Steal This University : The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement

Steal This University explores the paradox of academic labor. Universities do not exist to generate a profit from capital investment, yet contemporary universities are increasingly using corporations as their model for internal organization. While the media, politicians, business leaders and the general public all seem to share a remarkable consensus that higher education is indispensable to the future of nations and individuals alike, within academia bitter conflicts brew over the shape of tomorrow's universities. Contributors to the volume range from the star academic to the disgruntled adjunct and each bring a unique perspective to the discussion on the academy's over-reliance on adjuncts and teaching assistants, the debate over tenure and to the valiant efforts to organize unions and win rights. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Introduction: Not Your Parents' University or Labor Movement Any Longer......Page 8 The Rise of the Corporate University......Page 18 None of Your Business: The Rise of the University of Phoenix and For-Profit Education;and Why It Will Fail Us All......Page 22 Digital Diploma Mills......Page 40 Inefficient Efficiency: A Critique of Merit Pay......Page 56 The Drain-O of Higher Education: Casual Labor and University Teaching......Page 68 Laboring Within......Page 88 How I Became a Worker......Page 94 The Art of Work in the Age of the Adjunct......Page 104 Blacklisted and Blue: On Theory and Practice at Yale......Page 114 Tenure Denied: Union Busting and Anti-Intellectualism in the Corporate University......Page 130 Organizing......Page 146 The Campaign for Union Rights at NYU Lisa Jessup......Page 152 Democracy Is an Endless Organizing Drive: Learning from the Failure and Future of Graduate Student Organizing at the University of Minnesota......Page 178 Moving River Barges: Labor Activism and Academic Organizations......Page 196 Social Movement Unionism and Adjunct Faculty Organizing in Boston......Page 214 Renewing Academic Unions and Democracy at the Same Time: The Case of the California Faculty Association......Page 228 Conclusion: The Future of Higher Education and Academic Labor......Page 238 Notes......Page 248 Notes on Contributors and Editors......Page 258 Index......Page 264 "Welcome to academia in the 21st century, where 60% of tenured professors have been supplanted by underpaid graduate students or part-time adjuncts. The professoriate is no longer a "community of scholars" that governs itself, but a group of employees whose work is reviewed by administrators who cut deals to put cheaply packaged courses online for worldwide consumption. Where have the ivy-covered walls, tweedy professors, and genteel university presidents gone? Replaced, say the authors of this provocative work, by markets, profits, and computers. Steal This University documents the rise of the corporate university over the past twenty years as well as the academic labor movement that has developed in response. Universities are increasingly looking to corporations as their model for reform, investing in merit-pay packages, partnerships with high-tech companies, and anything that will reap profits from their creations. With controversial, personal stories of workplace exploitation, tenure battles, and union organizing, the book shows the challenges of working within this new system and explains the countermovement working to restore independence to university teachers. From New York University's outrageous union-busting techniques to the rise of for-profit schools like the University of Phoenix, Steal This University is both an indictment of current trends and a blueprint for combating them. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET Welcome to academia in the 21st century, where 60 percent of tenured professors have been supplanted by underpaid graduate students or part time adjuncts. The professoriate is no longer a "community of scholars" that governs itself, but a group of employees whose work is reviewed by administrators who cut deals to put cheaply packaged courses on-line for worldwide consumption. Where have the ivy-covered walls, tweedy professors, and genteel university presidents gone? Replaced, say the authors of this provocative work, by markets, profits, and computers. Steal This University documents the rise of the corporate university over the past twenty years as well as the academic labor movement that has developed in response. Universities are increasingly looking to corporations as their model for reform, investing in merit-pay packages, partnerships with hi-tech companies, and anything that will reap profits from their creations. With controversial, personal stories of workplace exploitation, tenure battles, and union organizing, the book shows the challenges of working within this new system and explains the countermovement working to restore independence to university teachers Most discussions of for-profit higher education rely on the simple shock value of presenting education as a business to get readers' attention.