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Title: Universities in the Marketplace : The Commercialization of Higher Education by Derek Bok ISBN: 0-691-11412-9 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 03 March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Gazing into the future of universities
Comment: Derek Bok, a professor and formerly president of Harvard, writes about the pressures for commercialization that institutions of higher education face and are likely to face in the future. (Commercialization is defined as "efforts within the university to make profit from teaching, research and other campus activities.") In particular, Professor Bok has taken on three major themes: commercialization of athletics, research and education (online teaching, extension programs, etc.)
For one, this book is a useful reality check. Through scores of studies, Professor Bok dispels the myth that these three activities are profitable. Save few exceptions, these endeavors prove financially disastrous. More than that, there are the hidden dangers of compromising a university's academic standards and standing in the community. The call for a candid evaluation of the costs of commercialization is half of the book's theme.
The other half outlines prescriptions and guidelines for university presidents about how to handle these increased pressures. Professor Bok suggests revision to NCAA rules, and university oversight and care to limit the influence of corporate sponsors over research or the curriculum taught in schools.
In the end, "Universities in the Marketplace" is a reminder that universities are built around values: "the larger message of a liberal arts education [is] that there is more to life than making money." These values and the collaborative spirit, on which universities thrive, are threatened by the mistaken perception that there is money to be made by exploiting a school's name. The adherence to high standards is an old prescription for new pressures, and the one that Professor Bok suggests as the ultimate guideline for dealing with the threats of the future.
Rating: 4
Summary: A fairly candid accounting from someone who's been there
Comment: Active university presidents, wary of saying anything untoward for fear of losing potential donors, are non-stop cheerleaders for higher education. Former presidents have the opportunity for candor but rarely take advantage of it. To some degree, Derek Bok is an exception to the rule. In this measured book, he sometimes reveals the warts in the current state of higher ed. Far from a screed, this book's criticisms are tempered, laced with some humor, and carry with them a sense of optimism.
Bok is far too kind and makes repeated excuses for the shortcomings in contemporary leadership in higher education. In a revealing segment, he opines that if R.M. Hutchins was a university president today, he would not have the ability to strongly influence decisions concerning university athletics. Baloney. Hutchins had conviction and courage, qualities that allow leaders to create positive change today as well as they did in the previous century.
That said, Bok is not shy to point out some shortcomings in universities today: a neglect of undergraduates, corruption in athletics, and a tendency for money to derail educational and research missions. Many others have made similar criticisms. But most have lacked the credibility and visibility of Bok.
Reading between the lines one can sense that Bok sees little value in faculty governance and views the professorate as inherently myopic. Change must, in Bok's view, come from the top.
This book is designed as a gentle warning. It's in some ways a watered down version of a book from the 1990s by another former college president - Killing the Spirit by Page Smith. Smith's book contained more vitriol and was read widely, but had no impact on changing the system. Bok's book isn't having any impact either. It is being ignored because it tells a story that university leaders don't want to hear. This is a well-meaning book and it's a shame it isn't getting the attention it deserves.
Rating: 5
Summary: Universities for Sale-- farewell to precious knowledge!
Comment: Unfortunately, political and industrial interests are putting pressure (although not always willfully) on academia, to serve narrow business interests. The medical schools are already tainted by the funding power and controlling interests of the pharmaceutical industry as well as misguided university administrators (who think they can accept money and influence without getting over involved).
Just as many colleges have been compromised by how they run their athletic endeavors (e.g., admissions policies, lower admission standards, substandard courses such as "physics for football players") so to are universities endangered by selling off their scientific research as well as labeling nonscientific and trivial research as equivalent, nay superior to scholarly research. The main message of this book is (except for medical schools) it is not to late to say for universities and college administrats to say no to seemingly limited (but in the long run devastating) business and financial propositions that will debase the precious knowledge that has for two hundred years been the hallmark of a truly HIGHER EDUCATION--not EDUCATION for HIRE with great educational and social harm.
Bok's book (Bok is a former president of HARVARD) does explain that there are legitimate business partnerships and ventures for the modern university, but that they must be on guard so as not to throw out the baby ("scientific knowledge and the liberal arts") with the bath water ("the need for funding during bad economic times such as is the present case and reduced goverment funding").
If you are a professor, college administrator, or student, please buy and read this book. We don't want to see the great universities of the USA erode any further. Examples of this erosion are many poor quality courses delivered on the Internet, faculty who are not first rate scientific minds being given tenure, acceptance of commercial sponsorship for textbooks, advertisements in the classroom and even in urinals, etc.
In most cases it is probably not too late to stop the destructive short term relationships that many universities have misguidedly entered into. But if the fundamental problems are not addressed, the precious knowledge that has traditionally been the product of American universities will be replaced by pseudo-knowledge without social or individually enhancing knowledge that will contribute to the welfare and progress of the USA and the rest of the world.
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Title: The Creation of the Future: The Role of the American University by Frank Harold Trevor Rhodes ISBN: 080143937X Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
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Title: The Uses of the University by Clark Kerr ISBN: 0674005325 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.50 |
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Title: The University in a Corporate Culture by Eric Gould ISBN: 0300087063 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line : The Marketing of Higher Education by David L. Kirp ISBN: 0674011465 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Future of the City of Intellect: The Changing American University by Steven G. Brint ISBN: 0804745315 Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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