Taylorism, the systematization of labor developed by Frederick Taylor, makes the worker immediately replaceable. Individual skill and knowledge becomes irrelevant–on the part of the worker. Only at the higher levels of management and ownership does creativity count for anything. It’s an elitist system positing that those at the lower echelons are merely cogs, not thinkers.…
According to a recent article in University World News, Global Edition, “China has stepped up pressure on ethnic minority students and lecturers in the restive northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, insisting that students must pass a test of political views and declare their allegiance to the Chinese state in order to graduate.” Near the end…
South Carolina lawmakers have reduced the allocations to the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina Upstate because the lawmakers object to the inclusion of several “gay-themed” books in the institutions’ common required readings for their first-year students. The College of Charleston was docked $52,000, the amount spent on copies of Fun Home,…
If American higher education is going to continue to aspire to excellence, its institutions need to address and reverse the growing reliance on adjuncts as teachers. Not only is this exploitative of the adjuncts (to say nothing of the students), but it reduces our colleges and universities to factories, effectively excluding academic freedom and removing…
Today, in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof presents a column headlined “Professors, We Need You!” He wonders what has happened to those of us in academia, ending with these words: I write this in sorrow, for I considered an academic career and deeply admire the wisdom found on university campuses. So, professors, don’t cloister yourselves…
In a recent op-ed piece on the Chronicle of Higher Ed’s Worldwide blog, Dzulkifli Abdul Razak responded to an article written by Nigel Thrift, vice chancellor of the University of Warwick. Thrift had argued for the creation of an international association of colleges and universities, suggesting that it would not only facilitate efforts to meet…
The Orwellian-named “Protect Academic Freedom Act” is not a defense of academic freedom; this is a total attack on academic freedom. Now, you might think that it’s purely a symbolic law because no American college would ever endorse an academic boycott of Israel, and it doesn’t even apply to colleges that are institutional members of…
Whatever you might think of the American Studies Association’s stance on boycotting Israel, the attempted legal “remedies” have to be seen as worse. Pro-Palestinian, pro-Israel, or a pox on both houses… it shouldn’t matter. The implications for academic freedom carried in the various bills should bother anyone who cares about this great tradition of our…
In a well-meaning article for The New York Times, Wharton professor Adam Grant proposes trifurcating tenure, slashing it apart, essentially, in order to save it. He ends by writing: Dividing tenure tracks may be what economists call a Pareto improvement: It benefits one group without hurting another. Let’s reserve teaching for professors with the relevant passion…