Overview
- Features interviews and oral histories of students from a public university in Nevada
- Lays out challenges faced by non-white and low-income students and potential policy solutions
- Explores the intersections of race and class in twenty-first century public higher education
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About this book
In this book, eleven recent college graduates describe in vivid detail their journeys from racially segregated, underfunded public schools to a state university, and the obstacles they encountered along the way. Chapters highlight personal accounts of poverty, violence, and bullying in childhood, the persistence of racism on the university campus and the inability of faculty and administrators to combat it. Overcoming all-too-common barriers, these eleven students persevered, earned their degrees and continued on to graduate school and professional careers. The authors conclude the book with policy proposals that not only address the issues raised by the students, but that would also restore public education to its original role as an engine of opportunity and driver of democracy.
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Keywords
Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“Eleven “New Gen” university students in Nevada with unique and distinctive tales to tell of racism, elitism, inequalities, and hierarchies of rank in public higher education. Eleven “Voices from the Wasteland” of Nevada, with bracing accounts of struggle, determination, anger, and action that shatter expectations based on predictable stereotypes of identity politics. Eleven different stories from Nevada, with students conspiring toward a vitalizing collective response to the manifold crises that beset public higher education in the United States. With admirable generosity and remarkable self-control, Ring, Shaw, and Gibb allow the eleven University of Nevada, Reno students at the heart of this study to speak truth to power for themselves and in concert with each other, showing us how they find their voices together. The result is a brutally honest but strikingly hopeful book, remarkable for its collaborative pedagogy and willingness to journey along with “the rough and the unpredictable” contingencies of student activism and alliance building on a matter of utmost importance in current American politics. Indispensable reading for anyone who wants to think more deeply, practically, democratically, and constructively with students and teachers about how to repair the Wasteland by reclaiming public higher education in the United States.”
—Mary G. Dietz, Northwestern University, USA
“At a time when universities across the nation are centrally concerned with issues of diversity and inclusion as well as student success, Saving Public Higher Education offers ground-breaking insights and guidance. By forefronting an open-ended, interview approach, this book serves as an extraordinary exemplar of how to facilitate honest and important conversations among diverse populations--culminating in a clear and compelling list of recommendations and best practices. Organized around eleven inspiring and heart-breaking voices, this book lays bare somany fault-lines in our national discourse on race and educational opportunity, and also points to positive ways to address the nation’s challenges.
The book also offers important suggestions for how to deal with challenging institutional history. It contributes crucial recommendations for developing general education requirements that actively promote diversity and inclusion, with academic rigor, and concludes with a thought-provoking proposal for enhancing funding for public education in America. The audience for this book includes campus leadership, faculty, staff, students as well as anyone interested in issues of diversity, equity, and student success. Further, this model of how to facilitate honest and effective group meetings can be employed far beyond the campus environment.”
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Jennifer Ring is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA, where she has taught political philosophy, and courses on race, gender and identity for 25 years. She received her Bachelor’s degree from UCLA and her Master’s and Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. She has published books and articles in political theory, feminist theory, and gender and sports.
Trisden Shaw is a political educator and community organizer who seeks to amplify the voices of those who traditionally have been silenced. As a campus organizer, Trisden orchestrated a number of social actions seeking to improve the conditions of marginalized students on campus and in the community. He is a recent graduate of the African American Studies MA program at University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
Reece Gibb is a technical writer for a software developer in Silicon Valley. He earned his MAin Political Science, and his BA with Honors in History and Political Science from the University of Nevada, Reno, USA. His interests include electoral politics, nineteenth-century American history, and queer studies, often focusing on the convergence of all three.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Saving Public Higher Education
Book Subtitle: Voices from the Wasteland
Authors: Jennifer Ring, Trisden Shaw, Reece Gibb
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05646-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-05645-1Published: 20 November 2022
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-05648-2Published: 20 November 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-05646-8Published: 19 November 2022
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XX, 372
Topics: Higher Education, Educational Policy and Politics, Ethnography, Sociology of Education