The Future of the Public University in America

"Duderstadt and Womack paint a picture of the present and allow us to glimpse, along with them, a future, seen through the proverbial glass, darkly."

"The university is about ideas—incubating a few self-reflective new ones about its own role and function has to be helpful."

"They have certainly done the public university, and not only in the USA, a considerable service by mapping out the problem with such clarity and authority."

"In this well-written and engaging book, James J. Duderstadt and Farris W. Womack draw on their extensive senior executive experience in public higher education to produce a powerful and impressive analysis of the forces at work in the environment of the contemporary public university. Fresh, hard hitting, and provocative, yet well reasoned and authoritative about the challenges the modern public university faces and the need for some fairly radical new thinking to meet them effectively, this book should create plenty to talk about in higher education and policymaking circles."

"The American public university is a most remarkable institution. It was created with a combination of vision and pragmatism, and has proven to be impressively adaptable to society's changing needs. Duderstadt and Womack, with insight acquired and honed in the trenches and on the battlements of one of the nation's foremost public universities, are pragmatic in addressing the challenges now facing the public universities—access and cost, new technology, market forces, financing, leadership, governance, etc.—and visionary in spelling out the opportunities that beckon."