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Whackademia: an insider's account of the troubled university
A scathing insider exposé, this account lifts the lid on a higher education system that’s corporatized beyond recognition, steeped in bureaucracy, and dominated by marketing and PR imperatives rather than intellectual pursuit. Fearless, ferocious, and often funny, this exposes a world that stands in stark contrast to the slogans and mottos joyously promoted by Australia’s universities. Raising bold questions that go to the heart of Australian higher education, this is an unsentimental call for a reenlightened higher education sector that’s about more than just revenue, efficiencies, and corporate profile.
- GenresNonfiction
239 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Richard Hil
18 books2 followersDr Richard Hil is Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Social Work and Human Services, Griffith University. He has taught at the University of York in the UK, and in Australia at James Cook University, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland University of Technology and Southern Cross University. He has also been a columnist for The Australian, Campus Review, Australian Universities Review, New Matilda and Arena Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 29, 2012
Richard Hil in Whackademia explores the ludicrous goals, rules, restrictions, and petty machinations of managers, administrators and ‘para-academics’ as they set about producing a university which is both economically viable in a world where government funding is decreasing, and economically relevant. The impetus for Hil’s book is the transformation of the university of the 1960’s and early 1970's with its possibility for collegiality and critical enquiry, to the present institution marked by a systematic narrowing of relations and indeed the creation of a competitive relation between colleagues and the restriction of content to what is economically relevant.
Whackademia sets out the overarching imperative given to the present universities' structures by their incorporation into a business model where branding, sloganizing, and pleasing the customer (the students) is paramount. Most of the book is then devoted to examining the impacts of these new needs, together with a growing administration with its concomitant desire to measure all aspects of academic life, rapidly growing student numbers, and the enormous growth in casual employment. The result, as Hil points out, is a reduction in the intellectual life of a university, the inability to attend to any but the narrow research possibilities dictated by the performance review process and the measurement of research output, overwhelming teaching requirements, invasion of all time with administrative trivia, increased stress, and the almost impossibility of engaging in critical enquiry into, and the teaching of, the ‘civil society’ and the ‘the examined life’. A rather beautiful irony, is, as Hil notes, that in the process, universities are failing to satisfy the very business interests they were re-structured to meet. Hil’s outline of business desire for students who are more informed, more able to think, and more able to meet new challenges, is indeed telling of something radically wrong in the way students are being taught.
Hil’s book speaks to, and for, the largely silent distress of so many academics. It is a ‘first step’ and as such is most welcome. It opens the possibility of speaking about what has occurred to our relation with knowledge and how we might alter that. As Hil says: The first step to venturing beyond survival mode are engagement and dialogue, practices that should include those who are happy as things are (p. 229).
I would like to continue this discussion with 2 points that could have been given greater focus in Hil’s book. The first is the student. Unfortunately, for most of the book the student is only seen by Hil as the customer, and tends to be viewed only as one side of the pincer movement which squeezes the academic. To be fair to Hil his aim is to create an environment where a better education can occur – and so it is clear that the teaching process is important to him. It was indeed a delight to hear some of the lecturers speak of their love of teaching and their anguish at not being able to attend to it adequately. I would thus have liked to see explored the way students too have suffered. After all, during the same time students have been ‘forced’ into university education to obtain jobs that in the previous period would have been done by those only educated to year 10; they have been forced to bear the burden of a large debt for their education as they enter an uncertain and often unsatisfactory job market; all their courses have continual assessment which can only lead to intense work pressure with no time for contemplation, discussion, or action; both the job market and university offerings have conspired to focus their desires on vocational courses, no matter what their desires would be for learning; as the cost of failure is so high, it is little wonder they seek help from their teachers and little wonder that this is often quite frantic when many academics try to minimise their availability to students because of the time pressures placed on them; little wonder too that students seek help as many universities, as a cost cutting measure and also as a means of freeing up some time for over worked academics, have cut the number of tutorials (the time when students can best learn and ask questions) with some courses having no tutorials at all.
The other area I would have liked explored more is that of the causes. Hil situates most of the cause with the ‘Dawkins reforms’ of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s – which was definitely a major impetus. But many other factors were involved.
