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For the University: Democracy and the Future of the Institution
For the University is a book both about and for the university in the age of mass and globalized education. It analyses the current problems facing the university as an institution, and also offers some positive arguments for a revived and vibrant set of institutional arrangements and governing principles.
This book considers the place of the university as an important global institution, now in a charged political and international public sphere. Setting it in a wider economy and politics, this book focuses on the question of the university in relation to current and emerging models of democracy.
The question of what the university will be -- rather than it is, was, or might be -- is at the heart of this book, and Docherty ably traces its history and present condition in order to offer us a vision for the future.
This book considers the place of the university as an important global institution, now in a charged political and international public sphere. Setting it in a wider economy and politics, this book focuses on the question of the university in relation to current and emerging models of democracy.
The question of what the university will be -- rather than it is, was, or might be -- is at the heart of this book, and Docherty ably traces its history and present condition in order to offer us a vision for the future.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2011
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About the author
Thomas Docherty
13 books3 followersProfessor Thomas Docherty is Emeritus Professor of English and of Comparative Literature at the University of Warwick
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April 10, 2014
This is a spirited book, worthy and timely. Docherty's general diagnosis of the university is largely correct - where the university has increasingly been absorbed and governed by market rationality in the past 35-40 years. He analyses this in a variety of contexts which will be familiar to those who have attended or work in UK universities: empty calls for enhancing the 'student experiences' (ie - amassing extra-curriculur activities to add to a CV) whilst simultaneously dissolving the educational experience into a modular form (where what is learned are not things, concepts, ideas, etcetera, but 'critical thinking' and 'team-working', ie, skills); the insipid managerialisation and bureaucratisation of universities, where management functionaries pedal certain images of 'leadership' (driving 'efficiency' savings in departments, making cuts when departments are not 'economically feasible' and so on). Docherty also includes a discussion of assessment practices and financing in the final two chapters respectively.
The reasons I have not rated this book higher are simple. Despite the well-grounded structure, some of the theoretical arguments were a bit messy. The university's "ideal function" should be to pursue "the true, the good, and the beautiful" - and this is supported with a never-ending array of philosophical and literary ideas that, whilst all well-spirited and formed in their respective sections (for example - Docherty's discussing of education as 'Bildung', ie, as a transformative experience rather than an atomised journey with a well-defined destination was interesting) nonetheless lost coherency and strength through sheer number - discussions drawing from Adorno, Agamben, Arendt, Aristotle, Badiou, Benjamin, Bourdieu,Dewey, Habermas, (Seamus) Heaney, Heidegger, Hegel, and so on, are all to be found. Docherty jumps between these ideas and relates them all to this "ideal" triple-function of the university or other related ideas from the foundations of the book's argument. In establishing this founding ideal model at the beginning of the book (with other catchphrases being recommended such as 'money for values' instead of 'value for money'), Docherty establishes a contestable foundation to make his claims with a passionate plea throughout. The plea, which is at its thinnest a plea for a transformation in how we do higher education and a plea against anti-intellectualism, is nonetheless a worthy, perhaps urgent one.
The reasons I have not rated this book higher are simple. Despite the well-grounded structure, some of the theoretical arguments were a bit messy. The university's "ideal function" should be to pursue "the true, the good, and the beautiful" - and this is supported with a never-ending array of philosophical and literary ideas that, whilst all well-spirited and formed in their respective sections (for example - Docherty's discussing of education as 'Bildung', ie, as a transformative experience rather than an atomised journey with a well-defined destination was interesting) nonetheless lost coherency and strength through sheer number - discussions drawing from Adorno, Agamben, Arendt, Aristotle, Badiou, Benjamin, Bourdieu,Dewey, Habermas, (Seamus) Heaney, Heidegger, Hegel, and so on, are all to be found. Docherty jumps between these ideas and relates them all to this "ideal" triple-function of the university or other related ideas from the foundations of the book's argument. In establishing this founding ideal model at the beginning of the book (with other catchphrases being recommended such as 'money for values' instead of 'value for money'), Docherty establishes a contestable foundation to make his claims with a passionate plea throughout. The plea, which is at its thinnest a plea for a transformation in how we do higher education and a plea against anti-intellectualism, is nonetheless a worthy, perhaps urgent one.
Displaying 1 of 1 review