Neoliberalism in the Academy: Dispatch from a Public University in Colorado (original) (raw)
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Rapid and profound changes are occurring in higher education that we ignore at our peril. Struggling against shifts toward privatization, Dr. Robert Price, a professor at City College of San Francisco, described the changes proposed for his campus as a tsunami and Jack Hassard cautioned lest the "slow creep of privatization does not turn into an avalanche" . These are apt descriptions for the formidable changes that are poised to sweep away everything in their path, with immediate and devastating consequences for educators, students, and the institutions they attend. The curriculum is also affected and this in turn determines what knowledge is most valued. These transformations have a tremendous influence on how we as a society understand, value, and put education to use, as well as how we as educators practice our profession, generate, and use knowledge. These disastrous changes have not come without warning however. They are reflective of the neoliberal project and have the potential for far-reaching, negative social, political, and economic outcomes. Integral to neoliberalism is a belief that the market has the best answer for a range of social concerns and that it is most capable of delivering results for a variety of social functions, among them education. Acknowledging and understanding these changes can aid in the struggle to resist the effects of the privatization of higher education.
Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education Volume II
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Aims of the Palgrave Critical University Studies Series Universities everywhere are experiencing unprecedented changes and most of the changes being inflicted upon universities are being imposed by political and policy elites without any debate or discussion, and with little understanding of what is being lost, jettisoned, damaged or destroyed. The over-arching intent of this series is to foster, encourage, and publish scholarship relating to academia that is troubled by the direction of these reforms occurring around the world. The series provides a much-needed forum for the intensive and extensive discussion of the consequences of ill-conceived and inappropriate university reforms and will do this with particular emphasis on those perspectives and groups whose views have hitherto been ignored, disparaged or silenced. The series explores these changes across a number of domains including: the deleterious effects on academic work, the impact on student learning, the distortion of academic leadership, and the perversion of institutional politics. Above all, the series encourages critically informed debate, where this is being expunged or closed down in universities.
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