The Non-Death of American Manufacturing and Its Role in University Decision-Making

Last year, I spoke with a range of university executives for my dissertation. Because of the nature of my project, we frequently spoke about the state of the U.S. economy and what it means for their decision-making. One theme in these conversations was that the economy had shifted from production line manufacturing to information processing. We were, as one executive put it, in the midst of a new industrial revolution with information technology. Some called this the knowledge-based economy.

In the knowledge-based economy, the jobs for which universities prepare students are quite different. Many of the manufacturing jobs, they argued, have been sent overseas. Increasingly, students need to train for jobs of the future, like cybersecurity and data management. This shift in the economy was cited as a reason for training students to become entrepreneurs. The goals were to teach students how to make a job, not take a job. To think creatively and not be afraid to change jobs or start anew. And to embrace a “free agency kind of employment.”

When I heard these statements, I didn’t reflect on them much. On some level, I must have agreed that the American economy is knowledge-based, signaling the death knell of manufacturing. However, I have come to realize that university executives were not reading regular updates on the manufacturing sector. They really had no substantive experience with the labor market outside of the university. Most of them had spent their lives in academe. In other words, I came to suspect that these executives were making decisions based upon a priori understandings. They operated according to assumptions about “the economy” that they either self-generated or, more likely, recycled from a grand narrative related to innovation, prosperity, and higher learning.

Let’s take a look at the status of American manufacturing. It is the case that America’s share of global manufacturing has declined, and China’s share has increased. Data also shows that the number of manufacturing jobs overall has fallen, and the contribution of manufacturing to GDP has declined. However, as many observers have noted, these metrics are not sufficient to argue that American manufacturing is dead. Many would instead argue that the manufacturing sector is in transition. Some industries are faring well, while others are struggling. There is a small revival of manufacturing, and the sector continues to produce at high rates. Nevertheless, current trends do not suggest that the number of jobs created in this revival will replace the millions lost in the economic crises of the past 15 years. 

President Obama has been quick to capitalize on the notion that advanced manufacturing can be nurtured to create new middle-class jobs. In fact, his administration has announced that it will create three manufacturing institutes that bring together resources from corporations, universities, and the government. One of these institutes is currently being created in the research triangle of North Carolina and will focus upon the creation of energy-efficient, high-power electronic chips. The Department of Energy is investing $70 million in the initiative. Overall, we can say that manufacturing is alive in America, but it is likely the case that good jobs in manufacturing sector will never fully recover.

The university executives with whom I spoke weren’t entirely wrong in believing that manufacturing jobs are gone. They may not have nuanced knowledge of the place of manufacturing in the American economy, but they seem to be reacting to a real trend. However, there is something to be said for the fact that many higher education institutions, at least those oriented to research and prestige-maximization, have not been training students for manufacturing jobs in a very long time. So, we can question the relevance of manufacturing jobs in their assessment of the economy and its impact on their decision-making.

Briefly, let’s turn to this idea of “free agency employment.” Again, university executives were not closely following mobility or flexibility trends in the labor market. Otherwise, they probably would have realized that they are among the worst perpetrators of inequitable, contingency labor practices. I’m talking about the adjunctification of academic labor. Setting this issue aside, university executives clearly believe that students should be prepared for a volatile labor market. It is frequently said that Americans now change careers as many as seven times over the course of a lifetime. As it turns out, this widely cited number appears to have little basis in research. The Bureau of Labor Statistics even says on its website that this is a thorny empirical question because no consensus exists as to what constitutes a career change.

What I’m proposing here is that assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions about the status of the economy are vitally important in university decision-making. This proposal throws a bit of a wrench in higher education research, particularly a popular branch of organizational theory that attributes institutional behavior to external factors. Many "open-systems" researchers today see a rather direct relationship between how institutions operate and the nature of economic change. While I don’t dispute the influence of the economy in higher education restructuring, I think we need to reveal the a priori knowledge about the economy that drives some decision-making.

It is possible that closer scrutiny of this a priori knowledge shows that there are certain economic tropes onto which university executives latch. Such tropes may originate in a set of powerful institutions, such as the OECD, and may help higher education institutions demonstrate their value to an economy structured around knowledge production. By repeating these tropes, and making decisions upon them as if they are fact, universities serve an important role. They don’t just reflect some discrete, external economic reality. They bring that type of economy into existence. This point bears repeating because it is woefully under-represented in research: higher education institutions are not merely responding to the economy, they are making the economy what it is.

We can extend this line of thought into multiple arenas. We can look at how the creation of degree programs effectively validates certain types of knowledge and leads to the establishment of new industries. We can look at how universities don’t just “place” graduates in the labor market. They co-create the labor market. We can look at how universities institutionalize and normalize contingent labor and encourage mobility. The possibilities are multiple and critically important, I think, in understanding the relationship between higher education institutions and “the economy.”

The Suffering PhD: Should We Care?

*Note: Upon further reflection, I realized that I failed to make a distinction in this post. There is a difference between mental illness during doctoral training and emotional issues as a result of doctoral training. I'm referring to the latter in this post, and my thinking remains under construction.*

A recent article in The Guardian called completing a PhD "one of the toughest tests anyone can face in academic life." It noted that several countries are more closely monitoring the experience of PhD students, and raised important issues that merit consideration, including widespread feelings of isolation, perfectionism, stress, and imposter syndrome (or fear of being a fraud).

