Knowledge, the univ., and development (2)

Part II. Teachers and Students

5. An international academic crisis? The American professoriate in comparative perspective

• Insularity & internationalism (American professoriate is least committed to internationalism among scholars from 14 countries, p. 76; The American research system is remarkably insular - pay little attention to the knowledge that the rest of the world produces)
  
• Centers, peripheries, & knowledge networks
  
• The decline of the traditional professoriate (a caste system: tenured, full-time non-tenure-track, part-time)
  
• Tenure (v. accountability)
  
• Scholarship reconsidered & assessed (research v. teaching)
  
• Morale (little sense of crisis; unhappy with institutional governance and policy)
  
• Future realities & professorial perceptions (university-industry collaboration)
  The largest and arguably the most powerful in the world, the American academic profession is faced with unprecedented challenges. Its world scientific and research leadership is reasonably secure because of the size of its academic system. At the same time, it must function in an increasingly multipolar world in which international skills and connections are important, and it is ill prepared for this role. American scholars and scientists remain remarkably insular in their attitudes and their activities
  

6. Professors & politics: An international perspective

• The impacts of activism ("academic as expert"; indirectly involved in government; oppositional thinking - involved in revolutionary movements in the Third World)
  
• Perspectives on faculty activism

7. Student political activism

• The historical context (Nazi supporters, nationalism during the colonial period
  
• The impossibility of a "Permanent Revolution" in the university (lack of sustainability)
  
• Response to activism (ignorance and/or repression; activist participation
• Who are the activists (core leadership, active followers, the sympathetic). Characteristics of activist leadership:
  
  • study in the social sciences (humanities)
  • from affluent families
  • from more educated families
  • from more liberal families
  • among the best students
  • often from minority groups
    
• The activist impulse (nationalism; broader political issues)
• The impact of activism (The collapse of communism - leftist student activism)
  
• The industrialized nations & the Third World (Third World students were more successful in politics than students in the industrialized nations)
  

8. Student politics in the Third World

• The political framework
• The academic environment
• Historical traditions
• Sociological currents
• Ideological orientations
• The future (from leftist to religious or conservative)