Course Description
Critical problems and issues facing higher educational institutions, emphasizing the processes of change for improved administrative leadership and practice.
Athena Title
CRITICAL ISSUES
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course is designed to enable students to critically examine and evaluate current issues in United States higher education. Each student will be responsible for an in-depth analysis of a major critical issue. Through a systematic inventory of "issues" identified by major higher education interest groups, each student will also compile, evaluate, and debate the issues defined by these various groups in an effort to arrive at an objective short list of the issues most relevant and critical to higher education today. While many of the issues explored through this class will be framed in a national context, students will endeavor to separate issues best addressed at the state level and to generate a short list of the most critical higher education issues facing the state of Georgia. As will be seen, the very act of raising an issue is central to framing the ensuing public debate. Effectively raised issues tend to obviate the many value judgments that declare them to be problems of significant import. This better enables the public to focus attention on the issues themselves rather than the often conflicting values lying just beneath their surface. Students in this course will work through material elaborating the birth of "issues," their evolution and life-cycle, and the ways in which they can be effectively leveraged to affect policy making. Class deliberations of the critical issues facing higher education today will be informed with knowledge of the policy process. This broader policy making context will facilitate evaluation of the substance and the presentation of the issues identified through the course activities
Topical Outline
This course has been designed around five key objectives: 1. To provide an overview of the policy making process; 2. To provide an examination of the political landscapes of the federal and state policy making arenas, clearly identifying the major stakeholders and their interests; 3. To provide a consideration of the major issues facing higher education, at both the state and national levels (as defined from a wide variety of perspectives and interests). 4. To enable students to use this knowledge of the policy making process, the major higher education stakeholders, and their knowledge of the higher education enterprise in general to systematically evaluate the salience of the issues identified as critical by various higher education interests. 5. Finally, to have students produce and defend two higher education "issues lists": a. List 1 will pertain to U.S. higher education in a general sense; b. List 2 will focus specifically on higher education issues in the state of Georgia.