The Neoliberal Assault on Academia

The neoliberal sacking of the universities runs much deeper than tuition hikes and budget cuts, notes Barkawi.
 
The New York Times, Slate and Al Jazeera have recently drawn attention to the adjunctification of the professoriate in the US. Only  24 per cent of university and college faculty are now tenured or tenure-track.

Much of the coverage has focused on the  sub-poverty wages of adjunct faculty, their lack of job security and the  growing legions of unemployed and under-employed PhDs. Elsewhere, the focus has been on web-based learning and the massive open online courses ( MOOCs), with some commentators celebrating and others lamenting their arrival.

The two developments are not unrelated. Harvard recently asked its alumni to volunteer their time as "online mentors" and "discussion group managers" for an online course. Fewer professors and fewer qualified - or even paid - teaching assistants will be required in higher education's New Order.

Lost amid the fetishisation of information technology and the pathos of the struggle over proper working conditions for adjunct faculty is the deeper crisis of the academic profession occasioned by neoliberalism. This crisis is connected to the economics of higher education but it is not primarily about that.

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Guest Column: The Crumbling Ivory Tower

By Stephen Quake

In some quarters of academia there is a deep longing for a return to the ivory tower – that time when the university was disconnected from commercial interests and faculty members were unsoiled by the financial rewards that can be associated with their research.

I must admit that in some respects I share that nostalgia – it would be good for society if there were institutions to turn to for unbiased opinions on the questions that face society. However, it is also true that universities have turned away from the ivory tower model and have embraced a more engaged role in the commercial development of the discoveries of their faculty members.

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