Reference_Academic Capitalism

8/14/2019 Reference_Academic Capitalism

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Academic Capitalism

Slaughter, S. & Leslie, L. L. (1999).

Presented by Karen Yan


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History of the Relationbetween Academics and theMarket


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Centuryo Insulated from the market

o Guided by ideas of serviceand altruism


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e econ a oCentury

o A turning point: 1980s

2. The market became global

3. lost shares of marketso Taiwans share? Need data and analysis

4. responding to the loss by investingin new technologies

o WHY: remain competitive in global markets

o HOW:

o demand government to sponsor commercial researchand development in research universities and ingovernment laboratories

o the development of national policies that facilitate theabove


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1. Less public money was available

for higher educationo WHY: partly because of increasing

claims on government fundso supply-sideeconomics: shifting public

resources from social welfare programs toeconomic development effortso HOW: tax cuts for the business sector

o HOW: stimulate technology innovation

odebt reductiono increased entitlement programs: SocialSecurity, Medicare, and primary andsecondary educationo WHY: demographic changes


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o What new money was availablewas concentrated intechnoscience and market-

related fieldso e.g., in molecular biology,

materials science, optical

science, cognitive scienceo So-called applied, commercial,

strategic, and targeted

research


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Academic Capitalism def.=o institutional and professorial

market or marketlike behaviorstosecure external moneys

o HOW: Research grants and contracts, servicecontracts, partnerships with industry andgovernment, technology transfer, or the

recruitment of more and higher fee-payingstudents

o Market behaviors refer to for-profit activityon the part of institutions, activity such as

patenting and subsequent royalty andlicensing agreements, spinoff companies,arms-length corporations, and university-industry partnerships


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ochanges that blur thecustomary boundariesbetween private and publicsectors (p.9)

oThey are academics who act

as capitalists from within thepublic sector; they are state-subsidized entrepreneurs

(p.9).


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What and Howo What forces are driving the

restructuring of higher education?o Emergence of global markets and its

implication on higher education

o How are these forces manifested in

national policy?o promote shift from basic or curiosity-driven research to targeted orcommercial or strategic research

o access to higher education: greaterstudent participation but lower nationalcost; switch from student grants to loans

o curricula: prefer department and collegesclose to the market


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Outline of Chapter 4


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What

o How do administrators and

faculty describe theadvantages and disadvantagesof academic capitalism?

o How do individual academicsrespond to the rise of

academic capitalism?

C t d f A t li i th l t


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Case study of Australian in the late1980s

faculty had to compete for

government research fundsrather than receive them as aprerogative of holding a

university position

The federal government began

to monitor institutions througha quality assurance scheme,rewarding universities that met

agreed-upon goals and


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o University and faculty had to

compete for critical resources(research money)

o Teach, public service,

&Researcho Research becomes the activity that

differentiates among and within

universities.o Turn to academic capitalism to

maintain research resources and tomaximize prestige


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if faculty were offered

more resources to teachmore students, it is notclear that they would

compete for these moneyswith the same zeal withwhich they compete for

external research dollars.


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What

o How did faculty perceive the

impact of academic capitalism ontheir unit, their universities, andtheir careers?

o Were they developing newstrategies to deal with politicaleconomic change and national

higher education policy change?o If new strategies were emerging,

did they result in organizational

change?

47 i i ht it i th


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47 persons in eight unites in threeuniversities

Very often the new units called forthe addition of large numbers ofprofessional officers andnonacademic staff, who fiercely loyalto center or institute heads, did not

engage much with faculty, and werenot very interested in teaching. Theywere much more a part of thecommercial culture than the

academic culture and tended tobring commercial values to theirwork, concentrating on making theircenters operate more like small firm,ex andin commercial activit , and


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Faculty especially valued

the improved relations withexternal bodies, heightenedprestige of their units,

closer linkage to theeconomy, and addedmonetary benefits


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Junior faculty,

postdoctoral fellows, andgraduate students wereless favorable in their views

of academic capitalism.They felt that performanceexpectations had doubled

because they were nowsupposed to demonstrateexcellence in two researchvenues, fundamental and

commercial.


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What


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Whato Whether academic conceptions of the

nature of knowledge were changing

o Did the faculty still value fundamental orbasic theoretical knowledge above allelse, or were market pressures andresource dependence changing academicepistemology?

o How did professors deal with theprofessional norm of altruism when theypursued the discovery and development ofprofit-making products and processes?

o If change was occurring, was it across all

fields, or was it confined, in research


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reconceptualize knowledge so

that entrepreneurial researchwould be valued highly,especially entrepreneurial

research on the frontiers ofscience and technology,research that involved discovery

of innovative products andprocesses for global markets

o Being ambivalent about altruism


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Conclusions


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o A loss to the concept of the

university as a community,where the individual membersare oriented primarily toward

the greater good of theorganization

o The successful academic capitalistswill gain personal power withinuniversities, both individually andcollectively

o The central administrators will

gain in the redistribution of power


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The End

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Reference_Academic Capitalism