Movement for a Free Academia—literature database

p. 58  

"Reading a book (let alone writing one) is considered an indulgence in this milieu [the managerialised university], something best done in your own time."

  Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard  (02/03/2023, 16:17)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

pp. 119–120, Chapter the academic star-complex  

"High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent)x(Intensity of Focus)" ifølge Newport, C. (2016). Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.

"Missing from this formula are the potential hidden costs that this fame-building tactic may involve. One has to ask: who's picking up Grant's teaching and service duties while he's locked away working on the next bestseller?"

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (10/05/2023, 14:18)

Keywords:   Management, Universities, Academic Star-Complex

Comments:

Fleming goes on to define the 'academic starlet', the 'wannabe starlet', and the 'failed starlet'. The whole chapter is very relevant for a discussion on meritocracy, human capital, class, and chance.   Added by: Thessa Jensen  (10/05/2023, 14:36)

p. 140  

"The business-like individualism pervading the university today leaves little mental space for collective dissent. Undergrads are more worried about their next assignment deadline and fees instalment. Compared to that, university politics is a needless distraction."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (10/05/2023, 15:09)

Keywords:   Management, Students, Universities

pp. 142–143  

"If there has been a 'negative dialectic' in the contemporary university following years of economic rationalisation, quietly sublating the norms of academic praxis, then it probably entails a three-step process.* First comes the collaps of critical reason into pragmatic utility: hence the prevalence of executive authority and its endless preoccupation with metrics, outputs and income. (...) from this managerial perspective if something cannot be measured it doesn't exist. Nay, should not exist, since a virulent strain of moralism supplements all those spreadsheets and budgetary forecasts."

*'To negate a negation does not bring about its reversal'. Adorno, T. W. (1973). Negative Dialectics. London: Routledge, p. 159. (p. 198)

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 10:30)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 143  

"This brings us to the second dialectical step. It too is negative. Authoritarian quantification inevitably elicits a para-structure of social informality."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 10:37)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 143  

"(...) the third and final negation: the shadow within the shadow of the unoffical informal culture in academia. Secret backroom deals are made here; careers sabotaged; the worst candidates hired and/or promoted; one may encounter sexual harassment and bullying."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 10:40)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 145  

"Symptom 1: Private universities tend to be less corporate than public ones since they have nothing to prove."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:07)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 147  

"Symptom 2: The rapid growth if administrative personnel in universities harldy ever relieves academics of administrative labour, but the exact opposite, almost always to the detriment of overall productivity."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:08)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 148  

"Symptom 3: The Covid-19 pandemic confirmed what we suspected all along: information technology, especially email, is the enemy of academic freedom."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:10)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 150  

"Symptom 4: Universities struggling in national/global league tables are often more aggressive and unrealistic about the idea of joining the elite few, damaging staff goodwill in the process and thus reinforcing their reputation as a substandard institution."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:12)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 151  

"Symptom 5: As an individual advances up the university management hierarchy, the more they will assert the importance of teaching, which is inversely proportional to the amount of teaching they actually do."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:13)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 152  

"Symptom 6: The more emphasis placed on 'student-satisfaction', the less substantial their education will be."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:14)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 153  

"Symptom 7: Over time academic metrics end up measuring only one thins. The extent of their own reification."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:15)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 154  

"Symptom 8: The more prominent work-life balance and mental well-being programmes are in a university, the greater licence they will have to condone chronic overwork."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:16)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 155  

"Symptom 9: Neoliberal universities present a fairly complete microcosm of the 'white male' privilige dominating Western society as a whole, irrespective of their lush equality and diversity policies."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:18)

Keywords:   Management, Universities

p. 156  

"Symptom 10: No matter how grim it gets working in the contemporary university, the general public will presume otherwise. For them, campus life exudes an aura of exemption and mystique. By default, academics who criticise the corporate university are perceived to be somehow self-serving and ungrateful."

  Added by: Thessa Jensen  (11/05/2023, 11:20)

Keywords:   Management, Universities