Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our Universities

In 2021, as part of a programme called Shaping for Excellence, bosses at the University of Leicester made redundant numerous scholars in what was simultaneously an attack on academic freedom and trade union organisation. The authors of Shaping for Mediocrity not only had front-row seats in the campaign against these mass redundancies, they were in the ring - both as targeted employees and as trade union officers and negotiators. Shaping for Mediocrity tells the inside story of these attacks and the campaign against them. It situates this story within a longer history of struggle to make the university a place where critical thinking is possible, showing how events in Leicester are both reflective of higher education in the UK following four decades of neoliberal 'reform' and a particularly egregious instance of the increasingly authoritarian management of public institutions such as universities.

About the Author :
David Harvie is a deprofessionalised intellectual. Until 2021 he sold his labour-power to the University of Leicester, where he was associate professor of finance and political economy. He is co-founder of the Institute for Commoning and of The Breakdown Institute. He lives in Leeds, UK. Gibson Burrell is Honorary Professor of Organisation Theory at the Universities of Manchester, Lancaster and York. He was recipient of the 2014 American Academy of Management OMT Division’s biennial Joanne Martin ‘Trailblazer’ award for lifelong contribution to the area and recipient of the Richard Whipp ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ from the British Academy of Management in September 2021. Whilst at the University of Leicester, between 2003 and 2007 he was Head of the School of Management, and from 2003 until 2021 was Professor of Organisation Theory. Ronald Hartz is Research Assistant at Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany. He is interested in organisation and management studies, alternative forms of work and organisation, and the discursive constitution of organisations. Recently, he became interested in the critical exploration of the transformation of higher education. Geoff Lightfoot was so dismayed by the behaviour of the management at the University of Leicester that he left academia. He now works for Citizens Advice. Simon Lilley is Professor of Organisational Studies and Management at Lincoln International Business School at the University of Lincoln. He likes it there. Lincoln’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategy emphasises ‘Respecting academic freedom and valuing excellent research of all forms’. It makes a very pleasant change.

Review :
Do you think business schools should be helping to produce a low carbon, high inclusion, high democracy economy? Or should they be sacking academics who work towards these goals in order to produce a business-as-usual b-school that makes big profits? This urgent and beautifully written book shows why universities need to change, and what happens to free speech when higher education becomes a product.--Martin Parker, author of Shut Down the Business School: What's Wrong with Management Education and Against Management: Organization in the Age of Managerialism Gibson Burrell, Ronald Hartz, David Harvie, Geoff Lightfoot, Simon Lilley and Friends have provided the academic community with a comprehensive narrative of the most shameless and blatant violation of academic freedom I have ever personally witnessed. The authors were all made redundant as a result of Leicester University's 2021 "Shaping for Excellence" - the vision of vice chancellor Nishan Canagarajah - which pitted management's "right" to "disinvest" from an area of research against academics' freedom to pursue an autonomous program of enquiry. Critical management studies had been a beacon of success at Leicester and the international reputations of its exponents were beyond question. Canagarajah felt, however, that CMS didn't attract the right kind of customer, and so its perceived adherents were targeted for redundancy on the flimsiest of assumptions. What placed them at highest risk, though, was a history of union organizing. The authors expose the moral dissolution of a university's leadership team in an era of competition, marketisation and managerialism where everything including research must be 'governed'. In an era where university management seems impervious to accountability, Burrell et al name names including who was silent, who lent support and who were "the enforcers". Their reflexivity and honesty stand in contrast to the deviousness and cynicism of the managers they encountered. Other administrators, they note, carried a weight of shame for the shabby scheme they were obliged to participate in, and resigned. This is a book that should be read by every academic and trade unionist. What happened at the University of Leicester in 2021 could happen anywhere. Indeed, we see an escalation of "restructurings" which target arts, humanities and social sciences which are traditionally home to the kinds of critiques that irk the managerial cadre. Shaping for Mediocrity is a call to resist, to take back control of the university, and, above all, recognise the power of solidarity against the implacable tyranny of managerialism.--Liz Morrish, co-author of Academic Irregularities: Discourse and Neoliberalism in Higher Education Next generations will read Shaping for Mediocrity as a "future archive" of what we could have done collectively to save public higher education, and how those who fought the hardest battles were failed not just by the system but by the movement itself. Yet, the book is written with a humour, hope and humility that defy bitterness and defeatism. It documents forensically how small leaks of individual mediocrity sink large vessels built on collective hard work and benevolence. It teaches us important lessons about what can still be done to stop the toxic spread of neo-managerial capitalism in our public universities, before it is too late.--Mariya Ivancheva, author of The Alternative University: Lessons from Bolivarian Venezuela No area of existence is exempt from exploitation, including the acquisition of knowledge. State authority decides the matter, with particular regard to the needs of Global Capital. Our universities were thrown to the wolves many years ago; now students are being thrown too. There is no "right to education". An ignorant public is the preferred option. The difficulty with "thinking" is that it leads to asking questions. The authors of this book expose the cynicism, the hypocrisy and the appalling cowardice of the British education authorities.--James Kelman, author most recently of God's Teeth and Other Phenomena and The State Is the Enemy: Essays on Liberation and Racial Justice This most welcome book uses an act of intellectual vandalism perpetrated by management at Leicester University as its springboard. This is part of a growing trend in the UK and US, where centres of critical thinking are dismantled as universities resemble corporations, using "market forces" as an alibi, in order to treat staff and support-service workers as disposable entities. The authors analyze this trend superbly while providing an intellectual basis for countering dismal developments such as the one at Leicester.--Kenneth Surin, professor emeritus, Duke University