Abstract
For nearly a half century, commentators, policymakers and activists have been captivated by stories of unethical behavior by academic scientists and companies arising from industry-funded academic research. These cases reflect lapses in individuals’ integrity in the face of corporate temptation and corporate violations of integrity in the light of threats to profit. While we should not ignore these breakdowns in high standards of integrity, in this chapter, I suggest more worrying are broad changes underway in academic culture and practice. In the pages that follow, I point to the progressive loss of noneconomic or extra-commercial values in higher education and highlight the possible implications of these changes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
American Association of University Professors (AAUP). (1983). Academic freedom and tenure: Corporate funding of academic research. Academe, 69, 18a–23a. doi:10.2307/40249083.
Arum, R., & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Berman, E. P. (2013). Creating the market university: How academic science became an economic engine. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Berman, E. P. (2014). Economic rationalization and its effects on US universities. Paper presented at the understanding innovative science symposium, Madison.
Birnbaum, R. (2000). Management fads in higher education: where they come from, what they do, why they fail. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers.
Blumenthal, D., Gluck, M., Louis, K., Stoto, A., & Wise, D. (1986). University-industry research relationships in biotechnology: Implications for the university. Science, 232, 1361–1366. doi:10.1126/science.3715452.
Bok, D. (2004). Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of higher education. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bok, D. (2006). Our underachieving colleges: A candid look at how much students learn and why they should be learning more. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Campbell, E. G., Clarridge, B. R., Gokhale, M., Birenbaum, L., Hilgartner, S., Holtzman, N., & Blumenthal, D. (2002). Data withholding in academic genetics: Evidence from a national survey. Journal of the American Medical Association, 287(4), 473–480. doi:10.1001/jama.287.4.473.
Curry, J., & Kenney, M. (1990). Land grant university-industry relations in biotechnology: A comparison with non-land grant research universities. Rural Sociology, 55(1), 44–57.
Devitt, T. (2013, November 12). UW-Madison, WARF announce new tech transfer partnership. Madison: University of Wisconsin – Madison, News. http://www.news.wisc.edu/22287. Accessed 25 July 2014.
Downey, G. (2013). Not just discovery to product (D2P), but also knowledge to action (K2A). http://gdowney.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/not-just-discovery-to-product-d2p-but-also-knowledge-to-action-k2a/. Accessed 21 Sept 2014.
Field, K. (2013, August 22). Obama plan to tie aid to college ratings draws mixed reviews. The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Obama-Plan-to-Tie-Student-Aid/141229/. Accessed 22 Sept 2014.
Frickel, S., Gibbon, S., Howard, J., Kemper, J., Ottinger, G., & Hess, D. J. (2010). Undone science: Charting social movement and civil society challenges to research agenda setting. Science, Technology & Human Values, 35(4), 444–473. doi:10.1177/0162243909345836.
Hammerschmidt, D. (2008). Bias in the design, interpretation, and publication of industry-sponsored research. http://www.minnesotamedicine.com/Past-Issues/Past-Issues-2008/June-2008/Commentary-June-2008. Accessed 14 Sept 2014.
Hart, K. (1989). Is academic freedom bad for business? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 45, 28–34.
Jun, Shu. (2010, September 10). Peking science park shows great prospects. Beijing Review. http://www.bjreview.com.cn/Cover_Story_Series_2010/2010-09/18/content_299493.htm. Accessed 01 Oct 2014.
Kahn-Harris, K. (2011, June 23). Let’s broaden the definition. Times Higher Education. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/416595.article. Accessed 21 Sept 2014.
Kleinman, D. L. (forthcoming). Sticking up for liberal arts and humanities education: Governance, leadership and fiscal crisis. In G. Hutner & F. G. Mohamed (Eds.) A new deal for the humanities: liberal arts and the future of public higher education. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Kleinman, D. L., & Osley-Thomas, R. (2014). Uneven commercialization: Contradiction and conflict in the identity and practices of American universities. Minerva, 52(1), 1–26. doi:10.1007/s11024-014-9248-z.
Kleinman, D. L., Feinstein, N. W., & Downey, G. (2013). Beyond commercialization: Science, higher education, and the culture of neoliberalism. Science Education, 22(10), 2385–2401. doi:10.1007/s11191-012-9482-4.
Krimsky, S. (1984). Corporate-academic ties in biotechnology: A report on research in progress. GeneWatch, 1(5), 3–5.
Krimsky, S. (2004). Science in the private interest: Has the lure of profits corrupted biomedical research? Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Lo, B., & Field, M. J. (Eds.). (2009). Conflict of interest in medical research, education, and practice. Washington, DC: National Academies Press (US). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22940/. Accessed14 Sept 2014.
Obama, B. (2014). Remarks by the president on opportunity for all and skills for America’s workers. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/30/remarks-president-opportunity-all-and-skills-americas-workers. Accessed 21 Sept 2014.
Osley-Thomas, R. (2014). What sciences are most vulnerable to decline during a time of retrenchment? Unpublished manuscript. Madison: University of Wisconsin, Department of Sociology.
Radder, H. (Ed.). (2010). The commodification of academic research: Science and the modern university. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Rafols, I., Leydesdorff, L., O’Hare, A., Nightingale, P., & Stirling, A. (2012). How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research: A comparison between innovation studies and business & management. Research Policy, 41, 1262–1282. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2012.03.015.
Shaffer, D. F. & Wright, D. A. (2010). A new paradigm for economic development: How higher education institutions are working to revitalize their regional and state economies. Albany: The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. http://www.rockinst.org/pdf/education/2010-03-18-A_New_Paradigm.pdf. Accessed 29 Sept 2014.
Shenk, D. (1999). Money + science = ethics problems on campus. The Nation, 268, 11–18.
Shore, C., & Wright, S. (2000). Coercive accountability: The rise of audit culture in higher education. In M. Strathern (Ed.), Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics, and the academy (pp. 57–89). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203449721.
Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Tuchman, G. (2009). Wannabe U: Inside the corporate university. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
University of Oregon. (n.d.). Introduction to responsibility centered management. http://budgetmodel.uoregon.edu/content/introduction-responsibility-centered-management. Accessed 21 Sept 2014.
Washburn, J. (2006). University, Inc.: The corporate corruption of higher education. New York: Basic Books.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Flora Berklein and Robert Osley-Thomas for their research assistance and Flora Berklein, Brian Martin, Lewis Freidland, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Research on which this chapter is based was supported by funding from the US National Science Foundation (SES-1026516 and SES-1149466), National Research Foundation of Korea Grant (NRF-2013S1A3A2053087), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education (provided by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation). The views expressed in this chapter are the author’s alone.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this entry
Cite this entry
Kleinman, D.L. (2015). From Matters of Integrity to Cultural Transformation: Higher Education in the Era of Neoliberalism. In: Bretag, T. (eds) Handbook of Academic Integrity. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-079-7_29-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-079-7_29-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Online ISBN: 978-981-287-079-7
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
From Matters of Integrity to Cultural Transformation: Higher Education in the Era of Neoliberalism- Published:
- 13 November 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-079-7_29-2
-
Original
From Matters of Integrity to Cultural Transformation: Higher Education in the Era of Neoliberalism- Published:
- 30 June 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-079-7_29-1