administrators aim to create a more politically quietist university
May 6, 2024 3:38 PM Subscribe
Who Has the Right to “Disrupt” the University? Perhaps the most egregious example of the administrator-as-disruptor is Gordon Gee, currently the president of West Virginia University (WVU), whose administration pushed through extraordinarily deep cuts to the institution’s academic offerings last fall. During a meeting of the faculty senate, Gee said “I want to be very clear that the university is not dismantling higher education. We are disrupting it . . . And many of you know I am a firm believer in disruption.”
Protesters seek not only to advance their points of view, but to change the facts on the ground on their campuses. In doing so, they correctly recognize that the contemporary American university is much more than a marketplace of ideas; it is an unprecedented institutional form that acts as a powerful force in fields from real estate to healthcare to finance—to, indeed, weapons manufacturing. In fact, it is precisely these operations—and their entanglements with the Israeli and US war machines—that student protesters are targeting, with demands that are not only expressive (asking administrators to join calls for a ceasefire, for example) but also material. When the very point of protesting is to put a stop to business as usual, the right to disrupt becomes a central part of the right to protest.
Indeed, university administrators are aware that campus protest is about disruption rather than just expression—not least because they have spent the last few years contending with a wave of “disruptive” union activity that has spread to nearly every part of the large and growing university apparatus.
Protesters seek not only to advance their points of view, but to change the facts on the ground on their campuses. In doing so, they correctly recognize that the contemporary American university is much more than a marketplace of ideas; it is an unprecedented institutional form that acts as a powerful force in fields from real estate to healthcare to finance—to, indeed, weapons manufacturing. In fact, it is precisely these operations—and their entanglements with the Israeli and US war machines—that student protesters are targeting, with demands that are not only expressive (asking administrators to join calls for a ceasefire, for example) but also material. When the very point of protesting is to put a stop to business as usual, the right to disrupt becomes a central part of the right to protest.
Indeed, university administrators are aware that campus protest is about disruption rather than just expression—not least because they have spent the last few years contending with a wave of “disruptive” union activity that has spread to nearly every part of the large and growing university apparatus.
The enrollment crisis and the plague of parasitic corporate managers it has attracted to slather sub-Silicon Valley blathering and magical thinking on real wounds for big salaries have put US higher ed in a dire place. It’s hard to see good paths out given the baseline demographics.
I say this as a relatively recently laid off 17th year vet of a state university system.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:07 PM on May 6 [27 favorites]
I say this as a relatively recently laid off 17th year vet of a state university system.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:07 PM on May 6 [27 favorites]
I have been working for WVU for two years now. My sector of campus, the medical school, has only been slightly disrupted and we are doing okay. Most of the rest of the university is not so fortunate. There are no big student protests here. I don't think they would disrupt much more than the football games already do.
posted by biogeo at 4:08 PM on May 6 [12 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 4:08 PM on May 6 [12 favorites]
On the one hand these are kids. Kids who should be learning to think critically, and who know that there is a long, storied history of student protest in the US.
On the other hand are the adults, who reap their considerable salaries to boost the endowments of these universities while paying lip service to ensuring an education for these kids. Adults who should know that seldom have the student protestors been on the wrong side of history. Add the fascist cops who have never been taught critical thinking, and the press who struggle to balance the both-sides-ism so as not to anger the investor class and the military industrial complex propping up the perpetrators of this genocide.
Absent is the kind of political leadership to put the protests into context and quell the fascist instincts of the administrators and their goons.
The kids are all right. The rest is just a mirror to our Eff'd up world.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:13 PM on May 6 [21 favorites]
On the other hand are the adults, who reap their considerable salaries to boost the endowments of these universities while paying lip service to ensuring an education for these kids. Adults who should know that seldom have the student protestors been on the wrong side of history. Add the fascist cops who have never been taught critical thinking, and the press who struggle to balance the both-sides-ism so as not to anger the investor class and the military industrial complex propping up the perpetrators of this genocide.
Absent is the kind of political leadership to put the protests into context and quell the fascist instincts of the administrators and their goons.
The kids are all right. The rest is just a mirror to our Eff'd up world.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:13 PM on May 6 [21 favorites]
The faculty and academic-staff union local I'm part of (and currently serve as secretary) met on Saturday evening to pass a resolution sharply critical of our chancellor for calling in the (racist abusive) cops. This afternoon there was a faculty gathering at the student encampment that subsequently marched up to the faculty senate meeting.
We don't get as much attention as the students -- because the right and admin think they have us cowed -- but we are not doing nothing.
posted by humbug at 4:20 PM on May 6 [40 favorites]
We don't get as much attention as the students -- because the right and admin think they have us cowed -- but we are not doing nothing.
posted by humbug at 4:20 PM on May 6 [40 favorites]
If I see one more hand-wringing social media comment about Those Poor Kids at Columbia who have to have a smaller graduation ceremony I'm going to scream.
