I think everybody who thinks about higher education ought to have a look at this article, not because it is necessarily correct but because it suggests great opportunities for institutions -- such as the "City University of Santa Fe" or Clark University -- which by reason of their small size could re-organize quickly to respond to these realities.
I have to admit that I am ambivalent about tenure. If, over the last 40 years, tenure had seemed to foster intellectual courage and a willingness to speak one's mind and invest long term in the institute, then I would continue to favor it unequivocally. But since the onset of Academic Reaganism, tenure seems only to meant that most faculty members have allowed themselves to be manipulated by ever more trivial incentives -- the merit raise or the honorific reception with bad wine, stale cheese and crackers. Time to read Fromm's ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM again, i fear. And I have to deplore the implication that the only way you get people to pull their weight is by threatening them with financial sanction. On the contrary, the entire faculty of Clark University was subjected to bad pay for all the years I worked there, and it never changed anybody's behavior. No. I think the failure has been in our unwillingness to speak directly and from the heart and in person to colleagues about what we need from them. True collaboration requires honest critique in the absence of power; what we have had, over the last four decades, is the application of power in the absence of honest critique. n Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ OPINION | April 27, 2009 Op-Ed Contributor: End the University as We Know It By MARK C. TAYLOR If higher education is to thrive, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured. 1. Op-Ed Contributor: End the University as We Know It 2. More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops 3. Corner Office: He Wants Subjects, Verbs and Objects 4. Shortage of Doctors Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals 5. U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu ยป Go to Complete List Advertisement 500 Days of Summer Premiered at Sundance, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Coming This Summer Watch the new trailer! Click here to view trailer Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy
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