ASA2 A03
Week4 Blog
April 19, 2020
“The implication for higher education, if we do not make ourselves aware of neoliberalism, not as an abstract ideology but as a concrete reality shaped by specific stakeholders, is that it will be too late to act against even more drastic outcomes, such as the elimination of tenure, shared governance, and academic freedom in universities, which are the precursor ingredients for shaping a participatory democracy. ”
-- A quote from "Unpacking the Master's Plan" by Eliza Noh
The reason I want to start my weekly blog with this quotation is that from students to faculty, mostly everyone in academia is affected unconsciously by the movement toward corporatization. It is terrifying to see colleges violate their original intention. Faculty and staff are turning into workers, who get paid by students. In this case, people of color are most vulnerable that universities even utilize strategies to deflect and ignore the problem of discrimination. In the research conducted by Jane Junn and Mai'a K at the University of Southern California, they found that there is a huge gap between the proportion of different gender and races gets awarded tenure. (Figure 1)
Figure 1
What is reflected in the data? Universities may have a "black box" tenure review procedures. However, it is so hard for only a small group of people to hold a university to account is an uphill battle. Social media with open evidence and public attention might help, but for the willing minority, they may risk future career trajectory. This problem should be solved urgently, otherwise, the pathway would continue and leads to a long-term negative influence on the whole international academia.
Reference:
Valverde, K. L. C. (2019, October 11). Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars' Resistance and Renewal in the Academy. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books/about/Fight_the_Tower.html?id=pPy9DwAAQBAJ
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