With Schools in Ruins, Education in Gaza Will Be Hobbled for Years
With Schools in Ruins, Education in Gaza Will Be Hobbled for Years
Most of Gaza’s schools, including all of its universities, have severe damage that makes them unusable, which could harm an entire generation, the United Nations and others say. ...posted by Nelson at 4:26 PM on May 6 [20 favorites]
That has led critics, including the Palestinian ministry of education and more than two dozen U.N. officials, to accuse Israel of a deliberate pattern of targeting educational facilities, much as it has been accused of targeting hospitals. ...
The United Nations said last month that it had documented at least 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors who had been killed in Gaza since October, as well as at least 7,819 students and 756 teachers wounded.
If you are on the side of cracking down on large-scale student protests, you are on the wrong side of history.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:51 PM on May 6 [26 favorites]
posted by SoberHighland at 4:51 PM on May 6 [26 favorites]
What's really interesting is also how much they are controlling expressions of anger against this activity as well. For example: Greg Fenves engaged in "listening sessions" this week, but only for controlled and pre-approved questions, and refused to answer (per faculty posting on locked Twitter) questions that were off script, or let people have the ability to speak if they weren't pre-selected.
posted by corb at 5:42 PM on May 6 [12 favorites]
posted by corb at 5:42 PM on May 6 [12 favorites]
If you are on the side of cracking down on large-scale student protests, you are on the wrong side of history.I think that, unfortunately, there is no real concern among the shut-up-and-tuit¹ crowd for being on the right side of history, only for staying on the right side of the politically powerful long enough to enrich themselves, with the idea that they can just leave a particular university once they've ruined it, and higher education in general once they've ruined that. University leadership are simultaneously obsessed with declaring values and horrified at the idea that they should in any way be bound by their declarations.
¹ The verb form of tuition, I declare.
posted by It is regrettable that at 6:09 PM on May 6 [14 favorites]
I know who I’d like to “disrupt.”
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:38 PM on May 6 [5 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:38 PM on May 6 [5 favorites]
If you are on the side of cracking down on large-scale student protests, you are on the wrong side of history.
This always has been the case and always will be.
So many people, politicians, administrators, public servants and plenty of others have forgotten what universities have given the world. Not degree-qualified graduates, certainly not the typical MBA program that exists pretty much everywhere as nothing more than a source of revenue and always has (kind of poetic really, given the moral deficiencies of most MBA teaching). But research, formal and otherwise. Giving young people the space, the resources and the time to think about the hard questions our world offers and ponder on possible solutions. The most important things universities have done throughout history can't be documented in a profit and loss and don't appear in a balance sheet but are the most valuable thing they produce - thinking minds.
Unfortunately, the MBAs and their spreadsheets have taken over so much of the world that I don't see how we'll ever get it back.
posted by dg at 11:51 PM on May 6 [8 favorites]
This always has been the case and always will be.
So many people, politicians, administrators, public servants and plenty of others have forgotten what universities have given the world. Not degree-qualified graduates, certainly not the typical MBA program that exists pretty much everywhere as nothing more than a source of revenue and always has (kind of poetic really, given the moral deficiencies of most MBA teaching). But research, formal and otherwise. Giving young people the space, the resources and the time to think about the hard questions our world offers and ponder on possible solutions. The most important things universities have done throughout history can't be documented in a profit and loss and don't appear in a balance sheet but are the most valuable thing they produce - thinking minds.
Unfortunately, the MBAs and their spreadsheets have taken over so much of the world that I don't see how we'll ever get it back.
posted by dg at 11:51 PM on May 6 [8 favorites]
We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.
Ursula K Le Guin
posted by The River Ivel at 1:53 AM on May 7 [23 favorites]
Ursula K Le Guin
posted by The River Ivel at 1:53 AM on May 7 [23 favorites]
When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts in the mid 2000s, he made the mistake of saying the quiet part loud. He unveiled a plan reorganize the public higher education by spining off UMass Amherst into a semi-private, elite, research university to focus on attracting students from other states. The other UMass campuses, state colleges, and community colleges were all going to get reoriented as "worker training centers" and he did call them "worker training centers".
Thankfully the plan never came to be. But that didn't stop UMass Amherst from opening up their own satellite "campus" near UMass Boston, because apparently UMass Boston isn't good enough to be the UMass campus in Boston.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:48 AM on May 7 [7 favorites]
Thankfully the plan never came to be. But that didn't stop UMass Amherst from opening up their own satellite "campus" near UMass Boston, because apparently UMass Boston isn't good enough to be the UMass campus in Boston.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:48 AM on May 7 [7 favorites]
Anthropologist Pauline von Hellerman has been documenting Gee-like disruption at UK universities in an #AcademicVenting thread on Mastodon.
posted by audi alteram partem at 6:21 AM on May 7 [6 favorites]
posted by audi alteram partem at 6:21 AM on May 7 [6 favorites]
Good to see more notices on university and college labor organizing. This has been building for years, despite little support from academics and ditto from media.
