America’s research universities consistently dominate global rankings but may be entrenched in a model that no longer accomplishes their purposes. With their multiple roles of discovery, teaching, and public service, these institutions represent the gold standard in American higher education, but their evolution since the nineteenth century has been only incremental. While restoring support for public research universities is essential, institutions themselves must reconceptualize their design, especially in terms of scale and accessibility. Admission to elite private institutions typically correlates more with zip codes than SAT scores, but even our nation’s leading public research universities have become increasingly exclusive, which is to say that admissions practices exclude the majority of academically qualified applicants, even while state funding for higher education has plummeted. Join us for a discussion of William B. Dabars’ new book, Designing the New American University, coauthored with Arizona State University president Michael M. Crow.

Analytic Geometry and Calculus