Today, How Can We Not Speak of the University?’

Towards the Next Generation

Bibliographic Data

ID12928893
AuthorsCate Watson (0000-0003-1807-6460, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume4
Issue3
Pages342-354
Publication date2012-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePower and Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1757-7438 • E-ISSN: 1757-7438
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2304/power.2012.4.3.342
OpenAlexW2053091079
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited33

Universities are currently in a period of transition as the Humboldtian institution reaches its limits and we move towards the next generation. These limiting factors include the massive expansion of higher education and increase in student numbers; globalisation; and demands that universities contribute to the development of the ‘knowledge economy’. Change is inevitable – but does this leave the university in crisis? Is the university still a functional institution? In this article the author's aim is to uncover just how far we have gone in this transition towards the next-generation institution; to celebrate those institutions that have embraced these opportunities; and to consider the implications of all this guided by (and providing a partial answer to) the question once posed by Jacques Derrida: ‘Today, how can we not speak of the university?’ The article concludes by considering whether there is room for a dysfunctional university, a university that in a sense opposes the call for functionality. In other words, is there (still) a role for a university as a critical and radical institution

Dysfunctional family · Globalization · Higher education · Institution · Limiting · Political science · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Transition (genetics · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Engineering · Higher Education Governance and Development · Law · Postmodernism in Literature and Education · Psychology