Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement

by Johnson, Benjamin; Kavanagh, Patrick; Mattson, Kevin

• ISBN13: 9780203465493
• ISBN10: 0203465490
• Copyright: 2003-01-31
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Summary

Steal This University explores the paradox of academic labor. Universities do not exist to generate a profit from capital investment, yet contemporary universities are increasingly using corporations as their model for internal organization. While the media, politicians, business leaders and the general public all seem to share a remarkable consensus that higher education is indispensable to the future of nations and individuals alike, within academia bitter conflicts brew over the shape of tomorrow's universities. Contributors to the volume range from the star academic to the disgruntled adjunct and each bring a unique perspective to the discussion on the academy's over-reliance on adjuncts and teaching assistants, the debate over tenure and to the valiant efforts to organize unions and win rights.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Not Your Parents' University or Labor Movement Any Longer	p. 1
The Rise of the Corporate University	p. 11
None of Your Business: The Rise of the University of Phoenix and For-Profit Education - and Why It Will Fail Us All	p. 15
Digital Diploma Mills	p. 33
Inefficient Efficiency: A Critique of Merit Pay	p. 49
The Drain-O of Higher Education: Casual Labor and University Teaching	p. 61
Laboring Within	p. 81
How I Became a Worker	p. 87
The Art of Work in the Age of the Adjunct	p. 97
Blacklisted and Blue: On Theory and Practice at Yale	p. 107
Tenure Denied: Union Busting and Anti-Intellectualism in the Corporate University	p. 123
Organizing	p. 139
The Campaign for Union Rights at NYU	p. 145
Democracy Is an Endless Organizing Drive: Learning from the Failure and Future of Graduate Student Organizing at the University of Minnesota	p. 171
Moving River Barges: Labor Activism and Academic Organizations	p. 189
Social Movement Unionism and Adjunct Faculty Organizing in Boston	p. 207
Renewing Academic Unions and Democracy at the Same Time: The Case of the California Faculty Association	p. 221
Conclusion: The Future of Higher Education and Academic Labor	p. 231
Notes	p. 241
Notes on Contributors and Editors	p. 251
Index	p. 257
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