Beyond the Corporate University

Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, NYU's Andrew Ross argues that the notion of the "corporate" university may be good for water-cooler chat, but it's not adequate to what's happening with the university. His final paragraph is worth thinking about:

In the cold-war heyday, C. Wright Mills argued that the exercise of power in the United States was shaped by "interlocking directorates" drawn from corporations, the government, and the military. Mills's thesis, while cogent for its time, could use an update. Research universities are becoming independent drivers of the economy—stimulating growth and development rather than merely providing trained labor and research. In so doing, they are forging their own influential directorates. Nongovernmental organizations will very likely follow suit. At that point, the tripartite model that Mills set forth in 1956 will have added at least two more prongs. In anticipation of that scenario, we should consider that our universities, far from devolving into mere adjuncts of corporations, will more likely end up as players, in their own right, on a landscape with many hubs.

So we're headed toward interlocking directorates drawn from corporations, universities, the government, NGOs, and the military. Do I belive it? Don't know.