Probably few of you have noticed that higher educational institutions are increasingly demanding confidentiality clauses from their employees, particularly those who are given "sweetheart" retirement deals, as happened recently at Indiana's Ball State University, so they can downsize in an era of when it is increasingly difficult to retain and grow the student population. More of you may have noticed that colleges and universities are hiring bureaucrats to ensure a safe "intellectual" environment on college and university campuses. At the same time, colleges and universities are increasingly hiring bureaucrats to ensure freedom of speech on higher education campuses.
On the surface these seemingly contradictory actions may seem rather odd. When you dig beneath the surface of the neoliberal college and university, however, they really aren't. This free to speak and not free to speak distinction is grounded in the administrative bureaucratic (corporate managers) distinction between customers (students) and employees (mid-level, including faculty, and low level bureaucrats, including adjunct faculty) who are managed by these administrative bureaucrats and who are increasingly managed by them in tayloristic like production strategy ways.
This distinction, of course, tells you something about the increasing corporatisation of universities and the increasing limits on academic freedom at these now for profit (student population growth) non profit corporations. Welcome to the brave new neoliberal world.
No comments:
Post a Comment