The first important factor seems to me to be the transformation of the course time from a year length to a semester length. The 1960’s was the time of year long courses, the time when a general Arts university education was sought by most students, and the time of leisurely assessment: students did write essays, but not many, and I don’t remember them carrying very many marks (if at all); there was also a final examination where long essay answers were required. This minimal assessment context made it possible to think, discuss, and act; indeed, it encouraged it, as it encouraged involvement in other aspects of university life whether it be the University Review, or playing tennis, or joining the Students’ Union, or writing for the Student newspaper. Academics too had time to think and plan, and, ‘yes’, talk with students. It was also, as Hil pointed out, the time for a number of studies which took your breath away, so exciting were their ideas. It was indeed a time of a privileged education. It all began to change when courses became semester in length. With that alteration assessment became continuous and as students were engaged in 4 courses over a 13 week period, they (and the academics who set the assessment) had little time for reflection of any kind. E.P. Thompson’s (1967) wonderful article on Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism (http://libcom.org/files/timeworkandin...) comes to mind after all these years. If the nature of industrial work changed with changing concepts of the length of time that could/should be measured, so too did academia. The minutiae of the workload models that Hil describes is merely one effect of this type of rule organised by creating time divisions. So too is the enormous student workload crammed into ever shorter semesters.
Other factors also play their part in unplanned conjunctions. The egalitarianism of the 1960’s doubtless lay behind many of the Dawkins’ reforms, but as these met economic rationalism, the desire for mass university education was created with an economic rationalist face. The growth of the non-working class movements of the 1960’s and 70’s, together with the consequent demise of Marxism as the theory underpinning the critical movement, led to post-modernism which also met up with economic rationalism to form the possibilities and justifications that led to the closure of Arts faculties/courses and perhaps also played a part in developing new courses which Hil sees as arising only from a customer (student) focus. The general decline in unionism due to economic well-being and industry restructuring too played a part as the already weak union for academics (NTEU) was further weakened when it was most needed. Other factors may well include the rise of a group of smart young men (well, mostly men) who used and developed their managerial skills in the Labour governments that came to power in the late 1980’s and 1990’s and so were able to take on the managerial functions required in the new university structures. The factors at play in the transformation of universities are fascinating. It would have been good to see Hil address these in some depth, as solutions or moving towards solutions must take into account HOW the problems arose in the first place. It seems that the continual 'reforming' of the universities, often with the best 'leftist/centrist' intentions, may be as complex as the reforming of prisons that Foucault describes (Discipline and punish). Mind you such a task would have required many study leaves and a forest of forms.
Whackademia is a book that many academics will be pleased to see. It is written in a very accessible style. Hil, himself a well-known and respected researcher, has, in good academic style, provided an extensive reading list for those who would like to explore the issues raised in his book.
Whackademia sets out the overarching imperative given to the present universities' structures by their incorporation into a business model where branding, sloganizing, and pleasing the customer (the students) is paramount. Most of the book is then devoted to examining the impacts of these new needs, together with a growing administration with its concomitant desire to measure all aspects of academic life, rapidly growing student numbers, and the enormous growth in casual employment. The result, as Hil points out, is a reduction in the intellectual life of a university, the inability to attend to any but the narrow research possibilities dictated by the performance review process and the measurement of research output, overwhelming teaching requirements, invasion of all time with administrative trivia, increased stress, and the almost impossibility of engaging in critical enquiry into, and the teaching of, the ‘civil society’ and the ‘the examined life’. A rather beautiful irony, is, as Hil notes, that in the process, universities are failing to satisfy the very business interests they were re-structured to meet. Hil’s outline of business desire for students who are more informed, more able to think, and more able to meet new challenges, is indeed telling of something radically wrong in the way students are being taught.
Hil’s book speaks to, and for, the largely silent distress of so many academics. It is a ‘first step’ and as such is most welcome. It opens the possibility of speaking about what has occurred to our relation with knowledge and how we might alter that. As Hil says: The first step to venturing beyond survival mode are engagement and dialogue, practices that should include those who are happy as things are (p. 229).
