Review of Universities for Sale: Resisting Corporate Control over Canadian Higher Education

Abstract

Perhaps the most obvious example of this failure to participate in the scholarly conversation can be found in Tudiver's frequent references to David Cameron's research on Canadian higher education policy. Tudiver used Cameron's work as a source for a number of important federal and provincial policy initiatives, but never acknowledges that the two authors have vastly different opinions on the role and impact of faculty unionization on Canadian universities. That Tudiver does not even comment on Cameron's arguments represents a missed opportunity to further an important debate on how we should understand faculty unionization within Canadian higher education. While Tudiver provides a well-written, thoughtful description of some important contemporary issues in Canadian higher education, he seldom wanders into the mud that surrounds many of these topics. He describes Canadian universities as public corporations under law, and yet most are chartered as private not-for-profit corporations. He notes that there are substantive differences in higher education policy by province, but does not discuss how these different approaches may create very different environments for the corporatization of Canadian universities. He supports faculty unionization, but does not comment on the conflicts that sometimes materialize between faculty associations and other certified bargaining groups on campus. He argues that collective action through unionization represents an important mechanism for protecting academic freedom and resisting the commercialization of research, but makes only a few brief comments on the fact that many faculty would like to exercise the academic freedom they obtain under collective agreements to expand the commercialization of their research activities. Should faculty associations play a role in educating the professoriate on the dangers of academic capitalism? Should their role shift to more closely resemble a professional organization? Should university governance structures be reformed in order to strengthen the role of the academic senate?