James C. Garland - Saving Alma Mater

Saving Alma Mater

In 2009, Garland expounded his views on the state of higher education in public universities in his book Saving Alma Mater: A Rescue Plan for America's Public Universities. In an interview with Inside Higher Education in October 2009, where he presents public university education as vital but in need of change to survive successfully, he talks of four main areas of change that need to be addressed:

• He sees public universities becoming autonomous through deregulation, run by independent trustees who decide educational and financial policies.

• He argues that taxpayers' money should support less-well-off students through scholarships, not subsidize campuses; higher income students would pay more, lower income less. Best value schools would prosper and overall student numbers would rise. Research, low-enrollment, and vital programs would be protected.

• He sees university personnel cost as being the largest area of budget. Efficiency should be increased through voluntary financial incentives, and reducing committee sizes and numbers.

• He believes that candidate selection of senior administrators, presidents and chancellors by search committees and vested interests is inefficient and ineffective, and should operate more like private-sector universities. He also argues that state governors who typically appoint trustees should be educated about how to select qualified and effective candidates.

Garland's views were acknowledged in the New York Times. He spoke on topics raised in Saving Alma Mater at the University of Cincinnati, In the light of the book, he spoke to Pittsburgh Tribune Review about financial concerns at Penn State University, He told of his criticism of what he saw as the mismanagement of campuses to The Washington Post, and in 2005, before the book was published, he expressed some of the same ideas to the same newspaper.