by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel
CATHERINE CRONIN launches Higher Education for Good in Galway today and I've asked our main library to add the book to our local reference section. In the book, editors Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz break down neoliberalism in higher education through a critical lens. They argue that the neoliberal influence has led to a pervasive austerity logic that constricts not just budgets, but every facet of what higher education does.
Like the authors, I see neoliberalism as a significant challenge to higher education. The neoliberalist agenda spawns underfunding, increased costs for students, and a shift away from viewing education as a public good. In the case of my small regional campus, the neoliberals have stamped a market-driven approach onto our course offerings and that has led to a focus on sustaining course numbers on the larger campuses at the expense of offering local student an easier pathway to higher education.
There's hope in the pages of Higher Education for Good. Hope springs from an advocacy for just, humane, and globally sustainable values. Among the chorus of contributors, there lies a vision of universities reclaiming their roles as change agents, empowering different sections of society--like our small pocket of South Tipperary.
But confronting the challenges posed by neoliberalism requires a radical acceptance that the status quo is neither desirable nor acceptable. It means senior management must "commit to higher education for good, promoting a pluriversality of knowledge, embracing a horizontal strategy of openness to dialogue among different epistemic traditions, and addressing the underlying structures that prevent such transformation from taking place".
If you're on the front line of education or if you manage higher education, you should read Higher Education for Good during the upcoming Christmas holidays.
You can get the book from Open Book Publishers, read it online as HTML, or download it as a PDF for free.
Czerniewicz, L. and Cronin, C. (eds). Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Futures. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2023.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus for the Technological University of the Shannon.]
