Academic Freedom in the Corporate University

Schrecker, Ellen

doi:10.5406/radicalteacher.93.0038

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…The effects of this can then extend to a decreasing level of collegiality, which particularly affects early-career academics who are more vulnerable to the termination of contracts and more concerned with surviving/thriving in competitive environments that emphasise the role of individual success over other priorities (Giroux, 2016;Schrecker, 2012). The introduction of managerialism may also lead to this potential decrease in collegiality, which according to Yokohama (2006) is at the opposite extreme of the same continuum, as it institutionalises competition among colleagues.…”

Section: Organisation Of Contemporary Academic Research: New Public Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organisational factors and academic research agendas: an analysis of academics in the social sciences

Horta

Santos

2019

Studies in Higher Education

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Organisational factors and academic research agendas: an analysis of academics in the social sciences Academic research demands placed on contemporary universities are strongly related to the production of breakthrough research. Both governments and university management strive to make the production of academic research more cost-efficient and have implemented measures to ensure this. Top-down policies influenced by new public management and managerialism have been introduced, pushing for competitiveness and performativity in academic research setups. These policies and guidelines have been criticised by academics as having eroded collegiality and autonomy, which are considered necessary to achieve quality research. The focus of this study is on social sciences and aligns with this critique, demonstrating that autonomy and collegiality are the key organisational features in fostering multidisciplinary, collaborative and riskier research agendas leading to breakthroughs. Academics with high levels of organisational commitment are more likely to create research agendas that assume more conservative, discipline bound and risk-averse traits, having less potential to derive the intended research.

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Section: Organisation Of Contemporary Academic Research: New Public Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organisational factors and academic research agendas: an analysis of academics in the social sciences

Horta

Santos

2019

Studies in Higher Education

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“…While these addressed a range of aspects of the topic, all can be identified with one of three broad approaches: first-hand accounts of violations of the author’s academic freedom (Gottfredson, 2010; Peterson-Overton, 2011); examinations of particular features of the topic, e.g. academic freedom as ‘thought-time’ (Noonan, 2015), but see also Andreescu (2009), Coetzee (2016), Orenstein and Stoll-Ron (2014), and Schrecker (2012); and lastly: rationales for academic freedom (Bernstein, 2008; Karran, 2009; Tierney and Lechuga, 2010).…”

Section: Preserving Academic Freedom: the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, only 6 of the 10 texts consider strategies for resisting the erosion of academic freedom: (Bernstein, 2008; Coetzee, 2016; Gottfredson, 2010; Karran, 2009; Peterson-Overton, 2011; Tierney and Lechuga, 2010). (Schrecker suggests that resistance is futile in proposing that ‘when they have not been passively acquiescing in their own marginalization, American professors have been fighting and losing a rearguard action against the structural changes of the past forty years that have undermined the power and autonomy of the faculty’ (Schrecker, 2012: 4).) In reporting on the more optimistic responses to the question of how academic freedom may be actively defended, I will start with sweeping calls-to-arms and progress to more specific propositions.…”

Section: Preserving Academic Freedom: the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Defending academic freedom: Arts and Humanities research as constrained writing

Francis

2018

Arts and Humanities in Higher Education

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This article notes that while there is a large literature lamenting increasing assaults on academic freedom, there is little literature to address ways in which it might be preserved. Sampling that writing, it finds some concern with protecting academic freedom in extreme scenarios, via discrete programmes, and generalised dissidence, but no discussion of determinate action applicable to all Arts and Humanities research. Defining academic freedom via the UK’s legal framework and elaboration in Judith Butler’s writing, the article inventorises significant assaults in recent times, noting the roles of government and the market in such. Following the literature review, it proposes a new, interventionist tactic for preserving academic freedom, suggesting that undue constraints should be annotated when research is written up, and that this space should also be used to suggest constructive alternatives. This strategy is demonstrated as the article acknowledges some of the constraints on its own production and suggests redress.

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“…The result is an entrenched bureaucracy, diminished collegiality and the abuse of vulnerable academics, in particular those who are early career, adjunct and/or casual laborers (Giroux, 2016;Osei-Kofi, 2012). Untenured scholars are especially impacted, as their capacity to confront irrational, uninformed or malicious decisions by an academic oligarchy is curtailed by fear of reprisal and/or the termination of their contracts (Schrecker, 2012). As faculty get silenced by the 'University Inc. ' (Washburn, 2005), disadvantaged students lose an important voice for advocacy against marginalization and vulnerability (Oleksiyenko, 2015).…”

Section: Editorial Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%