Educators - especially those underpaid toilers in the humanities - have long lamented corporate influence creeping into higher education, even organizing teach-ins against this influence.
Florida State University though, has taken this egregious practice too far. Eager to accept a donation for their economics department from right-wing fanatics the Koch Brothers, FSU ceded hiring approval for a new program "promoting political economy and free enterprise" to Charles Koch's representatives according to this story.
I understand the need to get research funded, and even the desire to guide ideology in the classroom (see the tagline under blog name above). But ceding what should be decisions by academic departments, provosts, and human resources in pursuit of relatively small funding sources ($1.5 million in this case) strikes me as a dangerous precedent.
1 comment:
The essential problem is the blurring of a line between education and training. Training is the rightful province of the private sector... and should be paid for by them, in its entirety. Education requires a perspective and context that they would not and should not pay for. As an educator you have nothing to say about Hamburger University in Oakbrook... and McD's should remain moot about issuing advanced placement for time spent as Asst Manager in charge of Fries.
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