Introduction

Abstract

This chapter introduces Thomas Kuhn’s concept of paradigm and its application to the structure, organizational characteristics, policies, processes, and practices of American public higher education. It describes how paradigms fail as events, changing philosophies, new evidence, and new perspectives overtake established structures and set the stage for major changes Kuhn calls a paradigmshift. It is this change and the resulting paradigm shift that has produced major “cracks” in the current paradigm which are leading to an uncertain future for American public higher education and threaten its sustainability. The chapter concludes with a call for a “new way, a new course, a new mode and paradigm” for meeting the higher education needs of the nation.