Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education

by Patrick S. Roberts, Elizabeth Popp Berman, David L. Kirp, et al.

Book Overview

How can you turn an English department into a revenue center? How do you grade students if they are "customers" you must please? How do you keep industry from dictating a university's research agenda? What happens when the life of the mind meets the bottom line? Wry and insightful, "Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line" takes us on a cross-country tour of the most powerful trend in academic life today--the rise of business values and the belief...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674011465
• ISBN13: 9780674011465
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Excellent analysis on higher education

This is an excellent analysis of the current state of affairs in higher education. The book includes 14 chapters including the conclusion. Each chapter can be read independently, as they follow the famed Harvard case study method. Each chapter describes a unique issue impacting higher education. Some of these interesting issues include: a) the advent and so far failing of online higher education; b) the success of for profit publicly traded university companies; c) the new sources of funds for universities, including copyrights and patents; d) the ongoing restructuring of undergraduate core curriculum to please the students and private industry; e) the shrinking government subsidization of public universities and their resulting de facto privatization; f) the compromising of the independence of university research when financed by the private sector; and f) various attempts to revive the liberal arts discipline within an increasingly profit driven higher education culture. Throughout these issues, the authors covers recurring themes. These include the many conflict of interest between: a) intellectual culture and profits; b) professors' research activities and undergraduate teaching; c) practical job oriented education and liberal arts. Some of these fascinating themes beg the questions of what is knowledge? What is culture? Even what is critical thinking? During the Renaissance the answer to such questions would include being fluent in both Latin and Greek in addition to a couple of vernacular languages. It also entailed having an extremely developed art appreciation supported by demonstrated artistic capabilities. A broad and deep understanding of most aspects of science was also important. Thus, in comparison to this ideal Renaissance Mind model, we are really all a bunch of illiterates no matter how well educated we are. The author finishes the book by asking what will be the Latin and Greek disciplines of tomorrow. What he means by that is what will be the dying intellectual disciplines that will not survive our practical and profit driven culture. He ventures to offer some candidates for the intellectual cemetery, including: English literature, pure mathematics, foreign languages, maybe sociology and other liberal arts disciplines. He mentions these with much sadness. He does not want it to happen. But, he suggests that the painting may be on the wall. The bright side of the coin is that higher education has never been so alive. Universities attempt a cocktail of different strategies to survive and thrive. Also, a bunch of smart institutions are attacking the higher education monopoly from all sides. Students of all ages never had so many opportunities to acquire higher learning in so many different ways. None of us does speak Latin and Greek anymore. But, we all have infinite opportunities to keep on learning throughout our lives be it a certification in C++ programming, or a business or law degree from speciali

The crumbling wall between the university and the market

David Kirp does a superlative job of illustrating the many ways in which universities, indeed all types of higher and further education, are being increasingly exposed to market forces. By the judicious use of case studies based upon educational institutions as diverse as Dickinson College, the University of Chicago, the University of California Berkeley, MIT, the Open University and DeVry University, he shows how the embrace of the market has led some universities astray, some to prosper enormously, and at least one to prosper by giving its "product" away. Kirp generally provides a balanced view of his subject, although it is evident that he is very concerned about the injury to the "academic commons" to which market forces can lead. In this respect he recognizes the ongoing phenomenon, describes it well and leaves it to his readers to devise an appropriate response. The book is clearly and engagingly written, and nicely complements Derek Bok's _Universities in the Marketplace_ (2003), which takes a narrower view of the diversity of higher educational institutions while also considering a broader set of functional aspects of the university, for example, athletics. Together Kirp and Bok have left this reader impressed by the power and persistence of market forces and keenly aware that something very valuable will be lost if they dominate higher education completely.

Goodbye Mr. Chips, Hello "Survivor"?

