Abstract
Experts weigh in on the rise of corporatizing trends in higher education today. Johann N. Neem, Brenda Forster, Sheila Slaughter, Richard Vedder, and Tressie McMillan Cottom and Sara Goldrick-Rab help us understand these trends and their effects on higher education.
Keywords
Modern Times © Roy Export S.A.S. Scan Courtesy Cineteca di Bologna
Last June, Teresa Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia, was unceremoniously forced out office. Those members of the university’s governing board who wanted Sullivan out, led by Helen Dragas and a few big donors, were particularly keen for the university to embrace online education—without having conducted an analysis of its viability. They were also displeased that Sullivan was not excited or willing to make “hard fiscal decisions” they felt were necessary, such as dismantling the classics and German departments. The university’s board, like governing boards elsewhere, is composed almost entirely of businesspeople—real estate developers, hedge fund managers, and corporate lawyers—who are intent on running the university as though it were a for-profit corporation. A Huffington Post piece put it succinctly: “The board is not simply more attuned to corporate interests and ideas than those of higher education professionals—the board quite literally is a cadre of corporate elites.”
After two weeks of protests by faculty, students, alumni, two former UVA presidents, the interim president, and donors, Sullivan was eventually reinstated. A victory for the ivory tower over Wall Street? Perhaps. But Helen Dragas, the board chairperson who oversaw the debacle, was also reappointed to her post.
Sullivan’s firing highlights the rise of corporatizing trends in higher education today—trends like online education, fiscal austerity, department profitability, and the new emphasis on “strategic dynamics.” What should we make of it all?
We’ve asked a number of experts to help us understand the ways these trends are influencing higher education today. Johann N. Neem takes us to a university that outsources its educational content and has no faculty. Brenda Forster looks at a conflict over online education at a small liberal arts college. Sheila Slaughter discusses the ways federal funding of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and business programs, along with universities’ profit-making activities, is shifting educational priorities. Richard Vedder argues that for-profits are good for students because they make higher education more competitive, efficient, and affordable. And Tressie McMillan Cottom and Sara Goldrick-Rab analyze how corporate reformers are shaping the debate over what constitutes “success” in higher education.