Will Privatization Create a New McSUSM? - Viewpoint:
"If the idea of a professor bidding you 'Good morning and welcome to McUniversity, may I take your order?' seems far-fetched, then the silent battle waged in Sacramento has not reached your mind space.
It is time to awaken from political slumber and join the battle. Under attack are not only your educational opportunities, but also the future of educational opportunity for a wide swath of our friends and family on the lower levels of the socio-economic strata. This is a battle to save the California State University system from privatization."
On Wednesday evening in ARTS 111, Professor Gary Rhoades, the General Secretary for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), spoke to a (too) small crowd of a few dozen about changes taking place in our University system. The AAUP is a national organization founded a century ago to protect the rights of University Faculty (http://www.aaup.org/).
University faculty exists to serve the welfare of the student body, therefore students and professors should share a strong solidarity in matters such at these. Dr. Rhoades and others voiced concern that with California's current economic state, our higher education system is an easy target for political and corporate powers seeking to dismantle the system and build in its place a corporate, for profit structure. This could potentially provide a McDonalds type corporate model in many ways. Homogenization could become the norm, with ideas handed down to professors and students by corporate managers. The result would be a single minded, cloned student body.
"If the idea of a professor bidding you 'Good morning and welcome to McUniversity, may I take your order?' seems far-fetched, then the silent battle waged in Sacramento has not reached your mind space.
It is time to awaken from political slumber and join the battle. Under attack are not only your educational opportunities, but also the future of educational opportunity for a wide swath of our friends and family on the lower levels of the socio-economic strata. This is a battle to save the California State University system from privatization."
On Wednesday evening in ARTS 111, Professor Gary Rhoades, the General Secretary for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), spoke to a (too) small crowd of a few dozen about changes taking place in our University system. The AAUP is a national organization founded a century ago to protect the rights of University Faculty (http://www.aaup.org/).
University faculty exists to serve the welfare of the student body, therefore students and professors should share a strong solidarity in matters such at these. Dr. Rhoades and others voiced concern that with California's current economic state, our higher education system is an easy target for political and corporate powers seeking to dismantle the system and build in its place a corporate, for profit structure. This could potentially provide a McDonalds type corporate model in many ways. Homogenization could become the norm, with ideas handed down to professors and students by corporate managers. The result would be a single minded, cloned student body.
