If universities are businesses: – education and research are not public goods but a private business opportunity – education and research are not investments in the society’s future but in the future of companies to which services may be outsourced – their objective is to make a profit for stockholders – they should not have … More If universities are businesses
We wrote a long and vague resolution that did not go anywhere, but I would be for making much more frequent, short recommendations, and repeating them. Two possibilities follow. Tuition and fees The rising cost of tuition and fees is untenable. For universities to be a public good, public higher education, like secondary education, must … More Concrete suggestions for improvement
This is the key to my article “Language and the entrepreneurial university.” How did we get here without realizing it? I saw the signs of it in the 70s and then 80s, and I felt the change happening in the 90s and early 00s but did not understand it, although I had a couple of … More The neoliberal self
We don’t know, of course, if anyone believes in the common good, or the public good any more, but here are some fragmentary notes from a conversation we had. 1. We should talk much more about research. In class. College has to become more interesting – we cannot allow it to be further redefined as … More The common good
I am still going through my files and it is shocking – so many quite good and almost finished papers I set aside, or that got swept aside in one storm or another. I have the Racial Order book, which is focused on the U.S. It talks about field theory (Bourdieu). Can race be a … More Des feuilles
Who said it? Market incentives lower the value of college to both individuals and the public. Defunding chips away at both the public good and the private benefits to students. Faculty should unite on the concept of public good, and senior administrators should articulate it. Privatization has a price (and is not an improvement). Axé.
I really should have spent all the time I wasted reading Marxist and other Left theory, simply for the sake of mental health — although it would have been good intellectual exercise as well, and a good political education. Here’s an article on Kropotkin, mutual aid and anarchism that is worth reading. Here is a … More Kropotkin and more.
On the commercialization of higher education. Kezar says the three books she reviews offer oversimplified solutions to the commercialization problem. She says commercialization must be studied from a systems and cultural perspective. 1. What is the public good, and how is commercialization threatening it? None of the authors say a great deal about the notion … More Adrianna Kezar
It is in August, then, that I will create the reserve list for that class and construct Moodle sites for all my classes. In July I will still read for them. Today I was supposed to start writing — write for an hour, not read — that article. There are all these tantalizing ways to … More August 3-11
I would buy this book if it were less expensive, and if it were in a library I would check it out. Countering recent arguments that we should “unbundle” or “disrupt” higher education, Jason Owen-Smith argues that research universities are valuable gems that deserve support. While they are complex and costly, their enduring value is … More Research universities and the public good
