Week4_Zijing Wu_A04

This week's readings focus on the corporatization of universities. I found the article "Why We Should Fear University, Inc." most relevant to the topic. In this article, the author stated that our education systems are invaded by corporations. Explicitly, the physical space on campus is taken by corporations and they are trying to make profits off students. And more importantly, colleges nowadays are hiring more senior administrators than professors. They are trying to run universities like operating businesses, students are just their clients and professors are simply their employees. This corporate invasion is definitely not ideal for higher education. I remember the example professor Valvarde used in her first lecture. She said that the nutrition department of UC Davis is funded by a chocolate company and all of a sudden, the department start to publishing research articles about how great chocolate is. I think this is a perfect example of how corporatism could effect universities' academic integrity. Universities nowadays are set up to achieve one main goal -- to make money. They try everything they can to keep their students happy, not because they care about them, but because they want to keep their tuition. All those administrators are paid to do one job -- making profits for the university. Just like what deBoer said in the article, "I wish that committed student activists would recognize that the administrators who run their universities, no matter how convenient a recipient of their appeals, are not their friends. I want these bright, passionate students to remember that the best legacy of student activism lies in shaking up administrators, not in making appeals to them." I believe it is important for the universities to put people with academic backgrounds in charge. We need faculties that actually cares about the students' success, not the ones who want to take advantage of students. On the other hand, students themselves also have to remember why they go to universities. We don't pay a tuition that high to enjoy ourselves at parties.

Question: As students, what can we do to prevent universities from corporatization?

Reference:

deBoer, F. (2015, September 9). Why We Should Fear University Inc. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/why-we-should-fear-university-inc.html