It is important to pay attention to these issues and talk about them openly. Too often, PhD students compete against one another and avoid (or feel uncomfortable) sharing their personal struggles with anyone. As a graduating PhD student, I appreciate the concern for how my peers and I are faring. Nevertheless, I can't help but ask whether the plight of PhD students really matters. Should we care that some PhD students are suffering? For me, the answer is: it depends.

On a personal level, we should care anytime someone is dealing with emotional distress. Even if depression comes about due to choices freely made, and even if feelings of anxiety and inadequacy have become normalized in the doctoral process, we should not simply accept suffering as natural and unquestioned. Cynics of the academic enterprise will say, "If you feel so lousy, why don't you just quit?" The reality to which many PhD students may attest is that we think about it regularly, but find the decision to be much more complicated. We may have already invested heavily in this path, in time, money, and energy. It is also true for some PhD students that they have trained to be academic researchers, and while I would certainly argue that these skills are broadly transferable, the prospect of finding a job outside of academe can be daunting. So, one answer to my question is, yes, on a personal level we should care if PhDs are suffering.

We should also care on the level of policy-making. PhD students and graduates are vitally important to the global research enterprise. Many labs and research projects are possible only because of PhD students who work hard at extremely demanding intellectual problems for reasonable pay. The work of these teams contributes in substantial ways to economic growth and job creation. Thus, every country and every institution should strive to create an environment where talented people see pursuing doctoral work as rewarding. We should send the message that PhD students will be adequately supported and that failure is not only tolerated, but viewed as essential to the discovery process. Simply put, we want smart people developing their skill set, and we want some of them to remain in academe to train the next generation. Otherwise, we risk alienating our brightest minds. It is smart public policy to pay attention to the experience of PhD students and to cultivate their success.

At the same time, there a few compelling reasons to not pay heed to the suffering PhD. One of these reasons is that, as far as educational issues go, the emotional problems of PhD students probably falls to the bottom of the list. And for good reason. We should recognize that a minuscule percentage of the global population receives a terminal degree. Our attention is more appropriately directed to ensuring that each individual has access to basic education as a human right. A bigger educational issue than PhD anxiety or even PhDs dropping out is persistent inequities by class, gender, and race. It's not that PhD inner turmoil is insignificant. Rather, it is just not as important as other educational issues that I believe warrant greater resources and media spotlight.

And one last point on this: we may elect not to care about PhD emotional health because, in truth, no one needs a doctorate to live a healthy, fulfilling life. In fact, some would argue that if completing a doctorate simply leads to a low-paying adjunct job, there's reason to leave before getting in too deep. While I acknowledge how difficult and potentially devastating the decision to end one's studies could be, there are still many opportunities for a former PhD student to find employment and thrive. In other words, the ramifications of PhD student suffering are not nearly as dire as they are at lower levels of education, where, depending on location, the ability to endure can result in substantial socioeconomic improvements. If we don't care about PhD student suffering, it's possible the world will be perfectly fine.

If all goes well, I will be officially finished with my PhD on Friday. There were many moments when I struggled with perfectionism, isolation, and anxiety. I flirted with quiting many times. I'm happy there were people in my life who cared enough to listen and encouraged me to push through. I'm glad also that my institution prioritized graduate student mental health and provided many reminders of support groups and counseling. However, I don't think my moments of panic and fear deserve more attention than reaching gender parity in basic education. I also know that, if I chose to walk away from it all, I was still far more privileged than many for even having the opportunity to try. Life would be fine if I wasn't Dr. McClure. Should we care about suffering PhDs? It depends.

Rethinking Work, Reconnecting with the Material World

I’m entering my 23rd year of schooling. For almost 23 consecutive years, I have been enrolled in some type of formal education. At some point soon, there won’t be a higher credential I can achieve. I’m proud of these scholastic accomplishments, which are derived from a constellation of luck, privilege, hard work, and a cerebral disposition. However, my long school career has also recently caused a small crisis within me.

In many ways, I’m a poster child of the new economy. I embody “lifelong learning,” literally, and have become skilled in the management of information. If our economy has become structured around the production of knowledge, my career path has positioned me squarely in America’s emerging “industrial” heartland: research universities. I can speak fluently about data and I am one of those innumerable people in the beltway who can consider consulting legitimate work.

But it’s that last word, work, that troubles me. Most of my work deals with the intangible. I spend hours in front of a computer or talking about abstract things. As a result, I have developed a rather detached relationship with the material world. And, despite the fact that I’m not doing manual labor, I’m inexplicably drained at the end of each work day. I haven’t quite decided if my exhaustion is physical or spiritual. Yet the feeling is unmistakable, and I think the implications can be severe.

Most importantly, I have a feeling that I’m not alone here. Perhaps as I write out some the implications, what I have to say will resonate with you.

1. Matthew Crawford is one of the writers who helped me understand my crisis and crystalized my desire to make a few changes. In Shop Class as Soulcraft, he makes the case for re-discovering what was once weaved into the fabric of American society: making and fixing things. Although I’m very well educated, I have virtually no knowledge of how the things I use daily are made, or how to fix them if they break. This means that I face a common conundrum all the time. Either I pay someone to fix my things, with little knowledge of what the work entails or how much it should cost. Or I buy a new thing. Many companies have come to rely upon the latter choice, purposely designing products to be quickly replaced by people who, like me, are detached from the material world (this one goes out to you, Apple lovers).

