Randle W. Nelsen on Universities' Role in Maintaining Inequality & the Problematic Corporatization of Education

With tuition skyrocketing, student debt burdens burgeoning, and the market value of degrees plummeting, the role and function of universities becomes more and more tenuous. Conversations around that role are changing and in Degrees of Failure: University Education in Decline (Between the Lines Books), Randle Nelsen continues the discussion, focusing on how social and economic inequality is reproduced and even reinforced on university campuses.

Touching on subjects as diverse as campus parking, athletics, helicopter parents, and technology, he interrogates the role of the university of society, and goes further to ask what can be done to change things. 

We're excited to welcome Randy to Open Book to continue this essential conversation. He tells us about the danger of the "bootstrap theory" of upward mobility, what it is like to draw on 56 years of university experience (as both a student and an educator), and the growing problems of the increasingly corporate university environment. 

Open Book:

Tell us about your new book and how it came to be.

Randle W. Nelsen:

Degrees of Failure: University Education in Decline is simply the latest chapter charting my interest in the growth and development of higher education in Canada and the United States. This interest first began to develop more than a half-century ago when I was an undergraduate majoring in sociology and anthropology. It was at this time, early and mid-1960s, that I began to see the manner in which socio-economic and cultural variations I was observing were directly related to social class differences. Later in graduate school and while teaching as a sociology professor I specialized in studying the role colleges and universities play in reproducing and maintaining the deleterious effects that result from these differences in social class location. Of course, that people possess differing amounts of monetary and cultural capital is not something on the Copernican-Newtonian-order of discovering we live in a solar-centred universe. However, in the course of writing several books about the many connections between social class and what Thorsten Veblen called the higher learning I have been able, along with others, to puncture such individualistic myths as the existence of a “meritocracy” and the “bootstrap theory” of upward mobility while at the same time exploring important intersections among social class, gender, and race-ethnicity. This work has led me to examine a rather wide range of topics including big-time college sports, the business of tailgate parties, student video-game playing, and so-called “advancements” in pedagogy powered by new technology.

OB:

Is there a question that is central to your book, thematically? And if so, did you know the question when you started writing or did it emerge from the writing process?

RN:

Most of my adult working life since 1961 has been spent in and around universities, either as a student or professor. During these 56 years I have been witness to many twists and turns in higher education as it has developed. In general, my observations tell me that the tenor and quality of what today passes for higher learning has been in some decline, hence the subtitle of this book. My research has been guided by my continuing interest in asking the question, what are the various markers that may both describe and explain this decline? This exploration calls forth another question, what can I as a classroom teacher do to make things better? In order to provide a useful answer I have had to carefully examine what myself and other professors do on a daily basis with regard to our impacts on students. This requires that I attempt to look at university life as if I were a student, from student points of view. In doing so I have paid close attention to the manner in which increasing corporatization of the university has altered what we currently define as scholarship.

Thus, I examine various aspects of the edubusiness university (campus parking, edutainment showcased in intercollegiate sports, faculty role modeling, the celebration of technology-mediated learning) as they affect university participants including students and their parents, faculty, support workers, and administrators. A case can be made that all these groups have been adversely affected, students as well as sessional and contract lecturers have been particularly hard hit. I think there are some important social justice issues, even in a relatively privileged place like the university, that need to be further explored – perhaps the focus of future research. In answering the research questions giving rise to this book I pay special attention to professors and the manner in which their interaction with students reproduces status quo inequities within the university’s bureaucratic-professional institutional setting. In addition to student outcomes there is the role tenure-track and tenured professors and administrators play in creating further divisions among an already severely fragmented academic labour force. In order to begin answering the what-to-do question I put forward suggestions for refashioning classrooms and our collective idea of scholarship – community volunteering, project work and perhaps most importantly, an emphasis on storytelling. All of these involve professors relinquishing some of their professorial power and authority as they share their expertise and knowledge with students and those in the wider community beyond the university.

OB:

Did this project change significantly from when you first started working on it to the final version? How long did the project take from start to finish?

RN:

I would not say that the project changed significantly but I did spend a good deal more time on helicopter parenting as well as student cheating and campus parking than I originally thought I would. Also, my reading and thinking about the pedagogical value of storytelling was more involved than I anticipated and consequently, I developed a deeper appreciation of Indigenous cultures and what they might contribute to an enlivened refashioning of university instruction. Setting my life-long interest in higher education to the side, this particular book project took nearly two years to complete.

