Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line

The Marketing of Higher Education

David L. Kirp, David L. KIRP

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN:
  9780674016347
  9780674011465
• eBook ISBN:
  9780674254930
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Business Education

How can you turn an English department into a revenue center? How do you grade students if they are "customers" you must please? How do you keep industry from dictating a university's research agenda? What happens when the life of the mind meets the bottom line? Wry and insightful, Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line takes us on a cross-country tour of the most powerful trend in academic life today--the rise of business values and the belief that efficiency, immediate practical usefulness, and marketplace triumph are the best measures of a university's success.

With a shrewd eye for the telling example, David Kirp relates stories of marketing incursions into places as diverse as New York University's philosophy department and the University of Virginia's business school, the high-minded University of Chicago and for-profit DeVry University. He describes how universities "brand" themselves for greater appeal in the competition for top students; how academic super-stars are wooed at outsized salaries to boost an institution's visibility and prestige; how taxpayer-supported academic research gets turned into profitable patents and ideas get sold to the highest bidder; and how the liberal arts shrink under the pressure to be self-supporting.

Far from doctrinaire, Kirp believes there's a place for the market--but the market must be kept in its place. While skewering Philistinism, he admires the entrepreneurial energy that has invigorated academe's dreary precincts. And finally, he issues a challenge to those who decry the ascent of market values: given the plight of higher education, what is the alternative?

Index

Abbott, Andrew, 39, 46

Abelson, Hal, 178

Academic Revolution, The (Jencks and Riesman), 67

accreditation, 200–201, 250, 303n56; University of Phoenix and, 251–252

Adamany, David, 183

adjuncts, 69, 85–87

admissions, 269n33, 271n58; positional warfare and, 11–12, 25, 31–32; image consultants and, 12–14; Maguire approach and, 14–16; attracting students and, 16–20; Life of the Mind and, 18; media and, 19–20; tuition and, 20–22; price wars and, 21; reaction programs and, 21; scholarships and, 21; personal visits and, 21–22; Brown’s New Curriculum and, 22–23; publicity and, 22–23; presentation and, 22–25; selectivity and, 26–27; counseling and, 27–31; Ivywise and, 28–29; online services and, 29, 113–114; Pell grants and, 31; early decision, 32, 270n46; Dickinson College and, 59–63; disappearing males and, 62; Hook and, 74–75; philosophers and, 75; New York Law School and, 107–108; family wealth and, 272n71

Afshar, Paul, 227–228

ALIANCO (Allied Languages in a Networked Collaboration Online), 161–162

Allan, George, 55, 64

Allen, George, 134

alumni, 25–26

American Association of University Professors, 251

American Bar Association, 96–97, 100, 104; Concord Law School and, 164–165, 241

American Philosophical Association, 74

American Schools of Professional Psychology, 240–241

Anderson, Wayne, 156

Angell, James, 123–124, 253–254

Antony, Louise, 81

Apollo Group. See University of Phoenix

Appiah, Anthony, 68

Appodaca, James, 221, 228–229

Arcadia University, 14, 19, 115

architecture, 130–131, 286n2

Arizona State University, 252

Armstrong, Lloyd, 120–121

Associated Colleges of the South (ACS), 155, 157, 159–162

Association of American Law Schools (AALS), 96

Association of American Universities, 117

AT&T, 210, 212, 219, 228

Auslander, Leora, 39

Babson College, 23–24

Baldwin, Gary, 207, 214–215, 218

Barendse, Jennifer, 63

Barnes and Noble, 112

Barrett, Chris, 27–28

Barrett, Craig, 210–211

Barro, Robert, 67

Batten, Frank, Sr., 133

Bayh-Dole Act, 216

Beaver College, 12–15, 19, 115

Becker, Gary, 150

Behnke, Michael, 17–18

Bell & Howell, 248

Bell Labs, 210, 219

Bender, Thomas, 77

Benhabib, Jess, 78

Beyond the Ivory Tower (Bok), 2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The New U
• I THE HIGHER EDUCATION BAZAAR
• II MANAGEMENT 101
• III VIRTUAL WORLDS
• IV THE SMART MONEY
• Conclusion: The Corporation of Learning
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index