2. We tend to think that “knowledge work” is somehow more intellectually demanding and rewarding than skilled work with our hands. At minimum, we valorize occupations that require higher learning and largely accept myriad media messages telling us that manual laborers are stupid or unambitious. Now, I’m not saying that college is a bad idea (read all my other posts), or that so-called “white collar” jobs are over-valued. I’m also not guiltily suggesting that labor is glamorous. Rather, we should realize that there has been a systematic effort to de-intellectualize the trades. One result of this, as Mike Rowe eloquently suggested in his Senate testimony, is that there is a vast skilled labor gap in America. This gap provides true evidence that the knowledge economy may be more rhetorical than real. There are swaths of jobs that require people who can build, weld, and repair. Information technology will never make them obsolete. They will be increasingly in demand.

3. Lastly, the environmental consequences of the previous two points are hard to miss. Consumption is easier if you don’t stop to think about how things are made and don’t bother to fix them. And consumption is the lifeline of our economy. I have written in a previous post about the origins of the recent revitalization of interest in all things “craft,” “local,” and “authentic.” I think it has something to do with a spiritual fullness that comes with reconnecting to real things. The satisfaction that comes from restoring a piece of discarded furniture, making your own beer, or growing your own vegetables isn’t just a social or cultural phenomenon. It is hardwired into our physical constitution. For this reason, a life spent immersed in the intangible will always feel incomplete.

So, what does a 28-year-old who can read, write, and analyze but can’t make or fix anything do to reconnect with the material world? This question has captured my attention for the past 5 months, with no easy answers. At my most extreme moments, I’ve considered telling my doctoral dissertation to “f*ck off” because no one will probably read it in any case. After I collect myself, I try to remember that my professional work is not what defines me—and, truth be told, I’ve mostly enjoyed writing my dissertation, even though its ridiculously abstract. Beyond this reminder, I’ve toyed around with a few ideas that I’m hoping to further explore...

First, I think there are a number of people out there who want to make and fix things. A two-hour conversation with friends convinced me of this. Not exactly a representative sample, but my position stands. There’s actually an entire Maker Movement, although many of its adherents are interested in electronics. The problem is that there are few places to learn how to fix things. Some people would probably argue that you just have to jump in and, with the right amount curiosity, you will learn over time. I can’t dispute this. But I think for many people my age, with a background like mine, it would be far easier if there was a welcoming place dedicated to informal, fun instruction in how to make and fix things. This is especially true of people living in cities, which are rich in bars and jobs, but—let’s face it—more oriented to consuming things than preserving them. I have in my mind a workshop space for re-educating the over-schooled.

Second, on a more personal level, I’ve decided to take a few concrete steps in the hopes that the alleviate some of my crisis. The first is to talk with and learn from makers. They are out there. My dad, for reasons that years ago escaped me, is an expert canner, makes his own sausage and bacon, and has always built from scratch his computers. My father-in-law knows how to lay carpet, tile floors, put a new roof on his house, and do other mundane things that now seem remarkable to me.

The second is to try and fix my things when they break. Seems simple, right? Think about the last time you sat down and actually tried to fix something you own. Chances are, it’s been awhile. Most things are probably beyond my ability to fix—but, at least initially, it’s the effort that counts. I’m trying to salvage and learn, rather than discard and kick the can down the road for future generations.

The third is to not seek out a job that carries undue prestige in this economy—if it’s is not truly, directly helping someone or producing something real, its value, in my mind should be interrogated.

The final thing is to talk about these issues with others. I’ve been trying to raise this topic with other people to gauge if it’s a manifestation of some momentary madness. Regardless, I think the issue merits reflection. Correct me if I’m wrong.

"Innovation" and University Legitimacy

A recent story in the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has written an economic development plan that turns all 64 campuses of the State University of New York into tax-free zones. This means that companies that move into these zones would pay no sales, property, or business taxes for 10 years, and employees would pay no income taxes. The rationale for this idea is that it would encourage businesses to set-up shop around the state’s universities and drive the translation of research into products, thereby promoting economic growth. 

North Carolina's Research Triangle Park 

New York is not alone it attempting to place universities at the center of regional innovation hubs, which might be defined as institutionalized partnerships between public universities and private industries to capitalize on their respective expertise and assets for economic value creation. These public-private partnerships are not simply linking two discrete sectors, as suggested by the hyphenated name, but rather represent a new structure in academe, with its own jargon, goals, rationales, resource base, and specialized workforce. The collaborative process not one in which university researchers sit in their labs and churn out knowledge products that a nearby company buys and develops. Rather, private companies use funding to set the research agenda; faculty members build careers around the needs of spin-off companies; and universities own equity in ventures they helped to launch. The line between university and business, public and private, non-profit and for-profit is intentionally made obsolete. 

The National Science Foundation supports the establishment of innovation hubs by funding what they call I-Corps Nodes, which they say “work cooperatively to build, utilize and sustain a national innovation ecosystem that further enhances the development of technologies, products and processes that benefit society.” The University of Maryland, Virginia Tech University, and the George Washington University received $3.75 million to become nodes in a regional innovation network. According to a news release about the award, the goal is to “find the best entrepreneurial student and faculty researchers and help them bring discoveries to market.” NSF is thinking even bigger, funding many nodes and facilitating many networks as “the foundation of a national innovation ecosystem and focus on the front-lines of local and regional commercialization efforts."