OB:

What do you need in order to write – in terms of space, food, rituals, writing instruments?

RN:

Above all, I need a closed door and quiet. I do not deal well with distractions but my privileged position as a retiree with adequate income allows me to keep these to a minimum. I cannot write while listening to music, although I confess I sometimes use sweet treats or snacks as after-work rewards. This book was written in a small room at a small desk near my bed, usually during morning hours and often starting early in the day (before noon is when I work best). I am a bit old-school in that often I will write a draft of something with pen and paper. Later I will type my handwriting into the computer. I find that working in this way I often am able to make significant and meaningful improvements to my original handwritten version. As for research and writing aids I am fortunate to be within walking distance or a short drive from both a university and public library. Visits to these are pleasurable and supplement information and arguments available in my own library and through internet searches. For the most part I enjoy the writing process and putting together my arguments and views. It also helps that I am able to throw in a healthy dose of love for the subject matter.

OB:

What do you do if you’re feeling discouraged during the writing process? Do you have a method of coping with the difficult points in your projects?

RN:

I do not have a fool-proof method. Usually I have a pretty clear idea of where I am headed and how to get there when I begin a project. Of course, the project evolves and the process always involves sticking points along the way. Along with the insightful flashes and “eureka” moments I also expect there to be discouragement at various points. Unlike some of my writing friends I cannot and do not write on inspiration alone or only when the muse or the mood strikes. I find I work best using “the seat of the pants to the chair” method. Thus, I put in my time, 4 to 5 hours a day 4 or 5 days a week, as I deal with the problems that arise in wrestling with the subject matter. I also find writing summaries that encapsulate what I am doing and thinking of different headings that would frame and organize specific discussions within a chapter is often helpful. As well, conversations with others who have similar interests often help bring disparate ends together. I still do teach the occasional course and I find that trying to make my thinking, my arguments, clear to students often helps me clarify and also offers students a useful role model of scholarship that is not a finished product but process, a picture of research that emphasizes the messiness of muddling through. In sum, I can offer no magic formula for dealing with writer discouragement but for me doubling down on hard work usually pays off.

OB:

What defines a great book, in your opinion? Tell us about one or two books you consider to be truly great books.

RN:

Because I am a social analyst, for me a great book enables readers to both see themselves and to put themselves in the shoes of others in its observation and description of everyday activities. These books make the familiar strange and the strange familiar so there is an analytical component. Great books are authored by those whose passion for their subject matter can be transferred to the page and felt by readers. I have found this in novels, social analysis, and books on popular culture (whether historical, present-day, or connecting the two) that deal with what we used to call “social problems,” social inequities, social justice issues, social movements and social change. Books that critically advocate with arguments not often found in mainstream journalism and analysis are my cup of tea. I like the muckraking critical journalists of the early twentieth century. Several of Upton Sinclair’s works, and most especially The Goose Step: A Study of American Education, have left a lasting impression on me. (An excellent companion to this book is Thorsten Veblen’s The Higher Learning in America.) As well, muckraker Ida M. Tarbell’s work on American robber barons remains relevant, see her book on the Rockefellers’ oil monopoly The History of the Standard Oil Company for an interesting read. For my money one cannot find a better description and analysis of the trials and tribulations of the American middle class than John Updike’s four novels in the Rabbit series. I am especially fond of poet-sociologist Reuel Denney’s classic take on mid-twentieth century popular culture in the United States entitled The Astonished Muse.

OB:

What are you working on now?

RN:

I am now turning my attention to writing a follow-up paper that grows out of this book. I want to continue exploring the thesis that scholarly habits characterizing engaged learning have fallen by the wayside in today’s corporate university. I hope to emphasize more of the history relating to how and why engagement has been replaced by withdrawal. I wish to show in summary form how some topics the book covers – the demand for accessible parking, technology-mediated learning at a distance, the circus of university sports spectacles affecting the classroom, helicopter parenting, student cheating – are connectable as symptoms of this withdrawal. I also hope to at least briefly discuss a few teaching strategies that might eventually lead to institutional renewal moving us towards replacing disengagement with a sustaining cycle of scholarship that would emphasize serious reading, engaged conversation, and curious inquiry.    

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Randle W. Nelsen has taught sociology in Canada and the United States for fifty years. He has written extensively on higher education, professionalism and bureaucratic work, and popular culture. He is the author of Fun & Games & Higher Education: The Lonely Crowd Revisited and Life of the Party: A Study in Sociability, Community, and Social Inequality.