First things first: anyone who is interested in higher education policy (whether as an academic, investor, administrator, or student) will almost certainly find this book well worth their time. Professor Kirp's well-written case studies provide an insightful look at the changing environment of higher education, where institutions may be increasingly driven to act less like collegial scholars in a marketplace of ideas and more like the half-starved castaways on a bad episode of "Survivor." As the other reviews attest, the book provides an equal measure of readability and rigor; Kirp clearly knows what he's talking about, and he says it skillfully enough that at times you might think you were reading an article in the Atlantic Monthly instead of a book from a noted academic. Any student who finds this book on their assigned reading list should consider themselves lucky.Moreover, some of the most interesting parts of this book come not from the details of the case studies that comprise the bulk of the book, but from the larger implications and the questions they raise. Any good book raises more questions than it answers, and Kirp does not disappoint on this score. After I finished reading "Shakespeare," I was left with a couple of burning questions:If the winners write the history books, how might history look if one day the "winner" of the higher education battles ends up being a for-profit subsidiary of a company like Enron? What are the pros and cons of allowing private companies to gain control over the content of American education? Furthermore, if "producers" of higher education are becoming increasingly sophisticated in marketing their product, how can "consumers" develop the savvy to ensure that they really know what they're buying (and getting what they paid for)? I imagine there are a great many parents of high school seniors, as well as adult professionals looking for a career upgrade, who would want to know how to sort through the big promises and slick brochures much like Kirp's consumer exemplar, Mohammed Ziaee.I very much enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it.

This should be six stars!

One of the first things you learn in policy schools is: Never wander too far from your data. David Kirp's book is wonderfully rich with original case material and backed up with an impressive set of secondary sources. Don't expect the easy answers you get from one-note oped pieces and think tanks. Well-written and thought-provoking at the same time, the book's weight of evidence is matched by the weight of its argument. For once, the for-profit sector in education is actually assessed rather than dismissed out of hand, and new approaches are brought to the fore--what can we learn from the successful Open University distance learning model of education? What I take away from Kirp and his colleagues is that no flaming angels or social darwinism can direct our way to better post-secondary education. It's got to be done case by case by those whose careers are invested in making colleges and universities the best they can be. Speaking of the cases, I'd be surprised if those who teach or are students in these institutions don't see themselves and their concerns reflected in this book!

Top Down

What an engaging book, neat anecdotes abound. Each chapter presents a case study of some kind to show the sorts of adjustments colleges and universities make to gain and maintain competitive advantage. Much has been written of the packaging of students for display and evaluation by university admissions committees. This book explores the opposite end. Kirp shows how NYU wooed the finest analytic philosophers money can buy in order to gain top students and international reputation, how many public universities are rethinking their commitments to their charter states as the tax-based funding dwindles, and how schools such as DeVry, Phoenix, and many two-year colleges now fill a niche offering IT certification, practical courses most universities choose to ignore.One of my favorite chapters exhibits the cooperation of several small southern liberal arts colleges in an effort to maximize the utility of the internet and defy the complications of location to offer a world class education in the Classics. The chapter on the University of Chicago's efforts to market itself by emphasizing the rigors and intensity of its offerings at the expense of its reputation as a party school provides some humorous moments.Kirp seems to know all of the people he needs to know to get the stories straight and compelling. From the brainstorming of catchy college name to the purchase of science departments by the funding dollar, public and private, Kirp explores the variety of decisions, the successes and failures of faculty involvement, and the remarkable institutional overhauls that occur while remaining solvent and functional.Money changes everything for the college and university. It seems all institutions need more of it, yet Kirp shows how many schools and their leaders are able to adapt to the market without compromising everything of value. The book fascinates so because the institutional norm is an aberration and so much of the success of an institution in its upkeep depends on the personality of the place, its faculty, and alumni. Would that each endowment provided its school with enough to prevent it from having to hire the marketeers for the make-overs. I have never read a book such as this, one that combines the hurt and impetus of wanting money and reputation with the creative and curious ways approaching a fix.