Universities in Crisis: Academic Professionalism in Uncertain Times

Description

This book goes beyond now-familiar analyses of ‘neoliberal governmentality’ which tend to characterise academics as passive subjects or as ‘strategic actors’, drawing on and cynically exploiting metrics as a form of capital exchangeable across different fields. Instead, Universities in Crisis draws on newer paradigms by drawing on processual, post-critical and phenomenological approaches that leave room for new spaces of negotiation – discursive and practical – for understanding and advancing academic professionalism in this rapidly changing context. Contributors reflect various manifestations of the changing political and public climate, as well as the unease that surrounds contemporary debates which position the academy in troubling ways. Unifying concepts such as academic work, jurisdiction and transdisciplinarity are deployed to transcend functional divisions within and between academics, administrators, managers and students. Drawing on these theoretical and conceptual resources, contributors engage in critical consideration of whether the potential for ‘push back’ lies both in re-emphasising the specialness of academic professionalism and in defining the commonalities with other professional groups of knowledge workers. The book offers an unflinching analysis on the conditions which frame the darker side of professionalism and which are associated with increased precarity and reduced autonomy. The contributors explore the dilemmas, challenges and possibilities of professionalism for both early career academics and senior academic leaders. Cover Contents List of Figure List of Tables List of Contributors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations 1 Academics, Professionals and the University: Pathologies and Possibilities Eric Lybeck and Catherine O’Connell 2 The Very Idea of Academic Professionalism: At an End or Beginning Anew with an Eco-professionalism? Ronald Barnett 3 Selling Academe’s Soul to the Devil? Performativity, Pressured Professionalism and the Rationalisation of Knowledge Production Linda Evans 4 Luck and Precarity: Contextualising Fixed-term Academics’ Perceptions of Success and Failure Vik Loveday 5 Academic Professionalism in the Measured University Cathal Ó Siochrú, Roland Bloch, Catherine O’Connell and Jakob Hartl 6 International Student Recruitment: Policy, Paradox and Practice Sylvie Lomer 7 University Management as Court Society: A Processual Analysis of the Rise of University Management Eric Lybeck 8 Re-imagining the Place of Professional Education in the University Vivienne Baumfield 9 The Power and Beauty of the Disciplinary Infrastructure of Our Culture Julian Williams 10 Epilogue: The New Class (Room) Struggle in the Neoliberal University John Holmwood Index