If you're interested in this, here's a discussion we held with two leaders of Higher Education Labor United (HELU).
posted by doctornemo at 6:22 AM on May 7 [6 favorites]
If you're interested in this, here's a discussion we held with two leaders of Higher Education Labor United (HELU).
posted by doctornemo at 6:22 AM on May 7 [6 favorites]
“College Presidents Behaving Badly,” Thomas J. Sugrue, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 06 May 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 9:28 AM on May 7 [7 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 9:28 AM on May 7 [7 favorites]
WVU got rid of MATH!!! Can you believe it?? The administration there is garbage.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 10:47 AM on May 7 [2 favorites]
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 10:47 AM on May 7 [2 favorites]
"Disruptor" reminds me that I need to go watch Glass Onion again. Dong!
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:54 AM on May 7 [3 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:54 AM on May 7 [3 favorites]
Getting rid of the graduate program in math is, of course, absurd. But the administration has also eliminated the entire Appalachian Studies program. It is a tiny program, only offering a minor to undergraduates, barely a blip on the balance sheets next to football and administrative bloat. WVU is a land grant university, its mission is to support the state of West Virginia and its culture through its academic activities and connecting those activities to the general public. West Virginia takes some pride in being the only state completely located within Appalachia, and as such carries a banner for the whole region. Eliminating Appalachian Studies at WVU is destroying something absolutely unique, that does not and cannot exist elsewhere. It should be the university's crown jewel, the fulfillment of its promise to the state to be its memory, conscience, and vision for the future. But now it's gone.
posted by biogeo at 1:59 PM on May 7 [19 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 1:59 PM on May 7 [19 favorites]
Bring Back the Mechanics and Grange Halls
We will need to learn med skills and how to make our own electricity, soon.
Trades education for all
posted by eustatic at 2:06 PM on May 7 [1 favorite]
We will need to learn med skills and how to make our own electricity, soon.
Trades education for all
posted by eustatic at 2:06 PM on May 7 [1 favorite]
Eliminating Appalachian Studies at WVU is destroying something absolutely unique, that does not and cannot exist elsewhere. It should be the university's crown jewel, the fulfillment of its promise to the state to be its memory, conscience, and vision for the future. But now it's gone.
The existence of deep roots, of real connection to place and land, of highly local culture and tradition, and of historical continuity is anathema to profiteers everywhere, often being impediments to maximizing the cash value of places and people, or not generating any on their own.
They're often, in my experience, also largely unrecognizable or incomprehensible to many people in the managerial class, having been groomed in denatured and largely culture-free settings for a rootless lifetime structured first by career opportunities.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:25 PM on May 7 [13 favorites]
The existence of deep roots, of real connection to place and land, of highly local culture and tradition, and of historical continuity is anathema to profiteers everywhere, often being impediments to maximizing the cash value of places and people, or not generating any on their own.
They're often, in my experience, also largely unrecognizable or incomprehensible to many people in the managerial class, having been groomed in denatured and largely culture-free settings for a rootless lifetime structured first by career opportunities.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:25 PM on May 7 [13 favorites]
Obviously these are two totally different types of activities.
posted by haptic_avenger at 3:10 PM on May 7
posted by haptic_avenger at 3:10 PM on May 7
I'm pleased to see that my alma mater Rutgers University appears to have handled things fairly well.
posted by gudrun at 4:17 PM on May 7
posted by gudrun at 4:17 PM on May 7
The most effective universities have evolved to their ideal state by eliminating faculty and students!
posted by Dashy at 5:50 PM on May 7 [4 favorites]
posted by Dashy at 5:50 PM on May 7 [4 favorites]
The existence of deep roots, of real connection to place and land, of highly local culture and tradition, and of historical continuity is anathema to profiteers everywhere, often being impediments to maximizing the cash value of places and people, or not generating any on their own.The book itself will certainly be familiar to many here—this site is where I first learned of it!—but, after years of thinking it would be some dusty old tome, I finally read Seeing like a state. For those who are in today’s lucky 10,000, I highly recommend it. It is engaging, approachable, and really does give a useful vocabulary for talking about situations (like this one) that we all recognize, but might otherwise have trouble putting into words as well as ryanshepard did here.
posted by It is regrettable that at 6:27 AM on May 8 [2 favorites]
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Disruption by having a small tent encampment in the quad: Send in the goons!
posted by Dip Flash at 4:03 PM on May 6 [66 favorites]