Professors and Other Aging Institutions

An aggravated Columbia undergrad yesterday used the arrival of a new LGBT programs director as an opporunity to attack full-time faculty as well as African American and Women's Studies programs in a Spectator op-ed piece.

Claiming that sexual, gender and racial identities are "the greatest modern fabrication," Nellie Bowles berates "a whole generation of academics" who squandered the economic boom of the 1990s by quibbling and categorizing rather than rethinking social issues: "As experts, not revolutionaries (though they masquerade as such), they have more of a stake in the status quo than anyone, for their place as expert is threatened by change." Bowles seems to advocate the replacement of full-time faculty (whose studies have kept them "safe from reality") with instructors who have "real world" experience. Her lament that "we ought not have allowed professors so much power" chimes nicely with the trend toward casualization of the academic labor force.

Bowles follows up her critique of full-time faculty with an assualt on gender and ethnic studies programs: "How can we take power away from race, from the words black and white, and destroy their ability to divide people, when classes on race are separated from the rest of 'non-racial' academic departments? The separation of these departments hinders intellectual debate, institutionalizes a philosophy we need to destroy." While first calling on the "second-wave feminists" of the women-only Barnard College to replace their shoulder pads with "unisex skinny jeans," she then problematically commands Columbia to "strip Barnard."

Bowles has re-worked a social constructionist critique of race, gender, and sexuality into an assualt on the "liberal folly" of "political correctness." Her vision of a powerful administration that can "strip" Women's Studies, "integrate" Ethnic Studies, and hobble the academic decision making of professors demonstrates the inerconnectedness of threats to ethnic studies and fair labor practices in the corporate university.

Phoenix University

In response to the New York Times' exposé of the for-profit Phoneix University, the president of the legally troubled institution has attacked the Times' piece as "symptomatic of an elitist bias against nontraditional higher education."

Call For Papers

Humanities or Human Resources? The Future of Ethnic Studies and Labor in the Corporate University
New York University
April 13, 2007

As corporate models of management and decision-making take hold of more and more colleges and universities, a growing number of students, faculty and staff are facing threats to ethnic studies programs, assaults on the integrity of academic decision-making, and the casualization of the university labor force. This conference will engage the debates surrounding what has been termed the corporate university, especially those debates that address questions of race, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, and class.

We conceive of the corporate/university relationship as multi-directional; that is, the corporate/neoliberal university is not simply where corporate values and cultures end up in an otherwise autonomous academy. Instead, the corporate/university relationship has effects in multiple public and private spaces, and on different individuals, ideas, and communities. How do struggles over departmentalization, bureaucratization, downsizing, access, and equity relate to the university’s location in global networks of capital accumulation and production? In what ways can a critical intervention in those processes enact a resistance that does not follow corporate valuations of people as “human resources”? We envision this conference to be a platform for academics, faculty, students, and staff to begin these conversations in the hopes that we can generate imaginative practices and take them back to our home institutions for further use and engagement.

We welcome proposals for papers or panels that focus on the issues surrounding the corporate university. Please send a 300-word abstract, 250-word biographical statement and contact information to corporate.conference@gmail.com by March 5, 2007. Notifications will be made by March 15.

Paper topics might include, but are not limited to:

• the policing of Middle Eastern studies and other area studies programs
• disability and ability issues on campus
• faculty hiring policies; student admissions
• top-down and bottom-up curricular changes
• living wage and staff/adjunct/teaching assistant unionization campaigns and institutional responses
• trends in Ethnic Studies, Gender/Sexuality Studies, and American Studies
• university-neighborhood relations; real estate