Academic Capitalism and the New Economy

Reviews / Votes

Painstakingly researched... Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades warn of increasingly blurred boundaries among higher education, the state and the world of commerce. -- Sharon Singleton Connection 2005 The writers have made careers out of studying the issues they write about. They certainly have done their homework. -- Charles Pekow Community College Week 2005 Slaughter and Rhoades offer the most coherent account of how the academy is mired in commercialism. -- Roger W. Bowen Academe 2005 Unlike other recent popular works,... this one is not critical or afraid of intersections of higher education and the world of corporate sponsorships; the authors just want to help universities exploit these new opportunities for fun and profit. Choice 2005 Provides a densely detailed and chilling description of the current 'state' of the university in the United States. -- Alison Hearn Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 2006 Represents a timely scholarly work that unveils the complex development of academic capitalism and calls for a critical re-examination of the mission of higher education institutions. -- Huey-li Li Educational Foundations 2005 An impressive book and a major contribution to knowledge... The theory of academic capitalism presented in its pages will certainly stimulate and guide further studies in higher education for some time to come... All students of the educational arrangements in the new economy will find themselves in debt to the authors for their farreaching theory of academic capitalism, the wide variety of studies they offer to confirm it, and for the standard they set and the model they provide for subsequent work. -- Leonard J. Waks Teachers College Record 2005 The strength of this volume is their treatment of the impact of academic capitalism on academic work. -- Edward P. St. John Contemporary Sociology 2005 This carefully argued and documented book fosters critical understanding of, if not the possibilities for 'regime change,' the implications of our actions. -- Susan Talburt Review of Higher Education Perhaps the best book for understanding the commercialization and commodification within higher education is Slaughter and Rhoades's Academic Capitalism and the New Economy... It tracks the deep and pervasive changes in policy and practice that have created new social network and organizational structures, vastly changing the function and role of higher education to serve corporate interests... and covers a variety of topics including expansion of patenting and patent policies, copyright policies, ownership of courseware and teaching materials, entrepreneurial activities by departments, corporate connections of university trustees, and advertising and branding contracts. -- Adrianna Kezar Journal of Higher Education 2008 An important and much needed critical perspective. -- Irwin Feller, Professor Emeritus, Economics, Pennsylvania State University Journal of Higher Education