From Sputnik to the Spellings Commission: The Rhetoric of Higher Education Reform

In July 1946, Harry S. Truman formed the first-ever presidential commission on higher education. Since that time, reports by commissioned panels of experts calling for reforms to postsecondary education have proliferated. The Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education provides yet the most recent high-profile example of how reformists may shift their sights--and their rhetorical strategies--from primary to postsecondary education. Yet, little examination has been made of how such reports harness the persuasive power of rhetoric to advance their agendas for reform. In From Sputnik to the Spellings Commission, Daylanne Markwardt bridges this gap by bringing tools of rhetorical criticism to bear on the contemporary rhetoric of higher education reform. Drawing upon rhetorical and linguistic theories, she demonstrates how two key metaphors--the first, framing higher education as a means of national defense, the second, likening it to a business or industry--have radically altered the way postsecondary education has been perceived and valued in the U.S. over the past 60 years. She also explores how a number of major ideological appeals have been used to legitimize actions and policies that have brought about sweeping changes to institutions of higher learning since the Cold War. Based upon Jürgen Habermas's theory of technological rationality, she argues that commission reports have instilled a measurement-oriented, bottom line-driven mindset, whereby the results of postsecondary learning have been reduced to those which are readily quantifiable and its worth calculated almost entirely in economic terms. As a codified response to a recurrent social situation, commission reports like those analyzed in this dissertation constitute a unique genre of reform rhetoric. Yet, they also effectively restrict women, persons of color, and other marginalized groups from the dialog surrounding higher education reform, thereby sustaining a hegemony of values asserted largely by representatives of dominant religious, political, and business interests. The author concludes that the conventions and limitations of this genre must be challenged, and the ideologies now associated with higher education rearticulated, if the humanities are to maintain their place within the evolving American university

Primary Care Physicians’ Assessment and Prevention of HIV Infection

The degree and depth to which primary care physicians counsel patients at risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is a major concern. To determine which factors influence whether physicians counsel patients at risk for HIV, primary care physicians’ clinical experience, knowledge, attitudes, and preventive counseling advice in hypothetical case scenarios were assessed. Ninety-nine adult primary care physicians in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area were interviewed by telephone from May through November 1987. Ninety-one physicians had tested or referred patients for HIV antibody tests. However, 58% could not name the ELISA or Western blot as the tests. The most frequent HIV prevention recommendations were using condoms (67.7%), abstaining from sexual activity (36.4%), getting tested for HIV (30.3%), and safe sex (23.2%). Naming the HIV antibody tests was the most significant predictor of preventive counseling advice; other significant predictors included physicians’ personal comfort with counseling homosexual patients and various physician practice and demographic characteristics. Previous studies showed that homophobia was the main inhibitor of effective AIDS counseling. These results suggest that physicians’ lack of knowledge and general discomfort in counseling patients about sexual risk factors, rather than homophobia alone, are important barriers to preventive counseling about HIV infection

Primary Care Physicians’ Assessment and Prevention of HIV Infection

The degree and depth to which primary care physicians counsel patients at risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is a major concern. To determine which factors influence whether physicians counsel patients at risk for HIV, primary care physicians’ clinical experience, knowledge, attitudes, and preventive counseling advice in hypothetical case scenarios were assessed. Ninety-nine adult primary care physicians in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area were interviewed by telephone from May through November 1987. Ninety-one physicians had tested or referred patients for HIV antibody tests. However, 58% could not name the ELISA or Western blot as the tests. The most frequent HIV prevention recommendations were using condoms (67.7%), abstaining from sexual activity (36.4%), getting tested for HIV (30.3%), and safe sex (23.2%). Naming the HIV antibody tests was the most significant predictor of preventive counseling advice; other significant predictors included physicians’ personal comfort with counseling homosexual patients and various physician practice and demographic characteristics. Previous studies showed that homophobia was the main inhibitor of effective AIDS counseling. These results suggest that physicians’ lack of knowledge and general discomfort in counseling patients about sexual risk factors, rather than homophobia alone, are important barriers to preventive counseling about HIV infection