ABSTRACT
Change and adjustment are essential in some cases already underway, but they should not overwhelm existing strengths or the standards that emerge from these strengths. This chapter focuses on some longstanding strengths and more recent changes that have begun despite the ostrich claims of our loudest critics to respond to the newer pressures and opportunities. Liberal education is itself a changing framework, it needs constant attention and also it must not be sacrificed to a narrower purpose. In contrast to the liberal education framework, of course, the research university is not an American invention. Indeed, research advances are vital to the competitive posture of higher education in the world at large. However, higher education does have valid standards and measurable achievements and there is every reason to credit these strengths. It will be easier to gain faculty buy in for change if there is wider acknowledgement of the need for balance between adaptive conservation and more systematic innovation.
