Transforming Higher Education Economy, Democracy, and the University

by Rosow, Stephen J.; Kriger, Thomas; Azari-Rad, Hamid; Dwyer, Catherine M.; Floss, Frederick; Knapp, Sally; Luke, Timothy W.; Lustig, R Jeffrey; Plotkin, Sidney; Scheuerman, William; Solomonoff, David; Vampola, David

• ISBN13: 9780739131701
• ISBN10: 0739131702
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-17
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

The university is being transformed and can be transformed. This doubleness informs this book. _Transforming_ in _transforming higher education_ can be read as adjective, suggesting that higher education is being transformed by the social and political situation in which it is enmeshed. _Transforming_ can also be read as a gerund, implying the critical activity of changing the university, as signaling a creative and political act of radical possibility. The essays in this book address the transformation of higher education and the transformative possibilities of its current conditions. Only by viewing the university as a historical construction can we assess the dangers and opportunities of the new conditions of higher education, and chart a reasonable course for the future. The essays in this book are critical of recent developments in universities and higher education. Most of us come from public universities, and all remain committed to a democratic higher education that we see threatened by recent developments. There is a danger that the combination of economic crisis, market ideology, and global pressures will continue to structure the debate about higher education in ways that freeze out the transformative and politically critical possibilities of the university. Part I of the book examines the historical transformation of the university as it has changed into its current form. Part II examines both the transformation of the university into a neoliberal institution and makes the case for the more political and radical idea of transforming the university in opposition to how it has been transformed in recent years. Part III offers a number of studies aimed at illuminating possibilities for transforming the university in a more progressive, democratic direction.

Author Biography

Stephen J. Rosow is professor of political science at State University of New York. Thomas Kriger is vice president for academic affairs and provost at the National Labor College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
Historical-Theoretical Interventions	p. 1
Corporate MisEducation and the Liberal Arts Response	p. 3
Veblen's The Higher Learning in America and the Ambiguities of Academic Independence	p. 37
What is Information? The Neoliberal Turn, Digitalization, and Interdisciplinarity	p. 65
Contesting The Neo-Liberal University	p. 81
The Concept of Corporatization: A Useful Tool or Feel-Good Slogan?	p. 83
The Economics of Globalization and Corporatization of Higher Education	p. 95
Institutional and Ideological Determinants of Economics Education in U.S. Colleges and Universities	p. 107
Corporatization and Research Information	p. 127
Envisioning Different Higher Education	p. 149
Global Knowledge, the University, and Democratic Politics	p. 151
Controversy, Contest, and Competition: The Institutionalization of the "Disciplines of Scale" and Higher Learning in the Twenty-First Century	p. 179
Open Source and Open Content as a Counter to Globalization and Corporatism for Public Institutions of Higher Learning	p. 199
Bibliography	p. 217
Index	p. 231
Contributors	p. 235
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