Week5_ Wenru Shi_A01

Week5 Wenru Shi_Section A01

“Who’s university?”

“Our university!”

These words in the article “Imperial University” remind me of the UC Davis Pepper Spray Incident. With corporatization of high education in the United States, the university intertwines “settler colonialism, militarism and neoliberal capitalism”. These characteristics have existed since the public school was created in the last century. However, with corporatization and imperialism of the United States, these characteristics arise quickly. 

Like the Pepper Spray Incident in UC Davis, and the protest in UC Riverside, both the school police and SWAT team appeared and tried to intervene these innocent protests. Also, the school was funded by several large corporations, which means the school was controlled by these companies. Leadership positions are taken by “expertise” in administration and they start to manage the school as a corporation. With capitalism, they could impose many ideas on high education, on academia. These characteristics allude to the imperialism of United States in the world. As Maria said in the article, “As a settler-colonial nation, it has over time developed various strategies  … at maintaining its political, economic, and military dominance around the globe.” At the same time, she said, the U.S university “legitimized” Manifest Destiny, the universities have become a “battleground” as well. 

Thus, we, people in the universities, need to decolonize the university and high education which connect with settler colonialism, militarism and neoliberal capitalism. 

Question: 

How do the imperial university become the battleground of the culture which the United States positions in the globe?

Reference:

• Chatterjee, Pita & Maria, Sunaina. (2014). The Imperial University. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. 

• In Corporatization They Trust[Image]. (2015, June 27). School Matter Blogger. Retrieved from http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2015/06/in-corporatization-they-trust.html