In some ways, university-based innovation hubs are an exciting development because they may just be responsible for making discoveries that tackle some of society’s biggest problems. However, there are also several downsides to these arrangements to consider, starting with two assumptions that underpin the whole notion of marrying university research and business creation. The first assumption is that problem-solving is best accomplished through the private sector and taking ideas to market. The second is that the private sector is the source of solutions and not the origin of problems. This assumption is particularly tenuous in light of the myriad products developed for the defense industry. Both assumptions have an ideological basis in the effort to discredit government as inefficient and ineffective, positioning corporations in negative relation to the bureaucratic welfare state. In this way, we should not think of innovation hubs as entirely distinct from other forms of privatization.

Privatization is clearest when we consider Gov. Cuomo’s plan. Of course, a tax-free zone is a monumental incentive to locate a business near a university. However, it effectively means that the private sector can harness the research and development (R&D) capabilities of universities, some of which are publicly funded, without giving money back through taxes. The reduction in costs by outsourcing R&D and not paying taxes certainly facilitates the accumulation of profit, but questions remain about whether there is any presence of the “public” in the objectives, processes, or outcomes. There are also lingering questions about who or what, precisely, stands to benefit. Universities may generate some revenue from licensing intellectual property and equity ownership, but it is hard to tell if this revenue amounts to much because we don’t have a good sense of how much is being spent to build and administer innovation hubs. There is also some research suggesting that only a handful of institutions (e.g., MIT, Stanford) make much money from their entrepreneurial ventures.

Why, then, are universities seemingly so eager to partner with the private sector and position themselves as innovation hubs? Positioning, I think, is a key part of the decision. Far more lucrative than money to universities is the symbolic value of showing that research money is not being wasted—that universities are relevant and even necessary to propel economic growth. In an era when people are regularly critiquing universities for their inability to control costs, their inefficient preoccupation with traditions, and their lack of success at creating and transferring usable knowledge, it is no stretch to claim that public higher education is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis.

Universities are desperately seeking legitimacy, and what better way to do it than by orienting what they do to innovation? The legitimating logic, then, for many institutions has been to constantly extoll their contributions to business growth, job creation, and national economic competitiveness. It is no coincidence that the I-Corps Node news release quoted Congressman Dan Lipinksi: “given the size of the federal investment in research—$60 billion annually—the American people should be getting even more new companies and jobs for their money. I-Corps represents a low-cost way to get us across the much-discussed ‘Valley of Death’ that separates laboratory discoveries from profit-making companies that boost economic growth and American competitiveness.”

In its drive to be seen by taxpayers, consumers, and other stakeholders as legitimate, universities have symbolically and structurally emphasized anything that connects them to the “economic imaginary” of the knowledge-based economy. At every turn, university presidents are highlighting the businesses created at their institutions, and organizational change is justified with language of “innovation and entrepreneurship.” The legitimacy conferred by these efforts may be an important short-term survival mechanism, but the long-term returns could be marginal and forever change the philosophical moorings of higher education and the key actors involved in its governance. Once the “innovation ecosystem” is in place, it may be impossible to tell where the campus ends and corporation begins. It's possible that the campus-corporation distinction was myth to begin with, but if there ever was purposeful distancing between the two, a drastic new approach is being taken, and I venture to guess many of us who work, teach, and study at universities, while perhaps somewhat conscious of it, do not fully grasp its pervasive influence. 

Incubate Your Dreams, Invent Your Future

Today, my university played host to what has become one of the largest non-athletic events on campus: the Cupid’s Cup business model competition. The event is funded, in part, by alumnus Kevin Plank, the founder and CEO of Under Armour. The name of the event reflects Plank’s first business venture, which involved buying roses wholesale and selling them cheaply to students around Valentine’s Day, undercutting nearby retailers. This is not the only business model competition on campus. In fact, many of the competitors seemed to have circulated all of the various opportunities on campus for securing seed funding and other resources.

Nevertheless, Cupid’s Cup is one of the largest and has garnered national attention, largely due to its presence in the corporate spotlight. The day started with a business and innovation showcase, where local and university-based start-ups can present their products and services to potential investors at conference-like booths. Attendees voted on their favorite booths, and the winners were presented with cash prizes of $2,000 each. The main event, however, was a competition in which six teams of student entrepreneurs from around the country pitched their ideas to a panel of judges. The teams essentially have a few minutes to tell their entrepreneurial story, complete with props and multimedia, in the hopes of winning $50,000 and access to Plank’s expertise and network.

As an interested onlooker and researcher, this was an illuminating experience for a number of a reasons. First, there was clear evidence supporting the idea that entrepreneurship permeates my university’s institutional culture. In one short afternoon, I observed the culture’s heroes (e.g., Plank, the epitome of the enterprising student turned entrepreneur), codes (e.g., “the special sauce,” referring to intellectual property, or what makes a product or service unique), and symbols (e.g., the marker board, signifying the constant need for daring ideas and curiosity). When the Dean of the business school spoke, he proclaimed that “we live and breathe entrepreneurship every day in the halls of Van Munching [Hall].” Dr. Wallace Loh, President of the University of Maryland, made it clear he wants this to be a university-wide occurrence, declaring his ambitious goal that all 37,000 students to be exposed to innovation and entrepreneurship education.

Second, I was immediately struck by the resources required to produce an event of this magnitude.  Of course, much of the money was put up by donors, which included AOL and BB&T Bank. Still, the event was largely planned and implemented by university staff in the business school, particularly its two entrepreneurship-related centers. There are scholars who link the rise of entrepreneurship in colleges and universities to the search for new money in the face of declining state and local appropriations. Although at least one of teams competing was marketing a product whose intellectual property belonged to the university, I could not help but wonder if more is being spent promoting and teaching entrepreneurship than is being brought in through licensing royalties. If this is the case, we need research that looks at the true costs and benefits of these initiatives. And we cannot think of the entrepreneurial turn in higher education as purely a rational response to economic conditions. It must serve other purposes.

