Academia, Inc.: How Corporatization Is Transforming Canadian Universities - Softcover

Canadian universities are being slowly but inexorably corporatized. Casualizing academic labour, remaking students into consumers of education, implementing corporate management models and commercializing academic research all point to the ascendance of business interests and values in Canada s higher education system. Academia, Inc. examines the tensions that result from the merging of two fundamentally incompatible institutions the university and the corporation. Brownlee argues that moving from liberal education to corporate job training, public service to profit-making and critical research to commercial invention radically undermines the goals of higher education. Investigating the history, causes and impacts of corporatization, this book explores how this transformation has taken shape and its ramifications for both universities and society as a whole. Brownlee suggests several strategies for resisting this process. "

Jamie Brownlee is the author of Ruling Canada: Corporate Cohesion and Democracy (2005, Fernwood). He holds a PhD in Sociology and Political Economy from Carleton University. Using information collected through Access to Information requests, his doctoral research examined the influence of corporate power in the sphere of higher education.