Campus, Inc.: Corporate Power in the Ivory Tower - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1573928100 ISBN 13: 9781573928106

Publisher: Prometheus, 2000

Synopsis

The university, as a core institution of democratic society, is increasingly threatened by the intrusion of big business. Corporations are working their way into academe in subtle and obvious ways: granting of exclusive concessions rights on campus to a softdrink manufacturer; use of a major portion of the resources, faculty, and research efforts of university departments by a particular company in exchange for modest funding; university administrators whose salaries are often doubled for service on the boards of important corporate contributors. Compounding the problem is the growing scarcity of public funding, which makes universities vulnerable to the lure of big money from pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, computer giants, and wealthy private donors.

Can faculty members remain independent under such heavy corporate influence? How does big money influence the direction of research? These are among the serious questions raised by the revealing articles in this thought-provoking and disturbing collection.

Campus, Inc. exposes this new form of corporate welfare through hard research. More importantly, it emphasizes the necessity of preserving the democratic character of the university with its independent inquiry, diversity of viewpoints, and disinterested expertise. The authors also provide real and replicable examples, from the front-line of the movement, of actions that have been taken against campus corporatization: Successful efforts to take universities off the corporate auction block are becoming more common. A new era of student activism has helped roll back the sale of sweatshop-produced items in campus stores; the re-emergence of unions has helped faculty organize to prevent "hostile takeovers" of our publicly funded institutions; and effective strategies to redemocratize the university are increasingly available.

About this title

About the Author:

Geoffry D. White, Ph.D. (Los Angeles, CA), an award-winning psychologist, has many interests including campaign finance reform and developing a single-payer health care system in California. For ten years he was a professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton. He is now in private practice.

Review:

"...the invasion of corporate culture into every interstice of campus life should be deeply disturbing." -- Multinational Monitor, December 2001

"...this is the book to read...we need to know what's wrong if we're going to fix it." -- The NEA Higher Education Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1573928100
• ISBN 13: 9781573928106
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 470
• Editor: White Ph.D Geoffry D., Hauck Flannery C.