This article grew out of a roundtable of national leaders in higher education which explored the role of the academic department in serving as both a force for institutional change and a link to the scholarly world of disciplinary knowledge and practice. The essay argues that the principal threat to the academy is its own fragmentation, with…

Although classrooms vary in design and populations, there are certain features that are common to virtually all classrooms. These include the crowding of pupils, the compulsion of school attendance, and the expectation that teachers will foster literacy. The manner in which these features are dealt with in a classroom constitutes the core problem…