school teachers and employers. The broader perspective I commended in the essay can be completely compatible with present-day concerns and policy-related research. However, if this broader perspective prevailed, contemporaryconcerns and policy-related research would be appreciated as valuable applied arms of the field rather than its core. Given this background and these identifications, it will come as no surprise that I found much to appreciate in Rob Warren’s response to my essay, or that I emerged a little dejected from reading it. Warren’s analysis brings out

Using data from the 2008 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, we show that study time and academic conscientiousness were lower among students in humanities and social science majors than among students in science and engineering majors. Analytical and critical thinking experiences were no more evident among humanities and social sciences majors than among science and engineering majors. All three academically beneficial experiences were, however, strongly related to participation in class and interaction with instructors, and participation was more common among humanities and social sciences students than among science and engineering students. Bok’s (Our underachieving colleges: A candid look at how much students learn and why they should be learning more. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006) influential discussion of “underachievement’ in undergraduate education focused on institutional performance. Our findings indicate that future discussions should take into account differences among disciplinary categories and majors as well.

General education requirements comprise, on average, approximately 30% of the undergraduate curriculum and therefore represent an important feature of the student academic experience in American colleges and universities. Previous studies have not fully examined the origins of the most important models of general education, the distribution of these models among higher education institutions, or the causes for change in general education requirements over time. In this study we describe and analyze the organization of general education requirements in U.S. four-year colleges and universities over a 25-year period, 1975 –2000. We show that four models of general education persisted throughout the period. We will label these the “core distribution areas,” “traditional liberal arts,” “cultures and ethics,” and “civic/utilitarian” models. We show that two of these models arose near the beginning date of the study. The rise of these new models is one important change in general education. Another is the addition of new subject requirements, particularly in areas related to basic academic skills, gender and racial-ethnic diversity, and non-Western cultures. These course-level changes, we will argue, reflect

This article introduces cluster analysis and reference set analysis as tools for understanding structure, identity, and aspiration in complex organizational fields. Cluster analysis is used to identify the structure of the organizational field in American four-year colleges and universities. The article shows that presidential choices of reference institutions closely parallel the major locations in this structure. By contrast, several widely used classifications of higher education institutions fail to correspond either to the “objective” or to the “perceived” structure of the field. The article also identifies the major locations of presidential discontent within the field, measured as differences between presidents' current and aspiration reference sets. This analysis shows that only presidents in research universities and highly selective liberal arts colleges are content with their current locations. Finally, the article shows that aspirations for change are conditioned by location in the field and that presidents of the stronger institutions within each major category are more likely to indicate mobility aspirations.

If you scratch the surface of a sociologist, you are likely to find a person who was initially attracted to the field either by its unconventional way of looking at the social world, or by the criticisms it offered of existing social relations. Most of us had (and many still have) a strong desire to "change the world"?to help it become more just, more equal, more accepting, more aware. Add to this another factor. Much of our work as sociologists is directly relevant to public issues. We study race and immigration, religion and politics, environmen tal changes due to urban growth, educational success and failure, global inequali ties. We know things that decision-makers should know: that bilingual students often do better in school than monolingual students, because they have wider net works (Rumberger and Larson, 1998); that religious politics is a form of status group assertion more common among uprooted peoples (Evans, 1996); that secrets in organizations can be corrosive and lead to disaster (Vaughan, 1996); that the interests of corporations lie behind the crisis in personal finances (Sullivan, War ren, and Westbrook, 2000). Our research touches directly on public issues?if only decision-makers would listen! Add to this a third factor. Many people of progressive convictions understand ably feel the need to fight back on behalf of the poor and dispossessed at a time when the rightward drift of the country has been apparent for a quarter century? and the right seems to be ever-better organized. The situation of the poor is often desperate and has not been improving, either globally or nationally. If we needed any additional proof, the suffering following the recent devastation of New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities shows us clearly how many people have been left be hind in our own prosperous country, and how little the government seems to care about these people. If we do not respond now, when will we?

This paper assesses the causes and consequences of recent American efforts to configure the research university as an engine of economic and social change. Drawing upon interviews and strategic plans, the paper describes recent policies to encourage ‘interdisciplinary creativity’, in a context of increasing income from private gifts and endowments.

Following landmark legislation passed more than 20 years ago, university–industry relationships have now become central to understanding the changing role of research universities in American Society. The paper analyzes the development of university–industry partnerships during the 1990s. Past studies have used a broad array of measures of ties and a variety of research methodologies, but they have shared a focus on top collaborators or on samples of universities skewed toward the top. However, findings based on top collaborators may not be valid for other universities. Universities involved in mid- to low-levels of collaboration are qualitatively different in many ways from the more extensively studied set of top collaborators, suggesting that characteristics affecting university–industry ties may not be the same for these institutions. The paper shifts the focus away from top collaborators to this sizable and less studied majority. In general, we find that the same characteristics predicting high levels of involvement for the sample as a whole also predict high levels of involvement for the sub-sample of mid- and low-level collaborators. However, We find some particular characteristics of these institutions, such as land grant status, are also associated with stronger ties to industry, and that some characteristics of 25 top institutions do not predict the level of involvement of these lower-level collaborators. We will discuss whether the licensing of new technology is likely ever to become an important source of net revenues for current middle and low-level collaborators. Our findings raise doubts about whether many universities below the top 25 will earn substantial net revenues from licensing, though they do not dispute the potential service value of these ties. The study is based on examination of a wide range of potential influences on university–industry collaboration for institutions that are not currently among the most heavily involved in partnerships. These include status, other institutional characteristics (such as size and control), investment in science and engineering, and characteristics of offices or technology transfer.