Third, I noticed an interesting paradox that has been discussed by a few others. Entrepreneurship, in part, is about taking risks to disrupt the status quo. For this reason, the university has developed an entire marketing campaign around the slogan “Fearless Ideas.” But what Cupid’s Cup and similar initiatives try to do is minimize the risk to students by providing coaching, access to experts, and seed funding. The university has created a set of resources that collectively create a business incubator for students. Some of these resources come directly from state appropriations, hence the concept of the state-subsidized student entrepreneur developed by Matthew Mars. Interestingly, the competition included an award for the team that had best leveraged all of these resources in developing their product or service. Plank encouraged “all those out there who want to start a venture but don’t know where to begin” to make use of campus resources to incubate into reality “the fearless ideas that keep you up at night.” What I find intriguing, however, is the possibility that all of this coaching and all of these resources actually constrain innovation. There are norms and parameters set, shaping the types of ideas that students pursue in order to gain access to seed money. It could be the most disruptive, novel ideas are those that are never given the chance to compete or win any money because they do not conform to institutional expectations of social/economic value creation.

The final learning moment for me was the most profound. It aligned with a comment one of my advisors made during a talk I gave on entrepreneurship in education. He said that the rise of entrepreneurship is a symptom of system failure. We saw similar discourses about the need to be innovative and entrepreneurial in the 1980s, when, much like today, our country grappled with slow economic growth, questions about global competitiveness, and high unemployment. In other words, we turn to entrepreneurship when there are few good jobs, and the powers that be want people to reignite the rugged individualist spirit and channel ingenuity in order to pave their personal path to prosperity. At Cupid’s Cup, President Loh told the audience that there is a lack of formal, full-time jobs for this generation of students. Graduates in the 21^st century need to invent their own jobs, and the nation needs them to innovate in order to out-compete India and China. After all, in order “to win the future” students must contend not just with competition from “Baltimore and Boston, but also Bangalore and Beijing.”

So, it’s not really just about fearless ideas and making dreams come true. We have to think about the particular historical moment that has given rise to investment in student entrepreneurialism—how the social context has shaped the field. The sociology of knowledge teaches that a field emerges not merely from ideas themselves, but also the settings in which researchers and practitioners work. How is it that entrepreneurship has developed into a subject of study, something that is “recognized as worth knowing, teaching, credentialing, advancing through research, and the like”? (Gumport, 2007, p. 349). When we step back to do this type of analysis, we recognize the multifaceted dimensions of the push for entrepreneurial studies—equal parts political, economic, and cultural. Entrepreneurship comes to embody the concept of functionalization. That is, when one discourse comes to serve the strategic and utilitarian ends of another: national economic competitiveness. 

-----

Gumport, P. (Ed.). (2007). Sociology of higher education: Contributions and their contexts. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 

Developments in Higher Education's Entrepreneurial Turn

Last week, I attended a patent seminar at my university, which was advertised as both an introduction to intellectual property as it relates to academe and an explanation of changes to the patent filing process as a result of the 2011 America Invents Act. The university’s vice president and chief research officer spoke at the beginning of the seminar, and his remarks reinforced an unmistakable trend in higher education: the cultivation of entrepreneurial spirit in faculty and students.

Entrepreneurship is not a new phenomenon among America’s research universities, but a recent wave of popularity is propelling it into areas previously detached from such activities. The spread of entrepreneurship raises several questions for the student of higher education policy: Why now? For what ultimate purpose? To whose advantage and whose disadvantage? And it raises at least one question for the somewhat interested onlooker: Who cares? In keeping with the RBMB mission, this post offers a few tentative, untested ideas.

Judging by the sign-in sheet, I might have been the only person in the patent seminar not affiliated with a science or technology program. The lens through which I understood the event, then, probably differed from others in the room, many of whom were professors and advanced graduate students whose work directly intersects with the market. Nevertheless, a few choice lines delivered by our chief research officer could not be subject to divergent interpretations:

• “A patent is like a publication. They are both junk unless you plan ahead and do something with them.”
• “I don’t care about your patent, I want to hear about your business plan.”
• “Figuring out how to get your methodology to market is more important than patenting.”
• “Do great things. Become rich!”

The overall message of the presentation was that research devoid of commercial follow-through on the part of faculty and graduate students was of little value. To simply discover new knowledge is wasteful, given the wealth-generation potential of certain types of university-based research. Gone are the days of basic, curiosity-driven research. Many would chalk up this message up to the emergence of the knowledge economy over the past fifty years.

Whereas as production strategies and economic growth immediately following World War II were organized around assembly-line manufacture of material goods, today they are a function of creating new science and technology-related products and services, and applying these inventions via information processing and telecommunications. Knowledge becomes a raw material that can be owned and sold. This organization of production requires not an abundant source of unskilled laborers, but rather a smaller number of educated information managers overseeing a larger cadre of flexible workers.

The research university has become indispensable to the knowledge economy because it is a central site of knowledge production and transfer. On the one hand, universities have become de facto research and development wings for corporations. As a result of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, universities can retain ownership over discoveries from federally-funded research, creating a new revenue stream. On the other hand, universities have become vital in preparing the educated, technology savvy consumers and workers the new economy requires. Consequently, various policymakers and corporation leaders have become keenly interested in reforming higher education to better teach “21^st century skills” that are aligned with the demands of the labor market.

