A Review of Campus, Inc.

by Diane Calabrese Campus, Inc.: Corporate Power in the Ivory Tower Edited by Geoffrey D. White, Ph.D. with Flannery C. Hauck 2001--Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York IN SHORT, THE authors of the 30 chapters in this book have this to say: corporations hold the power at institutions of higher education (and in other sectors of society). Faculty, and their natural allies-students, support staff, parents, and alumni-should wrest the power away from corporations. In the struggle to gain control, or exercise genuine (non-illusory) self-governance, faculty et. al. can expect to use frequent teach-ins, consensus-building sessions and rallies, conduct occasional sessions of guerilla theater, and give a nod now and then to Thorstein Veblen, Upton Sinclair, John Dewey, and perhaps, Frederick Winslow Taylor. White wants the volume "to be a source of inspiration" (15), a formal and informal (almost all contributors provide e-mail addresses) communication tool for individuals who would challenge the influence corporations and their emissaries (on the board of trustees, for example) exert on higher education. Most of the authors are tenured faculty members or doctoral students; a few are undergraduates with a track record of activism. The majority of the chapters are thoroughly annotated. There is no index. Ralph Nader authored a chapter titled "Greed in the Groves," which at less than two full pages, or about 500 words, provides a good example of the compilations of platitudes that substitute for analysis throughout the text. For example, on page 374, Nader writes, "Again and again, on major issues from civil rights to the arms race, from Agent Orange to auto safety, from soil erosion to acid rain, from corporate monopoly to government violations of the law, from automation dislocation to the corporate looting of America, precious time passes with painful results to many people before knowledge is brought to bear on the misfortunes that afflict our nation." It's difficult to distill a cogent viewpoint from diffuse statements like the one Nader makes. It's even more difficult to reconcile how Nader can simultaneously fret in print about "painful results" and then, in action, make a conscious choice that constitutes a colossal contribution to just such outcomes. By failing to form a coalition prior to a national election in a representative democracy, Nader guaranteed the results he ostensibly opposes. And so, with the inclusion of Nader, one begins to wonder. What did the other authors do? Did they write about forming coalitions, and then abandon the existing political party with which they had the greatest alliance. Did they even vote? In fact, one would expect to read a great deal about the importance of enfranchising eligible voters. After all, voters can put pressure on state legislative bodies that regulate institutions of higher education. Instead, the content stands as a sincere, often thorough, but in most cases, numbing compendium of what is wrong with higher education. According to the authors, the corporate presence on campuses looms large. It dictates the content and perspective of business courses, and knows no real boundaries across the curriculum. It is also implicated in the creation of gentrified neighborhoods, the outsourcing of support positions, a move away from tenure and the research faculty members do, particularly in the sciences. Michael Parenti reminds the reader, "Napalm was invented at Harvard" (86), as though the production of a compound with a grim history encapsulates the entire story of research at Harvard. And Kevin Kniffin cites "David Ehrenfeld's observation that people studying fields such as earthworm taxonomy can no longer find jobs in advanced research" (166), to illustrate the commercialization of scientific endeavors. At least Kniffin acknowledges the importance of legislation in reform, and he seems to mean directives coming from statehouses. On the other hand, he worries about whether elected university board members can buy elections, and implies appointed members might be better. What is his opinion, recommendation, or just best guess? Kniffin doesn't say. He suggests the current situation in higher education parallels the one of exhausted farmers facing foreclosure in The Grapes of Wrath. No one takes immediate responsibility for the evictions, and the farmers are muted by weariness. So it is with tired faculty who would otherwise decry pervasive corporate interests on campus. Yet faculty in the most demanding institutions of higher education are not so exhausted as their counterparts in other sectors. Talk to a staff nurse at a hospital or a low-wage earner who works one full-time job and another job on weekends. Talk to a long-haul trucker who runs his rig as many hours a day as the law permits to carve out an income. With the entire society of wage earners working harder and longer than they have in recent decades, few people have the energy to fight corporate interests. They do not even have "a little bit of energy" (270), the reserve Bert Levy, Adam Martin, and Joshua Wolfson want them to use to form watchdog groups. Levy et. al. were students when they wrote their essay. But White would have served them better as a mentor and editor if he had rejected their ad hominem attack. Moreover, the tribute they pay a backer who threw a pie in the face of Milton Friedman is misplaced. The essay feeds the suspicions of tired workers outside higher education that inside higher education there are privileged students with a luxuriant amount of time on their hands, and too little respect for the opinions of others. The problem with any catalogue, whether it lists artworks, postage stamps or the transgressions of institutions of higher education linked to corporations, is that it invites questions it does not answer. Yes, young women work in sweatshops "even right across the U.S.-Mexico border" (238), as Medea Benjamin recounts. But the reader naturally asks, what would the employees do if they did not work in the shops? Is their quality of life better or worse with the job, and if it is better, how ethical is it for Benjamin to interfere in ways that ultimately close the shops (companies rarely improve; they simply move) without providing an equivalent alternative in terms of opportunity? The reader craves answers and especially analysis. Yet the authors keep compiling. It's an odd approach to fostering inspiration. Chapter after chapter stands as evidence the vilified corporate interests in colleges and universities are already getting what they want, and that is, literate non-thinkers. Certainly, the outcome is not what White envisioned. Forget Harvard and MIT. Most colleges and universities do not have huge endowments. They meet their payroll as small businesses do, just in time. A slight decline in enrollment (tuition) and they must cut spending. Business partnerships help enlarge the pool of equipment and experiences institutions offer students. If the authors are going to advocate pushing corporate interests off campus, they must propose a viable substitute for the dollars such interests bring. Whether higher taxes, lower faculty salaries, higher tuition, or some combination of factors, alternatives must be discussed. So, too, must the contradictions. Early on, Richard Daniels, with Lisa Blasch and Peter Caster, write, "We would have to dig back into the nineteenth century to find anything much resembling a period of innocence for American higher education, and then any such innocence would still be utterly class bound" (69). They are correct, but most of their fellow authors blithely assume something new and different has taken hold on campuses. The book concludes with editor White interviewing Noam Chomsky, who explains that corporate interests aside, faculty make choices about how they spend their time, right down to the content of the research they do. "It's a choice," he says on page 454. Now that's a good starting point for analysis.