At this point, no one can deny that higher education has changed seriously over the last few decades. Call it corporatization, or administrative bloat, or any other name, but the symptoms are clear: more administrative control over things that had been the faculty’s. Faculty governance becoming a mere rubber stamp for administrators’ proposals. Less funding for teaching and research, more funding for new dorms, student centers, and gyms. How did this happen? And did we notice these changes at the time?
Leslie Bary tries to make sense of the “new university,” especially the role that faculty governance can play in undoing some of the damage. She writes:
We should learn to see clearly where we are, so that we can be effective as we take up once again—yes, take up once again—the “unified” role of the faculty member. We should take up once again the responsibilities deconstructed out of us. We should work to strengthen what is left in the university that is genuine, which is to say everything that is more than a semblance or a marketing maneuver.
