Universities at Risk
How Politics, Special Interests and Corporatization Threaten Academic Integrity

Publisher:  Lorimer
Year Published:  2008
Pages:  416 pp   ISBN:  9781552770405
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX21737

An anthology examining the relationship bewteen institutes of higher learning and powerful external sponsers, it's implications and threat to academic integrity and intellectual freedom.

Abstract: 
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Pubsliher' description:

In Universities at Risk, a group of leading scholars in education, ethics, politics and medicine, among other areas, probe the forces that are threatening the integrity of post-secondary education, from both within and without.

This book delves into the subject of corporate sponsorship, exploring the influences of powerful industries -- tobacco and pharmaceutical companies, for example. The book also discusses the struggle for credibility and threat to free inquiry when special interest groups, right-wing think tanks, and discredited popular movements (such as intelligent design) infiltrate academia. Chapters on the middle eastern studies and First Nations universities look at external politics that inhibit intellectual freedom. The more insidious trends toward corporatization and "managerializing" the university also come under scrutiny.

This timely book concludes with a discussion about why preserving academic integrity -- despite the clamorous voices of the forces threatening it --is so vital to public interest.