Higher Education: Open for Business

Higher Education: Open for Business addresses a problem in higher learning, which is newly recognized in the academic spotlight: the overcommercialization of higher education. The book asks that you, the reader, think about the following: Did you go to a Coke or Pepsi school? Do your children attend a Nike or Adidas school? Is the college in your town a Dell or Gateway campus? These questions should not be a primary concern for students, parents or faculty in an environment that has to allow students to freely focus on learning. But in a time of fiscal uncertainty, can higher education ignore the benefits of commercial ventures? It may seem foolish to do so. However, commercialism has gotten too close to certain aspects of academia such as the campus environment, classroom activities, academic research, and college sports. This disturbing encroachment of academic ground is addressed in Higher Education: Open for Business by a diverse host of authors who are closely involved in higher learning.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 The Market of Higher Education Chapter 2 The Overcommercialization of Higher Education Chapter 3 The Impact of Commercialism on the Classroom Chapter 4 Commercialization Goes High-Tech: The Online Classroom Chapter 5 Education from a Distance Chapter 6 College Sports Chapter 7 The Spending Nation: Liberal Education and the Privileged Place of Consumption Chapter 8 Profits, Politics, and Social Justice in the Contemporary American University Chapter 9 Safeguarding Uncertain Futures

About the Author :
Christian Gilde is an instructor and research associate at the University of Bath.

Review :
In the 1960s, two significant events occurred. In 1963, Clark Kerr, president of the University of California, invented the concept of the multiversity in his book The Uses of the University. By that concept, Kerr meant an institution that was becoming increasingly indistinguishable from any other business enterprise in our industrial society, 'a mechanism held together by administrative rules and powered by money.' Second, in 1966, Ronald Reagan ran for governor on a platform that included 'cleaning up the mess in Berkeley.' When Reagan became president of the United States in the 1980s, a movement began to privatize and corporatize functions and institutions previously thought of as public, fueled by the questionable belief that the for-profit sector could do it less expensively and more efficiently. The chapters found in Higher Education explore the negative consequences of these trends upon colleges and universities and highlight important issues that have largely been ignored. The ever-growing power of the market ethic as a touchstone for university decision-making is transforming higher education. This provocative book casts a critical eye at how market values increasingly predominate across the campus landscape: in the science labs and on the athletic fields, in admissions offices and presidents' offices. For anyone who's troubled by the idea that higher education is losing sight of its true calling-the cultivation of knowledge-Higher Education delivers a confirmation and a call to arms. The book will be useful, particularly in graduate-level courses in higher education. Summing Up: Recommended. The general issues raised by the authors are important ones. A penetrating look at how and why our higher education system is becoming increasingly commercialzed, coupled with some wise advice concerning what we might do about it.