The shift from an industrial to knowledge economy sheds some light on the question: Why now? Entrepreneurship in universities is both more feasible and better supported today than in the past because the exchange—versus symbolic or intrinsic—value of research has grown exponentially. Equally important, however, is the fact that research universities have been forced to search for new sources of income. The steady roll back of state and local funding for higher education has meant that universities, if they hope to remain competitive and not compromise quality, must address budget shortfalls with privately acquired revenues—from sale of merchandise and professional certificates to patent royalties and equity in spin-off companies. And, of course, one of the most important private sources of income is tuition.

The astute observer of higher education would argue that entrepreneurship is a new name for a longstanding tradition within research universities of innovating and operating in the context of a free-market capitalist system. It is certainly true that one aspect of research universities has always been to support economic development. In the same vein, university research has always been instrumentalized to serve purposes beyond the search for truth or greater understanding of the universe and its inhabitants. In fact, most university labs in the postwar era were generously funded by the federal government, which believed that basic research was the foundation of applications useful to national defense. Knowledge production has always been pursued for pragmatic reasons, not the least of which include personal and societal improvement. But to simply say that the entrepreneurial spirit has always played a part in what universities do is to give no consideration to how that role has changed over time.

I’ll sketch out here a few of the ways in which I think that the entrepreneurial turn in higher education deviates from the past. First, we must acknowledge that entrepreneurial activities are more deeply embedded in campus life. I’ll use my campus as an example, which may be misleading because our president has made innovation and entrepreneurship one of his top priorities. Nevertheless, many of these initiatives predate his arrival, and I have seen them at other campuses nationwide. Here’s a quick rundown of entrepreneurial programs and offices at the university:

1. M Square – a research park and business incubator space adjacent to campus. M Square “serves to physically and programmatically link university researchers, students and staff with federal laboratories and private sector companies.” The park is co-sponsored, in part, by the university’s division of research. This office also sponsors the Maryland Small Business and Technology Development Center and list of resources facilitating the founding of companies near campus
2. Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) – since 1986, this office has provided support and assistance in safeguarding intellectual property, encouraging technology transfer, and fostering collaborative research with industrial sponsors. According their website: “OTC has recorded more than 1,700 information, life and physical science invention disclosures; secured more than 300 U.S. patents; licensed more than 900 technologies to business and industry, which have generated more than $16.3 million in technology transfer income; and assisted in the creation of more than 50 high-tech start-up companies founded on the basis of technologies developed at the University of Maryland. Continued growth is expected as the University builds on its strengths in engineering, information technology, and biotechnology.”
3. Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (MTech) – claims 3 missions: to educate the next generation of entrepreneurs, start successful technology ventures, and connect the university and companies in the state. Included among the MTech initiatives are entrepreneurship and innovation walk-in hours, legal services, a venture accelerator, a technology company incubator, a student business model challenge, and a start-up lab.

The former director of MTech was recently named associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship. He will launch the university’s new Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship this year, which, in the words of the provost will “ignite students' entrepreneurial spirit.”  This introduces a second point of departure in the current entrepreneurial turn—the fact that, in addition to being deeply embedded, it also affects new stakeholders. The expanding breadth of entrepreneurial activities means that no longer are conversations about intellectual property, research commercialization, and technology transfer limited to scientists and their graduate students.

Like the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, several initiatives have been established with the explicit purpose of developing an entrepreneurial mindset in undergraduate students from diverse majors. Engineering students have long taken entrepreneurship courses. Now, however, students can take part in Hinman CEOs, “the nation’s first living-learning entrepreneurship program” and “a groundbreaking initiative placing entrepreneurially-minded students from all technical and non-technical academic disciplines in a unique community.” Furthermore, undergraduate students can minor in technology entrepreneurship or, if they are academically talented, receive a scholarship or take part in an entrepreneurship honors college to develop skills in innovation and business creation.

Faculty from all disciplines are also affected by the breadth of the entrepreneurial turn. Although patents have always been factored into promotion and tenure decisions for faculty in the STEM fields, the university is now pushing a committee to consider how entrepreneurship can be included in the academic rewards system across campus. Accordingly, the previously three-legged stool of the academic profession (service, teaching, and research) could soon include a fourth leg: entrepreneurship. Some faculty have reservations about this move, as they argue that faculty members who have developed companies or products are less interested in their work on campus. They are pulled in a different direction. Other faculty members wonder what kind of behaviors this move incentivizes  and who truly benefits from the work of academic entrepreneurs. Do inventor faculty better campus life, improve the educational experience of students, or simply bolster their incomes?

This brings is back to the last of our original questions. There are, naturally, advantages and disadvantages to recent manifestations of entrepreneurial turn in higher education. These advantages and disadvantages are not evenly experienced among all groups. It cannot be denied that a campus dedicated to the cultivation of big ideas is a good thing. Some of these ideas may address real social problems, and the university has repeatedly emphasized its contributions to job creation, economic development, and state wealth. While overlooking the nuance of specific cases, we can acknowledge that these are positive outcomes for many people.

On the other hand, certain areas of universities cannot be easily commercialized. They are designed to help us better experience and understand what it means to be human, to think about how the past can instruct and illuminate the present, and provide society a critical voice and social conscience. These areas are marginalized in a campus environment that is unabashedly forward-thinking, innovation-centric, and deeply invested in translating academic products and services into sources of revenue. The value of an idea has fundamentally changed on many campuses: a discovery, novel theory, or compelling narrative of humanity are “junk” unless they can be turned into a business plan.

