Wise Words from Cornell
Cornell graduate student Shaffique Adam writes sagely in the Cornell Daily Sun about the corporatization of universities. His piece, entitled "
Dollars and Nonsense," considers how "the new model of viewing universities as education service providers is gaining prevalence globally." He warns of the "corporate perspective" in which "students become the consumers of education, but since we are addicted to the product (boycotting classes or transferring away hurts us more than it does the corporation), we will be sure to come along quietly," no matter what the university leadership—its president and an external governing board—does.
Faculty, Adam writes, will become "nothing more than employees who belong to a special union that self-selects and who cannot be fired (tenure), but the corporation still determines how many get employed (you can’t imagine how difficult it is for a department chair to get a new tenure line) and which subject areas get funding and which ones don't."
I think Adam's critique is right on the money, and it's fascinating to apply it to Harvard, where everything he writes about has been occurring since Larry Summers became president in 2001. (After all, what was the Cornell West fiasco about other than a clumsy manager's attempt to rein in an employee he didn't approve of?)
I have my opinions on this trend towards the corporatization of the university, which readers of this blog can probably guess. And I'll certainly concede that there are legitimate arguments on its behalf. What concerns me, though, is how much this is occurring without any real debate about whether it's a good idea, and what we might be losing in the process. Are universities really nothing more than businesses? Are students nothing more than consumers? What do we lose if we adopt this perspective, as Americans are increasingly doing?
