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What's happening at the University of Alaska is terrible, but I don't believe it's a bellwether. I think it's a swan song for Clark Kerr's vision of the "multiversity" which has been heading towards extinction for quite some time. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
Kerr's conception of the multiversity was an institution dedicated to producing "new knowledge in all its forms." This meant institutions dedicated to both teaching and research. What's happening suddenly at Alaska happened in slow-mo elsewhere. alumni.berkeley.edu/california-mag…
Alaska is facing the elimination of tenured jobs, the end of whole programs, extreme contraction of the research mission. All have become commonplace at public universities already. The adjunctification of faculty arose as a direct result of eliminating tenable jobs over time.
Because smaller blows were absorbed over time, we don't see the degradation to the multiversity, but the only thing that's been propping them up as even a simulacrum of the original is student tuition $'s and adjunct labor subsidizing a smaller subset of tenured faculty.
Student tuition is supposed to go toward instruction, but it's clearly subsidizing research activities at this point. Adjunct labor is a human shield protecting the time of the tenured to do that research subsidized by student tuition. Hard to argue this is a public institution.
I understand the dilemma institutions found themselves in and why this happened, but it's important to face the truth. The public multiversity is gone. It's a huge loss, already felt and the consequence of short-sighted public policy, but the question is what's next?
My argument over the last 7-8 years was that institutions needed to do better by its laborers because this was consistent with the values embodied in the multiversity. It would sustain that vision. Didn't happen. All the energy now is toward higher ed as workforce training.
Maybe this is simply the lifecycle of these institutions inside our capitalist system. The end may be nothing that can be resisted. If that's the case, the question is not how to survive as a husk of what it once was, but how to live as best they can according to important values
Even after the cuts, Alaska still receives a greater % of funding from the state than U. Illinois, U. Wisconsin, U. Michigan, and hundreds of others. If Alaska is being killed, these other institutions are already dead. Propping them up on tuition and adjunct labor isn't living.
What is next for public institutions, given that they're no longer funded by the public. What should the mission focus of the public in name only institution be?
My view: Student tuition should be dedicated to funding instruction. Yes, research will decline. Yes, this means many current faculty will teach more. Yes, this is not ideal, but at least it's honest and it brings the institution closer to living its values.
This will also create a core from which something more in line with the multiversity could potentially rise. If all faculty have at least some access to the full scope of activities, we may hold on to at least some of that ability to continue to create knowledge.
The key for me is that a focus on instruction is not the same as "workforce development." It must be a reclaiming of education as education, not training, and with a degree not reduced to a starting salary. This is how we rebuild belief in the underlying values.
Forgot about this post from last year, which fits on this train of thought. If student tuition is the majority of institutional revenue, institutions are obligated to distribute resources in a way that best benefit those students. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
