About the author

Jeff Camhi

Jeff Camhi was born in New York City; he received his BA and his PhD in biology, from Tufts and Harvard, respectively. he then taught at Cornell for 15 years, becoming a full professor in 1980. Following a sabbatical year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he accepted a job offer and moved with his family to Israel. He has been a full professor at the Hebrew University for the past 30 years. For most of his career, his field of research has been the neural basis of animal behavior. At about the time of the new millennium, his long-term interest in public education was re-kindled. Dr. Camhi is now Emeritus Professor, Life Sciences Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Founding Director, Nature Park & Galleries, a unique “open-campus museum” of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem whose mission is sharing a broad range of academic ideas with a broad public.

A Dam in the River

Name: A Dam in the River
Price: 23.95 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Jeff Camhi
ISBN: 9780875869872

Releasing the Flow of University Ideas

Price range: $23.95 through $33.95

A Dam in the River challenges the academic culture and conventions that leave the vast majority of Americans out of contact with university ideas.

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Categories: Higher Education, Social IssuesAuthor: Jeff Camhi SKU: a-dam-in-the-river Categories: Higher Education, Social Issues Tags: academic culture critique, academic outreach, access to education, America's universities, bridging academia and public, closing the gap between campus and community, college knowledge gap, democratizing education, educated public, education for everyone, higher education and democracy, higher education reform, how universities share knowledge, ideas that change the world, intellectual accessibility, ivory tower problem, knowledge hoarding in academia, making research accessible, open access education, public engagement with universities, public intellectuals, university culture, university presidents interviews, university research and society, why college ideas don't reach people Author: Jeff Camhi

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The huge reservoir of ideas at America's and the world's great universities and colleges constitutes a vital national resource. But tragically, this resource is largely dammed up on campus; academia shares its ideas with the public only to a very limited extent. Everyone loses. This book shows how this tragic situation developed, and how to open the academic sluice gates for everyone's benefit.

About the Book

A Dam in the River challenges the academic culture and conventions that leave the vast majority of Americans out of contact with university ideas. The book shows what types of university ideas are important for the general public and why, reveals several reasons why public access to these ideas is so limited, and offers a comprehensive strategy for opening the sluice gates and letting the ideas flow, at little or no financial cost. The book shows how anyone, on- or off-campus, could help implement this strategy, for the benefit of all.What types of benefit can ideas provide? An idea can change a mind, change a life, change the world. In five years of research for the book, Dr. Camhi conducted 155 in-depth interviews of presidents and other academic leaders at 26 of America's most distinguished universities and colleges, plus 13 additional academic organizations. He also carried out surveys, analyzed other national surveys, calculated the numbers of Americans engaged in various campus-based activities, studied the content of these activities, and analyzed the writings of America's greatest academic leaders.A Dam in the River is written in a popular style, and with a touch of humor. Readers require no academic background. The book is intended to inspire, and then help guide, a movement to make the ideas generated at America's great universities and colleges accessible to all Americans, for the public good.

About the Book

America's universities are sitting on a goldmine of ideas — and almost none of it reaches ordinary people. That's the central argument of this deeply researched book by Dr. Camhi, who spent five years investigating why the gap between academia and the general public is so wide, and what can actually be done about it.

To build his case, Camhi conducted 155 in-depth interviews with university presidents and academic leaders at 26 of America's most distinguished colleges and universities, along with representatives from 13 additional academic organizations. What he found is a culture that, despite its best intentions, effectively dams up knowledge on campus rather than letting it flow outward. The result is a kind of intellectual hoarding — not necessarily by design, but by habit, incentive, and institutional inertia.

The book doesn't stop at diagnosis. It lays out a practical, comprehensive strategy for breaking down those barriers and making university ideas genuinely accessible to the public, at little or no financial cost. Crucially, Camhi argues this isn't just a job for administrators or policymakers — anyone, whether on campus or off, can play a role.

This is an important read for anyone frustrated by the disconnect between higher education and everyday life, or curious about how academic culture works and who it really serves. It raises an uncomfortable question: if universities are publicly supported engines of knowledge, why does so little of that knowledge reach the public?

Additional information

Weight	N/A
Book Type	Ebook, ePub, Hard cover, Soft cover
Pages	246
Release Year	2013
BISAC I	EDU002000
BISAC II	EDU036000

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About the author

Jeff Camhi

A Dam in the River

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The Ivory Tower of Babel: Why the Social Sciences Are Failing to Live Up to Their Promises

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