We arrive, then, at the answer to the big question: So what? After all, the skeptic is probably reading this post and labeling me a left-leaning academic-to-be, resistant to adapt to new realities. Perhaps the university is finally making itself relevant and useful. Perhaps it really is like a microcosm of the market, with academic departments opening and closing like firms at the whims of supply and demand. Perhaps these are all true. But, as I reflect on the depth and breadth of efforts to cultivate “entrepreneurial spirit,” I wonder what is being compromised, or even lost.

Our campuses have not suddenly come into extra state money to fund these academies, programs, and research parks. They often must accept money from the private sector and, therefore, increasingly answer to the expectations of their funders—expectations which, as a number of court cases have pointed out, do not always have public wellbeing in mind. Or they must divert funding and energy from other areas, like character building, citizenship education, and the liberal arts.

Universities nationwide may be educating the next generation of inventors. But questions surround whether these inventors will have anything beyond self-enrichment guiding them. “Do great things. Get rich!” This may be a valid, albeit simplified, approach to economic prosperity. But I maintain it should not be part of the mission of our college and university campuses.

Singularity University and the New Economy

“There’s really no other institution,” explains Ray Kurzweil, “that studies the exponential growth of information technology and how it can solve the major problems of the world.”

Kurzweil, the director of engineering at Google, sees such emphasis on information technology as the unique contribution to U.S. higher education of his brainchild, Singularity University (SU). This, however, is not the only unique feature of SU. The university is perhaps the most developed example I have encountered of Slaughter and Rhoades’ academic capitalism theory.

SU takes its name from Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, and, more generally, from the concept of technological singularity. In the book, Kurzweil predicts that we are approaching a moment in which it is possible through the study of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics to see artificial intelligences that surpass the cognitive abilities of the human brain and medical advancements that overcome the limits of human biology. 

Entrepreneur and scientist Peter Diamandis was inspired enough by Kurzweil’s ideas to suggest building upon the model of the International Space University and create an institution of higher learning. After convening a meeting at NASA Ames Research Center with “50 of the leading thinkers” in 2007, SU was founded. It runs two academic programs at its campus in Silicon Valley: a nine-week summer graduate studies program and an executive program.

The curriculum of these programs is closely tied to Kurzweil’s book, which is perhaps not surprising, given that he is the Chancellor. The institution’s short history is described via a TED Talk Kurzweil gave on technological singularity. Students take courses on:

Future Studies and Forecasting

Policy, Law, and Ethics

Entrepreneurship

Networks and Computing Systems

Biotechnology and Bioinformatics

Nanotechnology

Medicine and Neuroscience

AI, Robotics, and Cognitive Computing

Energy and Ecological Systems

Space and Physical Sciences

Not exactly the liberal arts. Then again, SU is fairly clear about its mission to “assemble, educate and inspire a new generation of leaders who strive to understand and utilize exponentially advancing technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.” Who are these leaders? Based on the website, they are attractive, highly accomplished young people from around the world. SU profiles one past participant in the categories of entrepreneur, policy influencer, academic, big thinker, NGO leader, and technologist. The bottom line is that, unless you are a Business Week Entrepreneur Award Winner or Harvard Medical School student, you likely won’t earn one of 80 spots out of 1,600 or so applicants.

What do students get from their SU experience? Diamandis underscores the interdisciplinary nature of SU: “if you come in as an expert in nanotechnology, you’re going to learn about molecular genetics, you’re going to learn about medicine and human enhancement, and AI and robotics…you’re going to learn the vocabulary, you’re going to find partners to start new companies.” This is just one of the ways in which the lines between institution of higher learning and business incubator are blurred at SU. To top it all off, students also get access to a global network of geniuses-to-be and budding millionaires.

The university gets its funding from a string of corporations and venture capital funds, including Google, Nokia, and LinkedIn. These corporations will have first pick of students to fill any vacant positions on their research and development teams. Therefore, any major problems that are solved at SU come not from research conducted at the university itself, but rather from corporations funding the institution or companies started by students. This is a university created by the private sector for the private sector.

With its concentration on select domains of knowledge, corporate sponsorship, business incubation, and other marketeering activities, SU epitomizes the interplay between higher education and the new economy. The new economy, in the words of Slaughter and Rhoades, “treats advanced knowledge as a raw material that can be claimed through legal devises, owned, and marketed as a product or service.” SU clearly caters to those with advanced knowledge that can be transformed into marketable products or services. Any solutions generated by SU to save humanity will need to be purchased.

The mechanisms through which higher education connects to the new economy constitute what Slaught and Rhoades call an “academic capitalist knowledge regime.” This regime "values knowledge privatization and profit taking in which institutions, inventor faculty, and corporations have claims that come before those of the public.” By contrast, the public good knowledge regime, as the name implies, views “knowledge as a public good to which the citizenry has claims.” The authors acknowledge that these two regimes are starkly differentiated only for analytical purposes. In reality, there is substantial overlap.

Although SU is emblematic of the academic capitalist knowledge regime, other institutions, including publicly funded colleges and universities, are connecting to the new economy, adopting practices found in the private sector, and seeking new sources of revenue. At my own institution, the University of Maryland, state funding per student has steadily declined over the past decade. In order to remain competitive and retain top faculty, campus leaders have looked to sources of revenue beyond dwindling government appropriations. 

