Office Hours: Activism and Change in the Academy

All research content shall be under university surveillance. Academic freedom must take second place to security from terrorism. Only disciplines that pay their way will earn the right to survive in the university of the future. Within a few years, Cary Nelson and Stephen Watt argue, higher education as we have known it may largely cease to exist. Universities are increasingly profit-driven, and the faculty seems increasingly passive in the face of political and economic pressures. Office Hours argues that it's not enough to blame market forces or the indifference of politicians: academics can often be their own worst enemies. In a series of stinging analyses, Nelson and Watt examine the current sorry state of higher education, The second half of the volume offers "alternative futures" for the academy, visions that involve academic organizations, public outreach through the internet, faculty unionization, and campus organizing. Office Hoursis a roll-up-your-sleeves look at theavoidable disaster facing the modern university.