In recent years, three schools of thought—human capital economics, sociological contradictions theory, and the new structuralism—have contributed to discussions of the role of community colleges in American postsecondary education. An evaluation of this work suggests that the circumstances of community colleges have, in several respects, changed for the worse in the years since publication of the author’s book, The Diverted Dream (with Jerome Karabel). The community college student population has become more homogeneous in social class background and test scores, faculty work conditions have deteriorated, and dropout rates remain very high. One solution to the persisting performance problems of community colleges would be to split the colleges into three parts: one modeled on private-sector vocational training, another organized as two-year branches of four-year institutions, and a third as a community center for courses of avocational interest.

Higher education is a mixed sector. It includes many public institutions as well as many independent colleges and universities. It also includes some for-profit enterprises. Data resources for the study of higher education are generally very good. This is particularly true for studies of students, faculty, institutional quality, and financial resources. This article provides a catalog of existing data resources, including comments about limitations in the quality of some data sources. The article also discusses data resources needs for the future. These needs will focus on key changes in higher education: the rise offor-profit enterprises and private resources, new markets for postsecondary education, new instructional technologies, and changing social partnership activities. The article concludes by describing a number of studies that could be conducted using data on higher education to address issues high on the agenda of students of the nonprofit sector.

The social position of the professions was historically built, in part, on claims to higher ethical principles than those on which business people relied. This ideology began to wane in the early twentieth century and by the 1960s was no longer dominant. I argue that that a coherent and broadly inclusive ideology of professional responsibility cannot be reconstructed in the twenty-first century. Any effort to do so would require realism about four decentering elements in the circumstances of professional life: (1) the limited appeal of contemporary versions of progressive idealism; (2) continuing prominence of occupational skill and expertise in the definition of the professional stratum; (3) the decisive role of formal organizations in shaping and allocating professional responsibilities; and (4) the contested and unsettled nature of professional responsibilities in practice. I do not think that the issue of professional responsibility is unimportant or beyond discussion. Instead, I argue that identifying its influence properly will require piecing together the net results of multiple strands of supportive ideology, organization, and practice, rather than focusing on the development of a single broadly inclusive framework.

Community remains a potent symbol and aspiration in political and intellectual life. However, it has largely passed out of sociological analysis. The paper shows why this has occurred, and it develops a new typology that can make the concept useful again in sociology. The new typology is based on identifying structurally distinct subtypes of community using a small number of partitioning variables. The first partition is defined by the ultimate context of interaction; the second by the primary motivation for interaction; the third by rates of interaction and location of members; and the fourth by the amount of face-to-face as opposed to computer-mediated interaction. This small number of partitioning variables yields eight major subtypes of community. The paper shows how and why these major subtypes are related to important variations in the behavioral and organizational outcomes of community. The paper also seeks to resolve some disagreements between classical liberalism and communitarians. It shows that only a few of the major subtypes of community are likely to be as illiberal and intolerant as the selective imagery of classical liberals asserts, while at the same time only a few are prone to generate as much fraternalism and equity as the selective imagery of communitarians suggests. The paper concludes by discussing the forms of community that are best suited to the modern world.

Based on new data and new analytical frameworks, this book assesses the forces of change at play in the development of American universities and their prospects for the future. The book begins with a lengthy introduction by Clark Kerr that not only provides an overview of change since the time he coined the phrase "the city of intellect" but also discusses the major changes that will affect American universities over the next thirty years. Part One examines demographic and economic changes, such as the rise of nearly universal higher education, private gift and corporate sponsorship of research, new labor market opportunities, and increasing inequality among institutions and disciplines. Part Two assesses the profound influence of the Internet and other technologies on teaching and learning. Part Three describes how the various forces of change affect the nature of academic research and the organization of disciplines and the curriculum. Part Four analyzes the consequences of change for university governance and the means by which universities in the future can maintain high levels of achievement while maintaining high levels of autonomy. The contributors include many of today's leading scholars of higher education. They are Andrew Abbott, Steven Brint, Richard Chait, Burton R. Clark, Randall Collins, David J. Collis, Roger L. Geiger, Patricia J. Gumport, Clark Kerr, Richard A. Lanham, Jason Owen-Smith, Walter W. Powell, Sheila Slaughter, and Carol Tomlinson-Keasey.

