Shaping for Mediocrity

The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our Universities

David Harvie

• Publisher: Zer0 Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781803417974
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

In 2021, as part of a programme called Shaping for Excellence, bosses at the University of Leicester made redundant numerous scholars in what was simultaneously an attack on academic freedom and trade union organisation. The authors of Shaping for Mediocrity not only had front-row seats in the campaign against these mass redundancies, they were in the ring - both as targeted employees and as trade union officers and negotiators. Shaping for Mediocrity tells the inside story of these attacks and the campaign against them. It situates this story within a longer history of struggle to make the university a place where critical thinking is possible, showing how events in Leicester are both reflective of higher education in the UK following four decades of neoliberal 'reform' and a particularly egregious instance of the increasingly authoritarian management of public institutions such as universities.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Country’s Most Intimidating and Disruptive UCU Branch
• Chapter 2 Perfect Moments: The COVID-Infused Struggles of 2021
• Chapter 3 Leading to Mediocrity. Or, Knowing Your Place in Academia
• Chapter 4 Critical Thinking and/in the Business School
• Chapter 5 Magic Beans: On Finance and Corporate Governance
• Chapter 6 No Questioning of Received Wisdom: The Attack on Academic Freedom
• Chapter 7 Could the University Be Ours?
• Postscript After 2021
• Appendix Extracts from Review Group Outcomes
• Endnotes
• Author Biographies
• Back Cover