I would like to continue this discussion with 2 points that could have been given greater focus in Hil’s book. The first is the student. Unfortunately, for most of the book the student is only seen by Hil as the customer, and tends to be viewed only as one side of the pincer movement which squeezes the academic. To be fair to Hil his aim is to create an environment where a better education can occur – and so it is clear that the teaching process is important to him. It was indeed a delight to hear some of the lecturers speak of their love of teaching and their anguish at not being able to attend to it adequately. I would thus have liked to see explored the way students too have suffered. After all, during the same time students have been ‘forced’ into university education to obtain jobs that in the previous period would have been done by those only educated to year 10; they have been forced to bear the burden of a large debt for their education as they enter an uncertain and often unsatisfactory job market; all their courses have continual assessment which can only lead to intense work pressure with no time for contemplation, discussion, or action; both the job market and university offerings have conspired to focus their desires on vocational courses, no matter what their desires would be for learning; as the cost of failure is so high, it is little wonder they seek help from their teachers and little wonder that this is often quite frantic when many academics try to minimise their availability to students because of the time pressures placed on them; little wonder too that students seek help as many universities, as a cost cutting measure and also as a means of freeing up some time for over worked academics, have cut the number of tutorials (the time when students can best learn and ask questions) with some courses having no tutorials at all.
The other area I would have liked explored more is that of the causes. Hil situates most of the cause with the ‘Dawkins reforms’ of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s – which was definitely a major impetus. But many other factors were involved.
The first important factor seems to me to be the transformation of the course time from a year length to a semester length. The 1960’s was the time of year long courses, the time when a general Arts university education was sought by most students, and the time of leisurely assessment: students did write essays, but not many, and I don’t remember them carrying very many marks (if at all); there was also a final examination where long essay answers were required. This minimal assessment context made it possible to think, discuss, and act; indeed, it encouraged it, as it encouraged involvement in other aspects of university life whether it be the University Review, or playing tennis, or joining the Students’ Union, or writing for the Student newspaper. Academics too had time to think and plan, and, ‘yes’, talk with students. It was also, as Hil pointed out, the time for a number of studies which took your breath away, so exciting were their ideas. It was indeed a time of a privileged education. It all began to change when courses became semester in length. With that alteration assessment became continuous and as students were engaged in 4 courses over a 13 week period, they (and the academics who set the assessment) had little time for reflection of any kind. E.P. Thompson’s (1967) wonderful article on Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism (http://libcom.org/files/timeworkandin...) comes to mind after all these years. If the nature of industrial work changed with changing concepts of the length of time that could/should be measured, so too did academia. The minutiae of the workload models that Hil describes is merely one effect of this type of rule organised by creating time divisions. So too is the enormous student workload crammed into ever shorter semesters.
Other factors also play their part in unplanned conjunctions. The egalitarianism of the 1960’s doubtless lay behind many of the Dawkins’ reforms, but as these met economic rationalism, the desire for mass university education was created with an economic rationalist face. The growth of the non-working class movements of the 1960’s and 70’s, together with the consequent demise of Marxism as the theory underpinning the critical movement, led to post-modernism which also met up with economic rationalism to form the possibilities and justifications that led to the closure of Arts faculties/courses and perhaps also played a part in developing new courses which Hil sees as arising only from a customer (student) focus. The general decline in unionism due to economic well-being and industry restructuring too played a part as the already weak union for academics (NTEU) was further weakened when it was most needed. Other factors may well include the rise of a group of smart young men (well, mostly men) who used and developed their managerial skills in the Labour governments that came to power in the late 1980’s and 1990’s and so were able to take on the managerial functions required in the new university structures. The factors at play in the transformation of universities are fascinating. It would have been good to see Hil address these in some depth, as solutions or moving towards solutions must take into account HOW the problems arose in the first place. It seems that the continual 'reforming' of the universities, often with the best 'leftist/centrist' intentions, may be as complex as the reforming of prisons that Foucault describes (Discipline and punish). Mind you such a task would have required many study leaves and a forest of forms.
Whackademia is a book that many academics will be pleased to see. It is written in a very accessible style. Hil, himself a well-known and respected researcher, has, in good academic style, provided an extensive reading list for those who would like to explore the issues raised in his book.
January 18, 2013
A tale of the creeping bureaucratisation of the university, the devaluation of knowledge and the results of running higher education on a business model. The writing style is breezy rather than academic. Not news to me, as my dad worked as a general staff member for nearly 30 years - but nice to see it written up and in the public eye.
December 17, 2013
Very astute critique of the university sector but a little more on resistance (in a way that doesn't ironically perpetuate the system) would make me feel more cheery at the end.
July 26, 2012
I like that this book was extra ranty... I love a good rant.
