Academic Capitalism and the New Economy or Paradise Laborers

Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education

Author: Sheila Slaughter

As colleges and universities become more entrepreneurial in a post-industrial economy, they focus on knowledge less as a public good than as a commodity to be capitalized on in profit-oriented activities. In Academic Capitalism and the New Economy, higher education scholars Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades detail the aggressive engagement of U.S. higher education institutions in the knowledge-based economy and analyze the efforts of colleges and universities to develop, market, and sell research products, educational services, and consumer goods in the private marketplace.

Slaughter and Rhoades track changes in policy and practice, revealing new social networks and circuits of knowledge creation and dissemination, as well as new organizational structures and expanded managerial capacity to link higher education institutions and markets. They depict an ascendant academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime expressed in faculty work, departmental activity, and administrative behavior. Clarifying the regime's internal contradictions, they note the public subsidies embedded in new revenue streams and the shift in emphasis from serving student customers to leveraging resources from them.

Defining the terms of academic capitalism in the new economy, this groundbreaking study offers essential insights into the trajectory of American higher education.

Table of Contents:

Ch. 1	The theory of academic capitalism	1
Ch. 2	The policy climate for academic capitalism	35
Ch. 3	Patent policies : legislative change and commercial expansion	69
Ch. 4	Patent policies play out : student and faculty life	108
Ch. 5	Copyright : institutional policies and practices	131
Ch. 6	Copyrights play out : commodifying the core academic function	157
Ch. 7	Academic capitalism at the department level	181
Ch. 8	Administrative academic capitalism	207
Ch. 9	Networks of power : boards of trustees and presidents	233
Ch. 10	Sports 'R' us : contracts, trademarks, and logos	256
Ch. 11	Undergraduate students and educational markets	279
Ch. 12	The academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime	305

Book about: Rescuing Your Teenager from Depression or Twenty Four Hours a Day

Paradise Laborers: Hotel Work in the Global Economy

Author: Patricia A Adler

Resorts have become important to American society and its economy; one in eight Americans is now employed by the tourism industry. Yet despite the ubiquity of hotels, little has been written about those who labor there. Drawing on eight years of participant observation and indepth interviews, the renowned ethnographers Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler reveal the occupational culture and lifestyles of workers at fiveluxury Hawaiian resorts. These resorts employ a workforce that is diverse in gender, class, ethnicity, and nationality. Hawaiian resort workers, like those in nearly all resorts, consist of four groups. New immigrants hold difficult and dirty lowstatus jobs for little pay. Locals provide an authentic Polynesian flavor for guests, a ready pool of youthful highturnover employees, and a population trapped in a place that offers few occupational alternatives. Managers tend to be middleclass, collegeeducated young and middleaged men from the mainland whose lifestyles are occupationally transient. Seekers, mostly young, white, and from the mainland as well, escape to paradise seeking adventure, warmth, extreme sports, or some alternate life experiences. The Adlers describe the work, lives, and careers of these four groups that labor in organizations that never close, with shifts scheduled around the clock and around the year. Paradise Laborers adds to the growing interest in the global flow of labor, as these immigrant workers display different trends in gendered opportunities and mobility than those exhibited by other groups. The authors propose a political economy of tourist labor in which they compare the different expectations and rewards of organizations, employees, and local labor markets.

Author Bio: Patricia A. Adler is Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado and Peter Adler is Professor of Sociology at the University of Denver. Their many books include Peer Power: Preadolescent Culture and Identity and Backboards and Blackboards: College Athletes and Role Engulfment.