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Politics and the University
Sandi E. Cooper
To the Editor:
Your excellent articles by Robert N. Bellah and Richard Ohmann on the radical alteration of U.S. universities under the driving force of managerial mentalities could have been written about both the State University of New York and the City University of New York, the second and third largest university systems in the country. For the past four years, faculty and some administrators have witnessed and suffered the effects of a business-bureaucratic reshaping of everything—all in the name of yet unproven efficiencies or the elevation of standards.
What the articles did not address and what may be the most destructive long-term alteration is the gross politicization of the university. Political officials clearly seem to see the higher education systems as one more patronage pot, places to make political payoffs in return for unquestioning loyalty. Trustee appointees have overt conflicts of interest—working directly for the mayor or for gubernatorial agencies. They lack elementary self-respect and are generally ignorant of trustee roles, which they seem to be fulfilling as a partisan chore (there are one or two exceptions who have been marginalized). Some are openly ideological, viewing changes to the curriculum as their right to dictate. There is about as much respect for academic freedom as Joe McCarthy exhibited for documented evidence. The traditional practices of collegial governance, particularly in searches for high-level appointments, ignore the inputs of faculty, alumni, students, and campus staff. Thousands and thousands were spent on the search for the SUNY chief, which ended with the appointment of a buddy of the governor who had never held an academic post in his life. The attitude toward regulations is very simple—they are to be ignored when they get in the way of some willful political impulse.
It is time for the AAUP and faculty everywhere to issue report cards on the people who will drive the primary purpose of the university into the dustbin, and then not even permit the hiring of historians to study it. When some of us confronted a newly appointed trustee, we were told, baldly and simply, "He who pays the piper calls the tune."
Sandi E. Cooper
(History)
College of Staten Island and the Graduate School, City University of New York
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