Taking a Detour from a Journey

The trend of managerialism and neo-liberalism sweeping across universities demands peer-reviewed outcomes, which replace discourses of ‘service.’ Within this context I, a racialized immigrant faculty member from the global South, ventured on a journey as an Associate Director, Student Affairs. I realized that I needed to take a detour, as my commitment to service was competing with the expectation of meeting the ever-growing number of peer-reviewed outcomes. The situation reminded me of my previous experiences with the university administration around ‘service.’ Based on my subjectivities I had no choice other than to ‘comply’ with the discourse of managerialism and neo-liberalism. I gave up ‘service’ as an academic administrator to pursue research and publication. My decision raises questions about the fairness of similar compliance by other racialized, new immigrant academics. Using critical auto-ethnography, I challenge the current managerial and neo-liberal

Transactions in science in comparative perspective

The article develops a transactional approach to studying science. Two concepts play a particularly important role: the institutional environment of science and scientific transaction. As an example, the North-American and Russian institutional environments of science are compared. It is shown that structures of scientific transactions (between peers, between the scholar and the academic administrator, between the professor and the student), transaction costs and the scope of academic freedom differ in these two cases. Transaction costs are non-zero in both cases, however. At the same time, it is hypothesized that a greater scope of academic freedom in the North American case may be a factor contributing to a higher scientific productivity.

‘Out in the middle’. Humanities, interdisciplinary and the post-graduate puzzle: An interview with Professor Wiljan van den Akker

Wiljan van den Akker is a university professor, a respected academic administrator, and a published poet and writer. From a base at the Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, his three-decade long career spans three continents and includes one-on-one associations with Berkeley, UCLA and Oxford. Currently, he is the Vice-Rector for Research at Utrecht but retains the title he was awarded in 2003, Distinguished Professor of Modern Poetry. In early June 2015, Peter Vale interviewed van den Akker in his house in Jeruzalemstraat, Utrecht. This is an edited version of two conversations.