April 2, 2021
This was one of those books where you are in close sympathy with the author's overall position, but find the author so very irritating that you end up rooting for the bad guys, which is always annoying. Completely agree about the problems with the market-driven university, its casualized labour force and its instrumentalization of education, but... it reminded me of Wayne Booth writing about the "mock reader", the person a book seems to be addressing, and saying that when he reads Jaws, he just doesn't want to be the guy that Peter Finchley seems to think he is. Similarly, this book assumes that I will find it self-evidently deplorable that a university subject exists called 'The Phallus' or that I think university administrators should stick to photocopying and ordering stationery. There's a lot of heavy irony, and a lot of comparing things like 'having to fill in a form' to waterboarding and/or sex work. I hung in there in case I would learn anything about the Dawkins reforms or the broader history/context in Australian Higher Education, but I didn't. Also I thought I might as well see what his recommendations were, and they were an odd mix of 'things I am doing already' and 'things that basically aid the neoliberal agenda', so I didn't find them very helpful.
Which is a shame because I am trying very hard to figure out how to build good structures and make good things happen within the institutional constraints of the neoliberal university. Anyway, I think I will read The Enterprise University next because that looks more like the kind of thing I am after.
Which is a shame because I am trying very hard to figure out how to build good structures and make good things happen within the institutional constraints of the neoliberal university. Anyway, I think I will read The Enterprise University next because that looks more like the kind of thing I am after.
July 25, 2012
I can't say I enjoyed reading this book, but not because it wasn't engaging, well written, and interesting. Mostly because I am currently a PhD student, so it's depressing to read a book about academia that so frankly discusses its many issues. That said, it also didn't reveal much that was new to me, so I can't claim to be surprised. For those who still think academia is a place to sit apart from the 'real world' and ponder over the great questions in life, this book might well be quite shocking. I would definitely recommend it to people that are still labouring under the misapprehension that a career in academia is cushy.
Some may see this book as one big complaint, but I thought the book was just an honest account of the ridiculousness of running an academic institution with the tools of neoliberal governance. I enjoyed Hill's sense of humour, as well as that of the many academics he quoted. He also devotes some time to solutions at the end of the book, and I do agree with the spirit of many of his more serious recommendations. Although I thought some of the subversive resistance recommendations were funny, others were actually quite annoying because I think they'd mainly just slow things down and encourage the introduction of additional procedures. The main reason I didn't give the book a higher rating was because it was rather repetitive. It also made me a bit depressed every time I picked it up, but that's no fault of the author.
Some may see this book as one big complaint, but I thought the book was just an honest account of the ridiculousness of running an academic institution with the tools of neoliberal governance. I enjoyed Hill's sense of humour, as well as that of the many academics he quoted. He also devotes some time to solutions at the end of the book, and I do agree with the spirit of many of his more serious recommendations. Although I thought some of the subversive resistance recommendations were funny, others were actually quite annoying because I think they'd mainly just slow things down and encourage the introduction of additional procedures. The main reason I didn't give the book a higher rating was because it was rather repetitive. It also made me a bit depressed every time I picked it up, but that's no fault of the author.
May 11, 2015
This book falls into the trap of most whinge books. It correctly identifies the problems in academia, spends a great deal of pages venting about the problems and quoting other people venting, but offers very little in the way of constructive solutions. The author proposes a passive aggressive style of 'resistance', more cowardly and petty than constructive or virtuous. This was very frustrating as I agreed with most of his complaints. In the end I had to put the book down.
September 15, 2015
A good read but not really 'enlightening', at least for me. I`ve been a convert for quite some time and would recommend readers to follow the 'hybrid pedagogy' movement and participatory culture, especially if they`re considering university, or are parents of children considering it. Today, I wouldn`t pay for a University qualification. Really, I wouldn`t. One can design a curriculum (eg R programming, Processing, data art, language and pedagogy) to suit one`s own ambitions, collaborate, build community and conduct life, as learning, a living organism, while working without accumulating debt. Fortunately, corporates today seek skills, and ambition, not pieces of paper that say you have them. Of course, some careers demand a qualification, in which case one is forced to obtain it, but, for the most part this isn`t the case and one can start building a resume that`s custom made and unique, built from self motivation and a real desire to follow one`s heart, in place of someone else`s heart, a sage on the stage churning out information that is old hat, outdated and really, not in-tune with real world ethnography.
May 17, 2016
Savage critique of university corporate culture, but already out of date I think as many practices are normalised. A little reactionary at times but overall good to see an analysis like this
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews