RECLAIMING HIGHER EDUCATION.  Yesterday, we noted anthropologist Lionel Tiger questioning the verities of his discipline.  Last October, we surveyed introspection in sociology.

Meanwhile, Inside Higher Ed notes a vision for the future worked out at a conference of faculty unions.

Participants reviewed and many expressed support for a set of organizing principles contained in a draft document called "Quality Higher Education for the 21st Century" that was prepared by the California Faculty Association. It advocates for more scrupulous analysis of calls to reform higher education. "Wholesale embrace of change without careful thought and deliberation can take us in the wrong direction," the document states, "not toward reforming higher education but, in fact, toward deforming precisely those aspects of American higher education that have made it the envy of the world."

Yes, changing the formula for Coca-Cola, or letting Brett Favre retire and unretire, will have deleterious effects.  Picking the wrong elements of current practice ditto.

The document stakes out seven broad principles: increased inclusivity and access for students; a broad, diverse, liberal arts curriculum; less reliance on contingent as opposed to tenure-track faculty; incorporating technology with an eye toward maintaining educational quality; more judicious balancing of short-term cuts with long-term costs; better state support; and the adoption of evaluation metrics that go beyond graduation rates.

Those proposals do not address the problems of inefficiently many students in college, coreless curricula that deteriorate into gen-eds to get out of the way, the latest computer fads, regressive transfers, or degree programs that fail market tests.