Class Notes: Oct. 7, 2015 (Rachel Mead)

Schrecker:
Ch.6

• “tough choices” institutions have to make:
  • encroachment of neoliberalism
  • capitalist obsession w/ (productive) research rather than teaching
  • “multiversities” – cutting edge research + undergrad lib. arts + grad schools
  • outside economy à courses of study like business ethics, criminology
  • “long, bad articles” b/c of forcing original research
• neoliberalism
  • trusting to private sector, not public
  • policy/philosophy
  • marketplace dictates
  • individualism
  • fragmentation of labor, lower labor costs
  • industrial capital
    • “Fordist” economy
    • state mediates between capital and labor
    • people who are producers are also consumers
  • financial capital
    • divorce between workers and finance capital
    • most workers are not consumers
      • growing inequality
• Cold War

Ch. 7

• what does it mean to be a university professor?
  • 70% of professors are adjuncts
  • unequal access to resources
  • job impermanence (risk)
  • professors are “units of flexibility” = 1st to be cut
  • loss of academic freedom?
    • same fragmentation of labor, no benefits, vulnerable
• continuing learning as teaching + research faculty
• not valuing teaching in general

Epilogue

• is this crisis a time to get these issues under control?
• this is about working conditions
• professors have largely accepted (/don’t have the power to retaliate) that they will bear the brunt of cuts
  • should they rise up and make demands?
  • who can make impactful change?
• adjuncts often not allowed in faculty senate
• administration manipulates split between tenure track and adjunct professors
• Oberlin voted whether to unionize, decided not to

Zweigenhaft:

• corporate America has power à removal of academic freedom
• case: Guilford College was paid $500,000 over 10 years to teach Ayn Rand
• how do colleges get money? is that case of quid pro quo okay?

Mettler:
Ch. 3

• for-profits = corrupted
  • claim diversity + inclusion
  • victimizing minority students
• for-profits appeal to both major political parties
• $$ to politics
• federal aid + defaulted loans
• convenience, it’s how the labor market works

Ch. 4

• how do state schools get $?
• enrollment up, aid down
• states that have traditionally had large public systems are now the ones less likely to cut funding for pub. institutions
• people can’t afford education
• states that charge more have more students who can’t pay à federal aid has to increase
• lower amount of debt is single greatest predictor of grad school attendance

Ch. 5 – why are we talking?

• polarization
• platform with public support from both parties
• new focus on low and middle income families
• direct lending is a cool and newly supported option

Ch. 6 – Mettler really does not like for-profits

• no regulation of f-p
• f-p are afraid of Obama because of new focus on “program integrity”
• à lots of lobbying
• how f-p use $$$$
  • lobbying
  • motivate partisanship
  • get BOTH parties to support f-p
• faculty at f-p?
  • very few tenured or tenure-track; adjuncts
  • mostly taught online
  • corporation owns material taught

Martin:
Ch.1

• role of universities – to act as businesses?
• combination of experience, insight, and analysis for managers and students
• we <3 measurable outcomes
• engineering and business
• specialization
• higher education as an investment
• publicity

Ch. 5

• administration (president) in higher ed.
• public and private presidents, Dud. + Sext.
• outside hiring of pres. à 6 or 7 years, constantly changing hands
  • losing touch w/ school
• insider more concerned with integrity, long-term of school
• finance capital impact
• autonomy under attack, there are “experts” everywhere
• Colbert – Sexton: separation between mass of faculty because:
  • everyone is an expert
  • “star faculty”/president
    • bought and sold like baseball players
• moral economy à constant change
• anti intellectualism vs. intellectual gatekeeping

THEMES

1. the impact of neoliberalism on higher education
2. the impact of money on higher education
3. differing opinions on where pressure needs to be in order to make change