Discussions of the research process, even when they focus on histories of research projects rather than on formal methods, do not sufficiently emphasize the personal qualities, skills, and associations that make for excellence in research. In this essay, which is intended for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students, I use examples of well-known researchers to discuss the qualities of passionate commitment, persistence, ingenuity, and self-discipline that are essential to a researcher. I also discuss the significance of files, multiple data sources, and personal associations to success in research.

This 1996 essay reviews three books: Anthony T. Kronman, 'The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession' (Belknap 1993); Steven Brint, 'In an Age of Experts: The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics and Public Life' (Princeton 1994); and Christopher Lasch, 'The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy' (WW Norton 1995). The review essay argues that lawyers in the United States should be seen as part of the professional New Class who use the law as a monopoly in the management by elites of the rest of society. The review examines the history of New Class theory - especially as criticized by Steven Brint - and locates lawyers within it as a group characterized by claims to expertise. The essay suggests that, contrary to Kronman, the dissatisfactions of American lawyers has to do less with the loss of calling of a profession than with the simultaneous demand of New Class lawyers to be simultaneously therapeutic-legal managers of society while commanding market rate compensation for apparent legal expertise that consists in large part of rent-seeking for access to the public-private divide that the law polices. The requirements of the older form of the lawyer as respected authority within a particular community restricts the mobility essential to securing market compensation for expertise and access. The unhappiness that Kronman identifies within the legal profession is, according to the conclusion of the article, best explained that it is not a glorious profession because it is not a glorious class, and lawyers are right to be unhappy. This article predates the increasing focus of social theory on the globalized professional - lawyers, managers, NGO workers - but it points toward a form of critical analysis in social theory of the horizontal integration of a globalized bourgeois class that seeks to manage global masses at the expense of vertical leadership and integration with particular national and local communities.

Recent discussions of political divisions in American society have sometimes highlighted the rise of a "new class" of salaried professionals and technically trained managers. New-class theorists have depicted these "knowledge workers" as engaged in a contest for power and status with traditionally powerful business elites. However, the liberal attitudes of knowledge workers may also be interpreted as the result of a conjunction of several general trends in American society that have had little to do with class antagonisms. According to this paper, even though left-of-center attitudes are not uncommon in the salaried professional categories, these attitudes tend to be more ferormist than antibusiness in character. Such dissent as exists is concentrated in particular occupational, cohort, and sectoral categories and has varied considerably over time. Only the younger specialists in social science and arts-related occupations beging to fit the image of an "oppositional intelligentsia" used by the theorists t...

In the 1960s and 1970s, political events and polling data indicated a significant rise in liberal and dissenting political attitudes among American professionals. These data seem to run counter to the historically typical connection between social privilege and conservative politics. The major purpose of this paper is to provide a descriptive portrait of the politics of professionals since 1960, through a review of American survey research. Business executives and nonprofessional workers are used as the principal comparison categories. Professionals are conservative on most economic policy issues and on commitments to American “core values.” Like business executives, they are comparatively liberal on civil rights and civil liberties issues. Like nonprofessional workers, they are comparatively liberal on welfare state and business support issues. They are more liberal than either business executives or nonprofessional workers on personal morality and military force issues. Within the professional stratum, important lines of political cleavage exist by occupational category, cohort, and type of employing organization. The anomaly of relatively high levels of liberalism in this high status group is explained with reference to two factors: (1) The rise and fall of issue-based political coalitions; and (2) cumulative changes in the occupational and class structure.

Since its origins at the turn of the century, the junior college has had a complex, and at times uneasy, relationship with a public that has looked to the educational system as a vehicle for the realization of the American dream. Despite its self-portrayal as “democracy’s college” and its often heroic efforts to extend education to the masses, the two-year institution has faced widespread public skepticism. For to most Americans, college was a pathway to the bachelor’s degree, and the junior college—unlike the four-year institution—could not award it. Moreover, the early public junior colleges were often tied administratively and even physically to local secondary schools, a pattern that compounded their problems in gaining legitimacy as bona fide institutions of higher education. The two-year institution’s claim to being a genuine college rested almost exclusively on its promise to offer the first two years of a four-year college education. Yet the junior college was never intended, despite the high aspirations of its students, to provide anything more than a terminal education for most of those who entered it; indeed, at no point in its history did even half of its students transfer to a four-year institution. Nonetheless, for at least the first two decades of its existence, almost exclusive emphasis was placed on its transfer rather than its terminal function. As the early leaders of the movement saw it, the first task at hand was to establish the legitimacy of this fragile institution as an authentic college. And this task could be accomplished only by convincing the existing four-year institutions to admit junior college graduates and to offer them credit for the courses that they had completed there. If the pursuit of academic respectability through emphasis on transfer dominated the junior college movement during its first decades, by the mid-1920s a countermovement stressing the role of the junior college as a provider of terminal vocational education began to gather momentum. Arguing that most junior college students were, whatever their aspirations, in fact terminal, proponents of this view saw the institution’s main task not as providing a platform for transfer for a minority but, rather, as offering vocational programs leading to marketable skills for the vast majority.