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Cover image of Academic Fault Lines
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Academic Fault Lines

The Rise of Industry Logic in Public Higher Education

Patricia J. Gumport

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How did public higher education become an industry? This unprecedented account reveals how campus leaders and faculty preserved the vitality and core values of public higher education despite changing resources and expectations.

American public higher education is in crisis. After decades of public scrutiny over affordability, access, and quality, indictments of the institution as a whole abound. Campus leaders and faculty report a loss of public respect resulting from their alleged unresponsiveness to demands for change. But is this loss of confidence warranted? And how did we get to this...

How did public higher education become an industry? This unprecedented account reveals how campus leaders and faculty preserved the vitality and core values of public higher education despite changing resources and expectations.

American public higher education is in crisis. After decades of public scrutiny over affordability, access, and quality, indictments of the institution as a whole abound. Campus leaders and faculty report a loss of public respect resulting from their alleged unresponsiveness to demands for change. But is this loss of confidence warranted? And how did we get to this point?

In Academic Fault Lines, Patricia J. Gumport offers a compelling account of the profound shift in societal expectations for what public colleges and universities should be and do. She attributes these new attitudes to the ascendance of "industry logic"—the notion that higher education must prioritize serving the economy. Arguing that industry logic has had far-reaching effects, Gumport shows how this business-oriented mandate has prompted colleges to restructure for efficiency gains, adopt more corporate forms, develop deeper ties with industry, and mold academic programs in the interest of enhancing students' future employment prospects. She also explains how industry logic gained traction and momentum, altering what constitutes legitimacy for public higher education.

Yet Gumport's narrative is by no means defeatist. Drawing on case studies of nine public colleges and universities, as well as more than 200 stakeholder interviews, Gumport's nuanced account conveys the successful efforts of leaders and educators to preserve and even strengthen fundamental public values such as educational access, knowledge advancement regardless of currency, and civic responsibility. Ultimately, Academic Fault Lines demonstrates how intrepid faculty and administrators engaged their communities both on and off campus, collaborating and inventing win-win scenarios to further public higher education's expanding legacy of service to all citizens while preserving its centrality to society and the world.

Reviews

Reviews

A comprehensive, conceptually coherent, research-informed portrayal of the remarkable transition toward industry logic in all sectors of higher education during the late twentieth century. Gumport's writing is some of the best I've seen in our field: clear, concise, and evocative but also appropriately qualified and rigorous. The chapters on the nine case study campuses are perceptive and convincing. An important contribution.

This is a tour-de-force review of institutional and sociological theories that interprets college case studies of the ascendancy of industry logic over a 30-year time period. With a focus on social discourses of campus administrators and faculty and detailed document analysis, Dr. Gumport creates a nuanced account of the way industry ideologies unevenly shaped campuses' academic restructuring.

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Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
544
ISBN
9781421429724
Illustration Description
2 b&w illus
Table of Contents

Online Materials
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Points of Departure
1. Conceptual and Empirical Anchors: Studying Institutional Change
Part I. The Ascendance of Industry Logic
2. Built to Serve

Online Materials
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Points of Departure
1. Conceptual and Empirical Anchors: Studying Institutional Change
Part I. The Ascendance of Industry Logic
2. Built to Serve
3. State-Level Expectations
4. Forces Converging to Advance Industry Logic
Part II. Community Colleges
5. Beyond the Demand-Response Scenario
6. Harmonizing Educational Identities
Part III. Comprehensive State Universities
7. Reconciling Competing Mandates
8. Persevering through Strategic Necessities
Part IV. Research Universities
9. In Pursuit of Excellence
10. Pursuing Priorities and Striving for State of the Art
Conclusion. Managing for Legitimacy: Moving beyond Academic Fault Lines
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Author Bio
Patricia J. Gumport
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Patricia J. Gumport, Ph.D.

Patricia J. Gumport is a professor of education, the vice-provost for graduate education, and the director of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research at Stanford University. She is coeditor of the fourth edition of American Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges and In Defense of American Higher Education, both published by Johns...
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