wcenter Another New Book from the WAC Clearinghouse

Hi Folks,

I’m pleased to share the news that a new book has been added to the WAC Clearinghouse Landmarks in Writing Studies series.

As If Learning Mattered: Reforming Higher Education

By Richard E. Miller

Published in 1998, when the culture wars had reached the end of their second decade, Richard E. Miller’s As If Learning Mattered explored why higher education has been particularly resistant to reform. Unraveling stereotypes about conservative, liberal, and radical reform efforts, Miller looked at what actually happened when theories about education were put into practice. As If Learning Matters raises critical questions: What did Matthew Arnold do as a school inspector to promote the study of “the best that has been thought and said in our time”? Why did the Great Books program fail at the University of Chicago and succeed at a small liberal arts college in Annapolis, Maryland? How did Tony Bennett and others involved in the radical work of British Cultural Studies test their students’ knowledge of popular culture? How did ethnographers of schooling respond when they encountered students with apparently racist attitudes? By grappling with such questions, As If Learning Mattered focused attention on how students, teachers, and administrators experience life in the academy as they negotiate the daily realities of reading lists, writing assignments, grading practices, and funding crises. By juxtaposing what educators think about social change with what these same people actually do in the classroom, Miller successfully identified new ways to generate locally effective reform objectives for the university as it retools for the information age.

Richard Miller has also provided a reflection on the 25th anniversary of the publication of As If Learning Mattered.

You can find the book at https://wac.colostate.edu/books/landmarks/miller/. Thanks to Richard for sharing his work in open access format and thanks to the editorial review board of the Landmarks series for their efforts reviewing the book for inclusion in the series.

All the best,

Mike

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Mike Palmquist

Publisher, The WAC Clearinghouse

https://wac.colostate.edu