Who’s in Charge?
Neoliberalism: policy orientations in which the state sector is seen as not useful, and the private enterprise becomes more important, market relations substitute for social relations; private and individual responsible than seeing larger social frameworks; accentuation of market and individual; economic: brings together globalization (competition is global and there is a fragmentation of labor, get cheapest labor for each task; drives down labor prices) and the replacement of industrial capital-which included benefits for labor- with financial capital (as discussed in Martin)
Mettler Chapter 5
Important themes
Comments from discussion:
Neoliberalism: policy orientations in which the state sector is seen as not useful, and the private enterprise becomes more important, market relations substitute for social relations; private and individual responsible than seeing larger social frameworks; accentuation of market and individual; economic: brings together globalization (competition is global and there is a fragmentation of labor, get cheapest labor for each task; drives down labor prices) and the replacement of industrial capital-which included benefits for labor- with financial capital (as discussed in Martin)
- Takes a certain social contract between employer and employee that there will be a reasonable wage and a sense of permanence; but when labor pool is much larger than what is needed to fill jobs, the laborers are in competition with each other; vulnerable and temporary work
- Ellen Schrecker, Chapter 6: The Lost Soul of Higher Education
- The encroachment of neoliberalism on the academy with a reward system that inevitably lures academics away from the classroom and into laboratories; original work is expected from all faculty and departments
- “multiversities” – coined by Clark Kerr in 1963 – institutions that not only engaged in cutting-edge research in dozens of fields, offered training in liberal arts to under and grad students and provide expertise to the state and society
- the outside economy dictated what students wanted to study: sociology departments beef up criminology courses and philosophers begin to teach business ethics
- Chapter 7: Under Our Noses
- The plight of adjuncts:
- Unequal benefits, pay, and resources (lack of an office, phone, access to copiers, printers)
- Impermanent contracts, meaning employment from year to year could be at risk
- Further, adjuncts were fired for voicing dissenting opinions (whether that be discussing school shootings, Palestine, or even the mistreatment of adjuncts) or simply as “flexible” jobs, being the first jobs to be cut
- The losing struggle for academic freedom
- Ernest Boyer calls for a reconceptualization of scholarly work that would restore undergrad teaching and service activities to their central position within the academic profession
- The plight of adjuncts:
- There is discussion about separating professors into teaching faculty and research faculty; research would be the stars, and teaching would be essentially adjuncts and paid much less
- Argument of Boyar is that there are multiple forms of scholarship
- Reduction of tenured track faculty and increase of service-based work of professors; decrease of tenure faculty means fewer people to advise, serve on committees, etc. because they don’t have the ongoing employment
- Epilogue “Everything is on the table” – Schrekecker
- Administrations usually acting unilaterally, sometimes by implementing long-sought strategic plans without consulting faculties
- Is this an opportunity to “get costs under control”?
- Using a systematic approach to change
- Need to improve productivity
- The increasing vocationalization of the academy now determines what so many American students do and do not learn
- The professoriate’s acquiescence has led to its own casualization
- The role of teachers’ unions
- Should professors be rising up, demanding better working conditions?
- Often faculty will not add adjuncts into a faculty senate; full time faculty as allies, and don’t speak out for adjuncts
- Some professors don’t want to unionize because there is a sense that they can take care of themselves, and don’t want to be lumped in “with other blue collar workers;” “we are professionals”
- Richie Zweigenhaft, “Is this curriculum for sale?”
- The privatization of curricula
- The removal of academic freedom in the academy
- The combination of these realities leading to a “name your price” attitude towards courses, with little to no input (as in the case of Guilford College) in accepting these paid-for courses or fellowships in exchange for teaching a seminar which read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
- Mettler, Chapter 3
- For profits have become a corrupted sector of higher education
- Politicians struggle to control them because for profits claim to be more diverse because they target minority and low income groups
- Studies like the Nunn Report have shown that for profits victimize those already disadvantaged. Although these studies depict for profits in a negative light, for profits have been very efficient at appealing to both parties: Republican s see them as a business and Democrats see them as access to higher ed for disadvantaged students (the money just helps)
- Enrollment in state schools has increased, while government support has decreased
- There are many relationships between state politics, finances, and history and how much they spend on higher education. For example: there is an opposite relationship between state wealth and the amount put into higher ed; states with professional legislatures (more full time staff, higher pay) spend more on higher ed; states with more interest groups spend less on education; states that had public schools first generally give more funding; and states that tax more often given more to higher education
- Minimal government support for public schools is bad because students must spend more time working, making it harder for students to complete their degrees
Mettler Chapter 5
- In recent years, politicians have been talking more and more about higher ed
- Certain factors include: polarization (as certain platforms gain support, everyone must change to keep votes); increased participation of students at the polls; reports on how corrupt lenders, politicians and admissions officers act; decreased funding of the GI Bill; the economic crash (loan reform possible since banks could not give out private loans); and Obama’s election as he focused his campaign on how and middle income families
- As individuals talked about direct lending more, it became less controversial because it’s better for families and costs less for the government. Direct lending passed and the saved money was put into more grants to disadvantaged students
- For profits have been increasing their role in higher education and, although steps towards regulation have been attempted, are highly supported by the government
- When Obama came into office, for profits amped up lobbying to continue business as usual. For profits claimed that their role was to educate all members of society, but Obama wanted to ensure program integrity
- The for profits successfully used their money to mobilize partisanship among public officials (get Republicans on their side), build bipartisan support through strategic exploitation of personal and professional networks (recruit respectable Democrats), and fuel supporters to rally (lots of lobbyists)
- For profit faculty structure: vast majority are adjuncts (University of Phoenix to much smaller institutions); online courses; who owns what they teach? Mostly the corporations not the individuals who create their material
- In today’s globalized network, we are seeing traditional universities acting more like businesses. This is evident through changes in how faculty make decision and how we view higher education’s end goal
- A good model for businesse and education is to combine craft (experience) art (ingiht) and science (analysis) as part of our goals for higher education. These goals would produce well-rounded individuals who would be ready for anything
- Unfortunately, higher ed focuses on measurable outcomes (rankings, rigid curricula and majors, increased specialization) which destroys higher ed’s pursuit of truth; higher education seems to be focusing more on how to invest into the campus (research, dorms) and how to publicize
- Increasingly, universities and colleges are choosing outsiders to be the presidents of universities which is similar to business models throughout the world. Although this is the trend in higher ed, it is better to have insiders in control of administrations within a university as evident through the success of UMich’s Duderstadt and NYU’s Sexton
- Presidents are responsible for determining how they can make the university the best it can be, and when you have outsiders who will only work six to seven years, they are only considered with staying long enough to do something good and short enough to not have something bad happen; if you have an insider, they are concerned with the integrity of the school; while a manger often only thinks in the short term, an insider is concerned with the fidelity of the university
- University is a moral economy: essentially means that everyone accepts tacitly certain rules and sacrifices for; faculty don’t have allegiance to university but field, presidents come and go every 6 years, and their agenda is always one of change = disastrous effects of the commodification of knowledge
- “more people are becoming experts” = more POC, women, low-income people are becoming experts- is this part of the backlash?
Important themes
- massive impact of neoliberalism on higher ed
- money’s impact on higher education and its future
- where does pressures need to be placed in order to restore autonomy and minimize the business aspect of education and who needs to do it?
Comments from discussion:
- Were universities every autonomous? (ties to state, church)
- If we don’t know how things run (what is the Board of Trustees for example?) how do we know where do apply pressure?