While most of DiMaggio's piece is easily recognized by those of us with direct experience of "higher" ed, there developments, at least here in Europe, that he hasn't kept up with. Here lecturers are increasingly required to be responsible to the "community." In addition promotion is increasingly dependent on "impact." Impact initially meant academic impact, which in practice was citation counts, which administrators could do without any knowledge of the subject or reading the research. It now means social impact, which in practice means activities and research which are useful to business and address the policy priorities of civil service bureaucrats. Advising establishment politicians is particularly valued along with promoting "business innovation" and the production of marketable products with research co-funded by major multi-nationals. Repeating conventional wisdom in soundbites on morning radio which the university president can catch in his car on the way to work in the m orning makes you a valuable public intellectual. DiMaggio's portrayal of social science graduate school is increasingly unrecognizable. At our institution graduate students are funded by grants from government agencies doing empirical research on questions like the take up of common agricultural policy programmes, or the proximity of hospitals to cancer sufferers, which are deemed of practical interest. The holders of these degrees are hired over others because they are best equipped to attract further grants. All this is not to mention the dominance of corporate funding in the science departments. This is all justified as service to the national interest.
Teaching is also increasingly valued. New hires at our institution are virtually required to sign up for a master's degree in third level education which concentrates on teaching techniques. These techniques are usually inapplicable because they can't be implemented in the dominant large lecture classes, but will be demanded for promotion because you have been taught how to do them. The remainder are about things like "learning outcomes" which are always related to marketable "skills" which will help the students obtain employment and promote national economic competitiveness. Finally, the latest fad is promoted like Who Wants to be a Millionaire style ask the audience clickers. Applicants for promotion must document that they have done these things in "teaching portfolios." Customer satisfaction must be demonstrated in teaching evaluations from students who increasingly don't attend class in any case. All of this is touted as making academia "accountable" to the larger community. Be very careful what you wish for. Terry McDonough Message: 2 Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:29:24 -0400 From: Louis Proyect <[email protected]> Subject: [Pen-l] Fwd: Academic Fraud and the Ponzi Scheme of ?Higher Learning? ? CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition <[email protected]>, Progressive Economics <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Why is the vast majority of social science research junk? The answer is based in how academics are trained in graduate school. What?s perhaps most disturbing is the complete disinterest of professors training PhD students in emphasizing the importance of practical research, to be used in some way to improve democracy and society. This goal is rarely idealized in graduate training. Typically, students randomly pick topics they personally think are ?interesting? within a vacuum, despite the fact that most topics of choice are so narrow and esoteric that they are of little interest to even most of those within the discipline itself. Over-specialization leads to a mismatch between research agendas and teaching. Most research has little value for the typical undergraduate, leaving many professors ill-equipped for their teaching duties. Professors that prioritize being public intellectuals, writing for popular as well as academic audiences, are often filtered out during the hiring process in many schools (at very best this quality is rarely valued in job searches). There seems to be little room in higher ed today for people committed to making the world a better place. The neutering of research serves a broader social purpose, however. If professors ? those with great resources to expose social injustices and improve the quality of democracy ? are disinterested in applied research, then they will play an instrumental role in tacitly reinforcing official propaganda, deception, and societal indoctrination. Political and economic elites don?t have to worry about intellectual challenges from the academy in social scientists produce academic gibberish and psychobabble. full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/19/academic-fraud-and-the-ponzi-scheme-of-higher-learning/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
