It is no secret that higher education is wrought with problems. Unmet expectations, high costs, and low faculty salaries: these are just a few of the many complaints rendered by students, parents, and employees. Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness addressed these issues and more in their 2019 book, Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education, published by Oxford University Press. In Cracks in the Ivory Tower, Brennan and Magness offer an argument, based on economic principles, that many of the issues facing higher education today can be explained by bad incentives which, in turn, makes those involved in academia engage in poor behavior. In each chapter, the authors explore a specific issue in higher education, including the bad incentives, relevant economic theories, and an occasional suggested remedy.

Cheating is a prevalent concern throughout society. Headlines regularly appear with news of the next great scandal. In fact, you and I have probably cheated at least once in our lives (even if it was as small as changing the card drawn so as not to lose a game of Candy Land to a toddler). Less publicized but still highly prevalent is the epidemic of cheating in higher education. Depending on the study, up to 82 percent of all college students have cheated at least once in their educational experience (12). At some point, an occasional cheater might give up and become a serial cheater, which is not an intended outcome of higher education (223). To address the problem of cheating in college, James M. Lang wrote Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty as an extension of his work for the online newspaper The Chronicle of Higher Education. Published by Harvard University Press in 2013, Cheating Lessons walks readers through some of the reasons why students might engage in academically dishonest behaviors, how increasing opportunities for learning decreases cheating, and practical ways in which instructors can begin to adapt their own courses to reduce cheating.

How nice would it be if a simple handbook on how to be an effective educator existed for recent doctoral graduates and new professors? Some graduate students receive adequate training throughout their doctoral program as a teaching assistant or adjunct professor; however, the vast majority of new professors are thrown into the academy with little training or development of the virtues necessary for effective professorship. Steven M. Cahn provides an invaluable resource that scratches the surface of the nuances of the professorial life with Saints and Scamps: Ethics in Academia. Cahn shares advice for healthy academia out of his wealth of experience as a graduate student, faculty member, and senior administrator in numerous colleges throughout the Northeastern US.

Since the opening of Harvard College—the first university in the United States—higher education reformation has not ceased. Reformers respond to the question of the purpose of a university. In Save the World on Your Own Time, author Stanley Fish attempts to answer this question by articulating the role of university educators in teaching students practical skills necessary to enter the workforce after college. Fish published his book with Oxford University Press in 2008 after decades of working in higher education as both an instructor and administrator. Fish combines anecdotes, personal research, and rebuttals of other scholars to present a thorough argument for why instructors should focus only on teaching skills in the classroom and leave no space for political agendas or moral development.

American higher education has slowly been refined to the present model, rich with choice and loosely held together by a common moral standard. The purpose of education has been changed since the establishment of the colonial colleges; likewise, the collegiate experience and curriculum also transformed to meet the demands of society over the past few centuries. Author Julie A. Reuben addresses these changes in The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality, published in 1996 through Chicago University Press. This book combines her doctoral dissertation with additional research to tell a story about how the colonial colleges from the seventeenth century slowly developed into modern American universities. Reuben combines general analyses of cultural and intellectual shifts with case studies from eight specific universities: California at Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Stanford, and Yale (9).

Race is not an easy subject to broach. Early on in life, based on situational cues (e.g., parents speaking in hushed tones), children realize that it is best to avoid the subject altogether. Instead of learning how to navigate difficult conversations with respect and grace, these children grow up to be adults who are afraid of those who look different, which further perpetuates segregation and systemic racism. Over 60 years after the Civil Rights Movement, social justice advocates continue to ask how we can improve cross-racial relations to create a more equitable society. Enter the seminal work of Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D.: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race.