The autocratic academy : reenvisioning rule within America's universities / Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaufman-Osborn, Timothy V. (Timothy Vance), 1953- author.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Universities and colleges--United States--Administration.

Universities and colleges.

Education, Higher--Aims and objectives--United States.

Education, Higher.

Education, Higher--United States--History.

Education and state--United States--History.

Education and state.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 342 pages).

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2023.

Summary:

"Critics of contemporary US higher education often point to the academy's "corporatization" as one of its defining maladies. However, argues Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn in The Autocratic Academy, American colleges and universities have always been organized as corporations in which the power to rule is legally vested in and monopolized by antidemocratic governing boards. This institutional form, Kaufman-Osborn contends, is antithetical to the free inquiry that defines the purpose of higher education. Tracing the history of the American academy from the founding of Harvard (1636), through the Supreme Court's Dartmouth v. Woodward ruling (1819), and into the twenty-first century, Kaufman-Osborn shows how the university's autocratic legal constitution is now yoked to its representation on the model of private property. Explaining why appeals to the cause of shared governance cannot succeed in wresting power from the academy's autocrats, Kaufman-Osborn argues that American universities must now be reincorporated in accordance with the principles of democratic republicanism. Only then can the academy's members hold accountable those chosen to govern and collectively determine the disposition of higher education's unique public goods"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

A prologue in the form of a puzzle

Imperious regents and disposable custodians

The neoliberal corporation debunked

Corporate types

William & Mary dispossessed

"The college of Tyrannus"

The Marshall Plan

Psychasthenia universitatis (or The malady of the academy)

"Shared governance" as placebo

Outsourcing self-governance

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall . . ."

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Kaufman-Osborn, Timothy V. (Timothy Vance), 1953- Autocratic academy.

ISBN:

9781478024392

1478024399

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.