CAMPUS MELTDOWN The Deepening Crisis in Australian Universities
-- William O. Coleman (editor)
Foreword by Henry Ergas
Paperback, 290 pages, $39.95
Due August 2019
From the Foreword: However, that institutional autonomy has also made them vulnerable to the pathologies which economists term ‘principal-agent problems,’ particularly when they enjoy secure funding and insulation from competition. Diagnosing those problems is at the heart of many of this book’s essays; while the assessments differ, the seriousness of the condition, and the urgency of dealing with it, are palpable.
Somewhere Marx remarks that the bourgeoisie in its decline reproduces every irrationality against which it once fought. And the universities, he might have added, become the vehicle by which the rot is legitimised, spread and entrenched – not least by those who proclaim themselves Marxists.
We should be grateful to this book’s authors, and particularly to its editor, William Coleman, for so clearly sounding the alarm.
Contents
Foreword Henry Ergas
1. Fear and Loathing in Aus U -- William O. Coleman
2. The Administration of Australian Universities: A National Scandal? or Amiss in Funderland? -- James Allan
3. You Can’t Say That --Steven Schwartz
4. Law Schools in Australia and the ‘Free Speech’ Turmoil --Michael Sexton
5. From Realism to Surrealism: The Study of International Relations and the Closing of the Australian Mind -- David Martin Jones
6. ‘And Gladly Teach’: The Destruction of the University Teaching Culture on the Contemporary Australian Campus -- Barry Spurr
7. Teaching Quality in Australian Universities: Present Measures, Politics, and Possibilities -- Gigi Foster
Campus Meltdown Same Policies, a Different Country: How English Universities have Developed in an Era of Loans, Growth and Globalism -- Alison Wolf
9. A Canadian Perspective on Higher Education in Australia -- Charles M. Beach and Frank Milne
10. Then and Now Peter Drake --
11. Culture, Utility, and Critique: The Idea of a University in Australia -- Stephen A. Chavura
12. The Academic Social Welfare Dysfunction -- Ruth F. G. Williams
13. The Exposed Academic and the Disappearance of Disciplines in the Managerial University -- John Lodewijks
14. Introducing Competition Policy into Higher Education: Potential to Create Genuine Diversity -- Paul Oslington
Acknowledgements
Contributors