Higher Education for Democracy: The Role of the University in Civil Society

312 Pages·2021·2.475 MB·English

by  William G. Tierney

HIGHER EDUCATION
FOR DEMOCRACY

HIGHER EDUCATION
FOR DEMOCRACY
The Role of the University in Civil Society
WILLIAM G. TIERNEY
Cover image: Zola aux outrages by Henry de Groux, 1898.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
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For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Tierney, William G., author.
Title: Higher education for democracy : the role of the university in civil
society / William G. Tierney.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020041500 | ISBN 9781438484495 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781438484518 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Education, Higher—Political aspects. | Education, Higher—Aims
and objectives. | Universities and colleges—Political aspects. | Democracy and
education. | Civil society.
Classification: LCC LC171 .T54 2021 | DDC 378.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020041500
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface ix
1 Globalization, Neoliberalism, and Their Discontents 1
2 The Democratic Imperative of Higher Education 25
3 Identity Matters 71
4 Understanding Academic Freedom and Free Speech
on Campus 97
5 Understanding What Modern Universities Do:
Goods and Services 147
6 Academic Competencies for the Twenty-First Century 183
7 Academic Responsibility: Toward a Cultural Politics
of Integrity 217
Notes 267
References 269
Index 291

Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the support I have received from the Pullias Center for
Higher Education at the University of Southern California. My students,
research assistants, postdoctoral students, and colleagues helped me think
through what I present here. Monica Raad and Diane Flores, who staff
the Center for us, are the absolute best at what they do. Although many
individuals read a part of this book, Michael Lanford provided extraordi-
nary help in his editing and feedback. He’s a gem. Rebecca Colesworthy
at SUNY Press has been thoughtful, positive, fun, and reflective about
how to improve the text; I’ve been very lucky to work with her. I had the
good fortune to put the finishing touches on this manuscript first at the
Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Lake Como, Italy, and then at
the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, before the pandemic
closed down the world. I could not have had better environments to
complete this book. Through it all, Barry Weiss has been my sounding
board and best friend.
vii

Preface
When I speak to my students about the relatively leisurely times I had
when I went to college it seems like I am referring to a foreign land
about which they have no knowledge. Today seems entirely different from
yesterday. One point I make in this text, however, is that the past and
present help determine the future; there is no linear inevitability. I started
the book before COVID-19 arrived on the scene and closed down the
world. Moreover, although I have long supported Black Lives Matter, the
murder of George Floyd created a new urgency for me to think through
what I am writing here.
We are always in a time of change, and the contexts in which we exist
matter a great deal. What I resist, however, is those who say, “Everything
must change” as if there is an abrupt rupture from today to tomorrow.
Such an assumption is historically naïve, and frequently enables antidem-
ocratic forces to constrict the public good. Given the fiscal challenges the
pandemic has created, we hear, for example, that the end of academe as
we know it is near. However, for over a generation, when higher education
has faced a crisis, such a response has been inevitable.
Tech boosters now say that an online revolution is about to happen,
which will disrupt all of academe. Online learning certainly has grown
over the last decade, and some students seem to learn just fine that way.
However, I do not find the argument that all our colleges and universities
are going to fold like a house of cards very convincing. Clayton Christen-
son, and before him, Peter Drucker, have been academic Jeremiahs saying,
“The end is near,” Drucker suggested the end of higher education in 1997,
and since 2011 Christenson has predicted that half of higher education
will go out of business. It has not happened, however. Even today, when
academe faces the worst economic crisis in a century because of the pan-
demic, sober predictions are that about 5% of the 4,000 postsecondary
ix