Research in Higher Education

Abstract

F ROM my book, An Open Letter to College Teachers,' I have been asked to abstract my ideas on the need of research in higher education. Instead, I shall write a brief article stating my views irrespective of what was said in the book. My first thought is, Why write such an article when the need is so obvious? My second thought is that the need has been emphasized so often by many others that my own remarks are unnecessary. The only possible value they may have lies in the fact that they are expressions of one who is not a specialist in the field, but who, as a teacher and administrator, has an interest in the problems. Since I am to write about research in higher education, it may be well to make clear what we mean by research, especially since the meaning of that word has been considerably stretched in recent years. If we