Schrecker:
Ch.6
Ch. 3
Ch.1
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
- 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
- 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
- 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?
Ch. 3
- for-profits = corrupted
- claim diversity + inclusion
- victimizing minority students
- for-profits appeal to both major political parties
- $$ to politics
- federal aid + defaulted loans
- convenience, it’s how the labor market works
- how do state schools get $?
- enrollment up, aid down
- states that have traditionally had large public systems are now the ones less likely to cut funding for pub. institutions
- people can’t afford education
- states that charge more have more students who can’t pay à federal aid has to increase
- lower amount of debt is single greatest predictor of grad school attendance
- polarization
- platform with public support from both parties
- new focus on low and middle income families
- direct lending is a cool and newly supported option
- no regulation of f-p
- f-p are afraid of Obama because of new focus on “program integrity”
- à lots of lobbying
- how f-p use $$$$
- 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
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
- 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
- the impact of neoliberalism on higher education
- the impact of money on higher education
- differing opinions on where pressure needs to be in order to make change