Politics and Academia (by Oded Goldreich)
The administration of higher-education has always been part of public
politics. However, till the late 1980's the political powers in Israel
showed little interest in the actual administration of higher-education
and left it to the universities themselves. Things have changed since then,
with the attack of neo-liberalism on any aspect of social life.
According to neo-liberalism, any aspect of human life is subject
to the rationale of profit (aka capital-gain)
and has to be administered accordingly.
In my opinion, at best, this claim reflects
a reversing in the roles of goals and instruments:
The main aspects of human life (like education and culture)
are of intrinsic value that can not and should not be subjected
to the rationale of capital-gain, whereas subjecting them to this
rationale results in degenerated forms of human life.
Specifically, education and research can not and should not
be administered as production of goods and selling of merchandise.
Material available below (almost all in Hebrew)
-
A
University is Not A Business, Yair Censor, December 2002.
-
On
the commercialization of the academic education,
Amir Benbaji, October 2004.
-
On
the disaster of privatizing the academia,
by Tamar Gozansky, January 2007.
-
The
university as a corporation, by Efraim Davidi, July 2007.
-
The
Ministry of Finance vision of Higher Education,
by Yair Censor, Dec. 2007.
-
A
student flyer (re the strike and beyond), TAU, Dec. 2007.
-
Who's
university is it anyway?, by Arie Nadler, Dec. 2007.
-
A draft of
positions
regarding higher education, Dec. 2007.
See 2-page
summary.
-
A statement
of the inter-senate committee (re the strike and beyond), Dec. 2007.
-
Analysis
of the situation of higher education and positions wrt it,
by Dani Gutwein, Spring 2008.
-
On
quality, excellence and competition, by O.G., June 2008.
(See also
The
Smoke-screen called `Encouraging Excellence', by O.G. [July 2008]).
-
Save
the higher education, by O.G. and Yuval Yonay, June 2008.
(See also a
more
concrete version, by O.G. [Oct. 2008],
revised
after
the PM's decision.)
-
Crisis,
Management, and Leadership in the University - What's now?
(following the effective sacking of TAU's president),
by Abraham Beja, July 2009.
-
On
quality evaluation as a basis for resource allocation, by O.G., Jan 2010.
-
What's
the point in creating new centers of excellence
(response to an article in De Marker),
by Tsaffrir Zor, March 2010.
-
Who
Needs Assyrian (on the role of academia in human culture),
by Miri Eliav-Feldon, June 2010.
-
The
Smoke-screen called `Encouraging Excellence'
(revisited, a propos the `centers of excellence' program),
by O.G. [July 2010].
A different version was posted on the
Social
Science in Isreal website [Sept 2010].
See also additional pragmatic considerations.
-
Everything
should be Taught: An Academic Institution does not Belong to the
State, but to all Mankind, by Menny Mautner, August 2010.
[English
version]
-
Neutrality
is political, by Eva Illouz, August 2010.
-
Another step
in the governmental attempts to seize control on higher education,
extracts from an essay of Gideon Eshet, August 2010.
-
A digest
of Chaim Gans' article on Academic Freedom, by O.G., Sept. 2010.
[English
version]
-
Answers
to six questions regarding my views re the crisis of academia in Israel,
by O.G., Sept. 2010.
-
A
new vision for the Higher Education system (in Israel),
a position paper by the coordinating council of the junior academic
staff associations in Israel, November 2010.
-
On
the concrete meaning of the general contemporary pressures on academia,
by O.G., June 2011.
-
The
vision of academia and the commercial nightmare,
by O.G., June 2011.
[Expanded
version: Feb 2012]
-
University (in Hebrew),
by Anat
Matar
(+ comments
by O.G.), July 2011.
-
The
[wrong] evolution of intellectual freedom,
by PhdComics, July 2011.
-
On
the ``quality assessment'' committees of MALAG (see also
an
extended version), by O.G., Dec. 2011.
A short
related rebuttal (unpublished by Haaretz, as usual...)
-
On the
general context of the Report on the Politics and Government Department
at BGU, by Iris Agmon, Dec. 2011.
-
On the
Commercialization of Academia, by Yossi Loss, Dec. 2011.
-
On
the policing of knowledge, by Dani Filc and Niv Gordon, Jan. 2012.
-
It
is not Lapid, it is Article 15 (in MALAG Law, re Academic autonomy),
by Ehud Keinan, Feb. 2012.
-
On
the State Comptroller's Report regarding the ``Special Programs''
in the Universities, by O.G., May 2012.
-
On
the university vs oppression, by Dimitry Shumsky, July 2012.
-
On
contents-free objective measures and subjective expert opinions,
by O.G., Aug. 2012.
-
The
MALAG has no authority to close a department in a university,
by Omer Dekel, Sept. 2012.
-
Academia
under Attack, a poster (see also
text)
that says it all, Oct. 2012.
-
An answer
to the director of MALAG, O.G., Oct 2012
-
On
intellectual passion and its unfortunate confusion with sexual passion
(and how it may relate to issues of gender),
by an anonymous, March 2013.
-
In
defence of education and academia, by O.G., July 2013.
-
Notes
from the conference Knowledge at Our Time, by O.G., January 2014.
-
How
America's Great University System Is Getting Destroyed,
in English, Noam Chomsky, February 2014.
-
Beyond
All Reason: Spaces of Hope in the Struggle for England's Universities ,
in English, Sarah Amsler, Fall 2011.
-
On
the sources of the hostility towards academia, by O.G., March 2014.
(See an
additional source, July 2015.)
-
On
the social institute called academia, by O.G., April 2014.
-
The
State of Israel vs. The Humanities, Liran Razinsky, Spring 2014.
-
A call
of concern regarding attempts to monitor expressions of opinions in the
Israeli Academia, an open letter by Israeli graduate students, July 2014.
-
A call
for tolerance of critical opinions in the Israeli Academia,
an open letter by Israeli academics, July 2014.
-
The Case
for College, Drew Faust, Harvard, October 2014.
-
On
what counts as academnic activiety, by O.G., May 2015.
-
On the
academia: eight theses and three comments, by O.G., May 2015.
-
The
Academic Manifesto: From an Occupied to a Public University,
in English, Willem Halffmana and Hans Radder, 2015.
-
Content-Oblivious Quality Measures
and the Control of Academia, by O.G., July 2015.
-
On the difference between faculty members
and ordinary workers, Guy Davidov, June 2017.
-
On being a student, Ofri Ilany, Oct 2017.
-
On Debt-Slavery
and the Higher Education, Amnon Portugaly, Jan 2018.
-
Extracts from Weizmann's address
at laying the cornerstone of HU, July 1918.
-
I don't fear (to resist)!,
David Enoch, October 2018.
-
On the goals of the university,
Menny Mautner, July 2020.
-
On (high school) exams,
Peniger and Cohen, Feb 2021.
In addition,
see notices of the Forum for Public Education
(or better the forum's
archive)
and documents
of the Inter-Senate Committee (ISC) of the universities for protection
of academic independence.
[The story of
The Israel Prize Affair (2021-22)
does not really belong here, but I was told that some people
looked for it here.]
[Last update: June 15th, 2022]
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