Week 4 - Joshua Vandermeyde

Joshua Vandermeyde

Week 4 - Section A03

This week’s readings explored the problem of the corporatization of universities in America. I found it interesting that these readings did not just pertain to the financial side of the argument, that universities were money-hungry. Many people are aware of the problem of increasing tuition, but I was not aware of the increase in corporate structure of the university. I was surprised to see the many administrative ways universities were becoming more like corporations, from the Amy Block Joy article about whistleblowing to Why We Should Fear University, Inc., they highlight how universities are being run today. In deBoer’s article he says that it is not uncommon for there to be more administrators than professors employed at a university. I found this to be extremely surprising because I thought the primary goal of the university was to educate and research which would be primarily done by professors. But, after hearing these arguments, it makes a lot more sense. For many universities, the way they react to incidents on campus is by putting the university’s public image first, and putting actually fixing the issue at hand on the back burner. This strategy was obviously apparent when UC Davis responded to the Occupy movement protestors, where they painted themselves as the victim of a belligerent student body that had to clean up their student’s mistakes instead of addressing what the movement was trying to start a conversation about. The value and opportunity to make money for a university lies directly with the public’s perception of them and how “prestigious” of a university they are. This is one of the reasons why there are so many administrative positions at universities now. The students and faculty must be controlled to maintain the image the university wants the public to see much like how a corporation makes sure all of their employees follow their specific code of conduct. As deBoer said, grievances from students are being treated as if they are complaints to human resources in a corporation, where the only winner from these proceedings is the university/corporation avoiding scandal and blemishes to their reputation.

This picture is from the Occupy movement at UC Davis.

Question:

With the corporatization of higher education being more institutionalized, with more hirings of administration positions and political backing, how can the problem be fixed?

References:

DeBoer, F. (2015, September 9). Why We Should Fear University, Inc. Retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/why-we-should-fear-university-inc.html

Joy, A. B. (2010). Whistleblower. Point Richmond, CA: Bay Tree Pub.

A., Markow. (2011, December 19). A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis respond to

Occupy movements. IVN.

UC Davis Occupy Protestors [Digital image]. (2011, November 28). Retrieved April 23, 2017,

from

http://www.gettyimages.com/event/davis-occupy-protestors-call-for-general-strike-during-regents-meeting-134313357?#protestors-hold-signs-asking-uc-davis-chancellor-linda-katehi-to-a-picture-id134213998