The End of the University?

Topia Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 2012

PS: Political Science & Politics, 2013

The American system of higher education appears poised for disruptive change of potentially historic proportions due to massive new political, economic, and educational forces that threaten to undermine its business model, governmental support, and operating mission. These forces include dramatic new types of economic competition, difficulties in growing revenue streams as we had in the past, relative declines in philanthropic and government support, actual and likely future political attacks on universities, and some outdated methods of teaching and learning that have been unchanged for hundreds of years.

Design Philosophy Papers, 2003

1998

This paper reviews the literature using the word "crisis" in relation to current higher education and analyzes claims of three specific crises of the past 25 years. It considers reasons why educational institutions may be particularly vulnerable to claims of crisis and offers some ideas about the nature of higher education crises and the purposes they serve. Analysis of the literature suggests that institutional crises in higher education fall into four categories: (1) pandemic crises, those that are continual or appear with great frequency, e.g., finance; (2) chronic crises, those that are of moderate continuity and frequency, e.g., diversity/equity; (3) sporadic crises, e.g., student unrest; and (4) idiosyncratic crises, e.g., collective bargaining. The more detailed analysis examines the pandemic crisis of finance, the chronic crisis of confidence, and the chronic crisis of stagnation. It is suggested that the strong rhetoric of crisis is used to gain attention, power, and control of organizational and symbolic processes. The paper concludes that although there are serious problems in higher education, there are probably no more crises now than there have ever been. (Contains 97 references.) (DB)

2016

The history of higher education is often described and understood to be one of evolution. The story generally goes that the long history of higher education persists along a more or less unbroken line of progress and development, finally culminating in the forms we have today. However, this understanding eliminates or softens the struggles and conflicts that gave rise to the various institutional forms that higher education takes on in a given period and elides the economic, social, and political issues that gave rise to particular forms of education. I tell a different story based on a survey of primary and secondary texts regarding the history of higher education in the United States. I specifically focus on the development and founding of Research Universities as an institution to conserve and protect the emerging professional class in the 19 th century. My research shows that reform of existing institutions is generally futile without the prior founding of new institutions that force the existing ones to reform. All institutional forms are the products of class conflict as modes of production undergo transformation-so long as the existing forms generally meet social expectations, there is no need to for substantive reform. When these social expectations are not met, however, new forms must be sought. These social expectations are contested within and beyond existing institutions by students, faculty, staff, administration, and community voices. This combustible mix has created the v institutions we have today and will create new ones in the future. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my amazing wife Cate Randall Paschal first and foremost. Without your support, patience, love, and wisdom I probably would not have written this and without your questions it would have most likely been inscrutable! I will take this printed opportunity to say that I love you and am excited that you love me! Nat! I am so excited to watch you grow up-I am already so proud of you and can't wait to see you become your own person. I would also like to thank Barbara Epstein-your incisive editing and constant support were invaluable. Deborah Gould and Christopher Connery-I could not have asked for better readers than you. Thank you! Thanks to Anne Spalliero for your administrative help, your encouragement, and your ability to get stuff done. I would like to thank Gopal Balakrishnan for drilling in the relationship between writing and events taking place in the streets. I would like to thank the History of Consciousness program at UC Santa Cruz for the opportunity study and write; my fellow students for sharpening my intellect and fostering my curiosity; and faculty at every level for encouraging me and demanding more from me. My parents, George and Carol, deserve a huge amount of thanks for putting up with me when I was young and especially putting up with me now that I am older-I love you and am exceedingly lucky to be your offspring. I am who I am in large part because of you. I would very much like to thank Viewpoint Magazine, and Asad Haider and Salar Mohandesi, for giving me the opportunity to develop ideas and themes and also edit some work. The U.R.G.E. Collective was extremely valuable to vii me as I workshopped ideas and tried to convey the significance of my work to others also critically studying the university. There are too many more people who deserve thanks, but I need to say thank you to all the students, staff, faculty, and community members who organize, struggle, shut down campuses, occupy buildings, march, petition, and demand a different and better education than what currently exists. That is how change has happened historically and it will be how it happens in the future. This dissertation would not exist without you and I hope that it helps inform current and future struggles. In love and in struggle!

Journal of Political Science Education, 2019

Read the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, or your local media outlet and you will find a steady flow of distressing headlines about the "crisis in higher education." Horror stories abound of colleges closed, faculty laid off, and liberal arts programs terminated. Families express concern about costs, students worry about debt, and society appears skeptical about whether a college education is worth it. In many of these reports, colleges and universities are to blame for their own failures. Academic programs are disconnected from 21st-century economic needs, critics say. Unnecessary add-ons like rock climbing emporiums inflate costs. Rampant on campuses, political correctness indoctrinates students, stifles dissent, and cocoons them from unpleasant realities. Faculty are more interested in research than teaching. And so on. Approaching from different perspectives, three books about higher education provide needed context. From Charles Dorn, author of For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America, we learn that the sector experiences crises on a regular basis. Colleges and universities must constantly reframe their missions to respond to changes in society, technology, and the economy. Four values guiding institutions emerged: (1) civic mindedness in the early 1800s; (2) practicality around the time of the Civil War; (3) commercialism near the turn to the 20th century; and (4) affluence in the post-World War II period. Using ten case studies from varied educational institutions, Dorn illustrates how new elements of the social environment challenged existing standards, leading to the emergence of a new kind of college or university devoted to a different value. For example, CONTACT E.

1993

Critical Times , 2022

The authors organized a conference, “Global Higher Education in 2050: Imagining Universities for Sustainable Societies,” at the University of California, Santa Barbara, March 4–6, 2020, right before the campus was closed for eighteen months in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event's premise was that the futures of higher education will be plural, must be responsive to large international divergences, and must be actively created by global majorities rather than policy elites. This introduction describes the papers' common project of identifying the key elements in the higher education status quo and features that might lead toward unexpected futures. We summarize the three horizons methodology that guided some of the work. We also outline the activities of the third day, the workshop that sought a means of linking the present to the future. This work continues beyond the horizons of the papers published here.