UVA Is Sold Out To The Vampire Squid, Just Like Most Major Universities

[ancianita]

It's not as if the universities haven't been networked to corporations, anyway. What's the big deal if they come right out and admit their profit-motivated philosophy? They eliminate their schools of education and teacher training, humanities and arts, let whole schools of business be bought by the 1% WITH stipulations about their curricula. Professors use the revolving door of the Chamber of Commerce to consult for corporations and think tanks and then refuse to disclose how many hundreds of thousands they make from the vampire squid.

Academics should disclose their conflicts of interest whenever they make any public statement about policy issues. AND they should NEVER be paid for testifying as 'expert witness' or in tax cases or appearing in the media. Major American universities are diseased.

Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago described his analysis of the 150 most frequently downloaded economics papers on the subject of executive pay. Papers supporting higher executive pay were 55% more likely to be published in the most prestigious journals.

University economists have simply averted their eyes to the whole crisis of outsourcing, looting and destroying firms, pensions and jobs because they have a conflict of interest. They decline to study any business issues if they threaten the interests of their consulting clients.

Universities have trashed their historical mission to America's youth. So what the hell.
Just be a Fortune 500 university, already. Embrace the vampire squid, already.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/24/uva-teresa-sullivan-ouster-_n_1619261.html

[marmar]

1. Enclosure of the Commons on steroids......

....... this is not going to end unless people demand it.

[ancianita]

2. My suggestion for those of us who've been college educated:

Last edited Sun Jun 24, 2012, 02:47 PM - Edit history (2)

Weep only briefly, then get angry, then start using student college newspapers to vet and bust out the conflicts of interest of each and every professor and board member in each and every university. It's time consuming but will result in schoolwide outrage. Corporate universities will end up stealing art, invention patents and other knowledge and keep it inaccessible -- in so-called 'archives' --- from the rest of society, so there's that to be vigilant about.

Students need to fight for the university educations they pay so much for, untainted by corporate, market values. The monasteries saved much wisdom from the ancients. We must take their place and save what will be erased by corporate fascist owners as 'useful'/'not useful' to their ends. Students and this country deserve that.

[Octafish]

3. ''Fortune 500 University''

Promulgating the Conservative Arts through Propaganda and Indoctrination. Scholarships available for the culturally deprived.

Australian sociologist Alex Carey chronicled the system before his suicide.

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/4041

[pansypoo53219]

4. 1st crapitalists came for the guvmint, then the craitalists bought the gnews. now they are buying

the ivory tower. what's left to buy?

[white_wolf]

5. I posted this a few months back, but it seems appropriate here.

It's a newsletter from the University of Tennessee's chancellor about their branding campaign. Here is the key paragraph, at least to me:

"Higher education is now a competitive, consumer-driven market that targets students and their parents. We must clearly and consistently convey UT’s strengths, citing ranking lists, college guide books, advertising, and various online tools about universities."

Since when are universities supposed to be consumer driven "markets?" Their purpose is to educate not make money for the 1%.

Here is the link if anyone is interested: http://chancellor.utk.edu/newsletter/0212-big_orange.php

[ancianita]

6. Thanks.

They've been at it with impunity for a long time. Now they're clearly out of their corporate closet.

[bbgrunt]

7. Mitch Daniels has been hired by the board at Purdue

to be its next president. Interestingly, he appointed most of the people on the board. Not only that, Daniels was instrumental in cutting funds to education including the universities.

[n2doc]

8. "Making a lot of money does not demonstrate that you are very smart,"

says Arras, the Bioethics Program professor. "And even if you are very clever, there are different types of intelligence. A successful real estate empire is not at all like a university. These people are talking about cutting classics -- Greeks and Romans, the foundations of Western thought -- because it's not profitable enough."

Exactly. The worship of the rich has got to stop.