Stephen Rosow has an issue with the public character of public universities, and he believes UUPers should have one as well.
Rosow, chair of UUP’s Corporatization and Globalization Committee, is hoping UUPers will debate those issues online, using the committee’s Web site.
The committee’s Web page will soon get a makeover, complete with moderated discussion forums for members interested in airing their views on a number of topics. The site will include more links to newsworthy regional and national issues, such as reports about the UB 2020 proposal, and other resources, he said.
“Most of the problem is that people don’t know the Web site is there,” said Rosow, a SUNY Oswego chapter delegate.
“We want people to interact. We want suggestions about what would be useful information for members. And we want to know what research our members are doing that we might be able to add or link to the Web site.”
The committee was created in 2000 to chart and gauge the “changing structure of the University and its implications for the future of higher education.” The 12-member committee, which includes UUP Vice President of Academics Frederick Floss, has a number of other projects in the works.
Report almost ready
Besides upgrading its Web site, the committee is nearing the completion of a study called “Transforming Education: Democracy, Economy and the University.” The report, due to be published in 2010, will be made up of essays impacting a main theme: the changing structure of public universities. It will also include revisions to data in the committee’s initial study, “A Report on the Changing Structure of the University.”
We’re seeing globalization and corporatization happen all over,” said Rosow. “I met recently with my campus president Deborah Stanley and her message was that the university cannot continue to be what it is and has to change. But there was nothing said about how the academic programs have to change other than we don’t have enough money to do what we used to do.”
Rosow and six other committee members – Floss, M. Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton, Robert Compton of Oneonta, Bruce Simon of Fredonia, Ezra Zubrow of SUNY Buffalo and Henry Steck of Cortland—will be presenting papers on globalization and academic freedom at the annual June meeting of the American Association of University Professors in Washington, D.C.
The committee is also in the planning stages to host a conference on globalization and corporatization in 2010 or 2011. Rosow said committee members are interested in getting feedback from members on the kinds of issues they’d like to see discussed at the conference.
Said Rosow: “We need to intervene in this debate and make sure what changes get done don’t impact our members negatively and don’t impact our students by turning the university into nothing more than a job training system”
— Michael Lisi