Transforming Higher Education

The essays in this book address the transformation of higher education and the transformative possibilities of its current conditions. Higher education in American history has always functioned within the context of larger social and political forces. Universities and colleges have provided skilled labor for the work force, scientific knowledge and innovation for manufacturing, and policy expertise for government.

The university is being transformed and can be transformed. This doubleness informs this book. 'Transforming' in 'transforming higher education' can be read as adjective, suggesting that higher education is being transformed by the social and political situation in which it is enmeshed. 'Transforming' can also be read as a gerund, implying the critical activity of changing the university, as signaling a creative and political act of radical possibility. The essays in this book address the transformation of higher education and the transformative possibilities of its current conditions. Only by viewing the university as a historical construction can we assess the dangers and opportunities of the new conditions of higher education, and chart a reasonable course for the future. The essays in this book are critical of recent developments in universities and higher education. Most of us come from public universities, and all remain committed to a democratic higher education that we see threatened by recent developments. There is a danger that the combination of economic crisis, market ideology, and global pressures will continue to structure the debate about higher education in ways that freeze out the transformative and politically critical possibilities of the university. Part I of the book examines the historical transformation of the university as it has changed into its current form. Part II examines both the transformation of the university into a neoliberal institution and makes the case for the more political and radical idea of transforming the university in opposition to how it has been transformed in recent years. Part III offers a number of studies aimed at illuminating possibilities for transforming the university in a more progressive, democratic direction.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Part 2 Part I. Historical-Theoretical Interventions
Chapter 3 Chapter One. Corporate MisEducation and The Liberal Arts Response
Chapter 4 Chapter Two. Veblen's The Higher Learning in America and the Ambiguities of Academic Independence
Chapter 5 Chapter Three: What is Information? The Neoliberal Turn, Digitalization and Interdisciplinarity
Part 6 Part II. Contesting the Neo-liberal University
Chapter 7 Chapter Four: The Concept of Corporatization: A Useful Tool or Feel-Good Slogan
Chapter 8 Chapter Five. The Economics of Globalization and Corporatization of Higher Education
Chapter 9 Chapter Six. Administrative and Geographic Determinants of Economics Course Offerings in American Colleges and Universities
Chapter 10 Chapter Seven. Corporatization and Research Information
Part 11 Part III. Envisioning Different Higher Education
Chapter 12 Chapter Eight. Global Knowledge, the University and Democratic Politics
Chapter 13 Chapter Nine. Controversy, Contest and Competition: The Institutionalization of the "Disciplines of Scale" and Higher Learning in the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 14 Chapter Ten. Open Source and Open Content as a Counter to Globalization and Corporatism for Public Institutions of Higher Learning