These sources include the University of Maryland University College, an online education profit center. Additionally, the university unveiled M Square, which is public-private partnership with a real estate investment trust designed to offer “incubator space for start up companies” and “build to suit options for larger technology clients in Maryland’s largest research park.” Most recently, the Honors College launched a new living-learning program dedicated to advanced cybersecurity education. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman helped fund the program, and students are eligible for internships and mentorship opportunities at the corporation.

My point is not to predict a corporate take-over of U.S. higher education. The state, big business, and higher education have always been inextricably linked. It is rather to highlight the new types of relationships emerging as higher education positions itself as a key site of knowledge production in an economy whose competitiveness hinges upon harnessing educated workers and advanced technology.

The singularity may be near, but it is also, frankly, creepy. Forgive me for not sharing Kurzweil's enthusiasm for robotic red blood cells. Singularity University is likewise problematic, signaling a shift with clear implications for social justice in American higher education. As the state rolls back funding of higher education, the public good functions of universities retreat with it.

The Craft Craze

All waiting rooms in car repair shops are the same. Outdated sports magazines. Coffee maker with Styrofoam cups. Strange rubber odor. And a television tuned-in to some news channel. My recent trip to a local car repair shop did not disappoint, featuring all requisite elements of the full oil change and tire rotation experience. As I sat, disinterestedly flipping through the pages of a Sports Illustrated circa 2009, I overheard a television segment on the performance of Restoration Hardware in its initial public offering.

The segment included an interview with the CEO of Restoration Hardware, Carlos Alberini, who attributed the success of the company to shifting “up-market”. Whereas competitors responded to the economic recession by slashing prices, Restoration went the other direction, focusing its marketing on expensive furniture consistent with its stylistic mission of providing “authentic” American home goods.

Having walked through Restoration on several occasions and glanced at the price tags hanging from lamps, distressed dressers, and ancient maps, it is hard to imagine there being a huge market for such luxury items. Yet I was reminded on a recent weekend trip that there is demand for products that reflect material authenticity and local craftsmanship—even if they are simply replicas or are made to look “crafted”. The base for this market has widened beyond antiquers, collectors, and snobs. And I believe it will continue to grow as our generation increasingly distances itself from the knowledge needed to actually construct what retailers like Restoration produce en masse.

The Craft Getaway

My wife and I packed our bags a few weeks back for a weekend retreat to Charlottesville, Virginia. We mainly wanted a change of scenery and a chance to soak in the fall colors before they fell to the ground, but we also planned to stop at a few breweries and wineries. Our first stop was for lunch with friends at Blue Mountain Brewery, which was packed from wall to wall with diners and drinkers. Founded in 2007, Blue Mountain has followed in the footsteps of several successful microbrewing operations in the region, structuring their business model around sustainability, local community engagement, and treating beer making like an art form. My friend explained that the original restaurant connected to the brewery was originally quite modest in dimensions. The popularity of the place precipitated a large expansion, which looked to be paying for itself without any issue. On the day we visited, business was booming.

Crowds did not diminish as we ventured out the vineyards. We were greeted at each wine tasting room with large groups of smartly dressed people, all of whom seemed to be visitors to the area. My experience in Charlottesville is but a real-life example of what Restoration and other businesses like it know to be true. There is a consumer craze for all things “craft”, from home furnishings to alcoholic beverages. Since I found myself square in the middle of this craze, I looked inward for possible explanations.

For me, connecting with authentically crafted things is an expression of appreciation. I buy what I cannot create myself but desperately wish that I could. It is true that these things tend to be high quality, well constructed, and tasteful. This makes it easy to justify spending more on them than your run-of-the-mill bookcases and merlots. But the consumer craze for craft fills deeper needs.

We, Knowledge Workers

The reality is that my generation was born into society that does not really manufacture things as it once did. We are outcomes and drivers of the knowledge society, where the primary source of income and economic growth is not what you make, but rather what you know. We are the generation that aspires to be consultants or entrepreneurs in some sense or another. Working comfortably in the realm of ideas, we are highly skilled laborers—on our laptops.

Even as we celebrate our smart phones and relish in our post-secondary education, we inevitably confront the fact that our knowledge is astonishingly specialized and can rarely be applied to creating or fixing real things. We have to find others to fix our cars or remodel our kitchens. Many of these people exist on the margins of the knowledge society, yet remain vital to its functioning. This is not to say that no one in my generation creates anything material, or has zero knowledge applicable to real-world problems. But speaking in generalities, we are beyond a doubt a generation out of touch with tangible things.

The Choice

So we face a choice. We can learn a craft, either as a hobby or as a source of livelihood (if we are willing to assume the risk that accompanies it). Or we can show our appreciation of the authenticity and artistry that goes into making handcrafted goods by whipping out our credit cards. Most of us seem to make the latter choice. The reality is that, unless we can make our craft into a successful business venture like Blue Mountain Brewery, there is a higher value placed on knowing how to edit a website than how to make cabinets. While many of us like to think we are capable of going against the grain and denying economic incentives, we are likely to respond to the version of the good life we inherited.

Our quest for all things crafted will not likely diminish in the coming years. That is, of course, unless we rethink our priorities and recalculate the value assigned to certain skills and ways of knowing. I like to hope that in the future my interaction with craft will not be constrained to items on the shelves of Restoration Hardware. I like to think of a version of myself who can actually make and fix things, instead of a person who merely appreciates these abilities from the sidelines. The out-the-door lines of people in the local wineries and microbreweries of Charlottesville suggest that there may be others out there who feel the same way.