Forum 22 | Wendy Brown | The End of the Corporate University: What We Are Now

May 20, 2015 | UC Davis, Student Community Center

Wendy Brown, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley

Abstract: In her lecture, Professor Brown will attempt to explain two things at a very broad level: first, why it took so long for the university to be conquered by market rationality, and second, the entailments of this conquest for both faculty governance and the value of an education. She will argue that the frequent naming of our predicament today as “the corporatization of the university”misreads how universities have been reshaped by the transition from a corporate economy to a shareholder or financialized one. More than a misnomer, the term “corporate university” prevents us from grasping what this transition has meant for both the governance and the mission(s) of universities.