Universities Should Cease Hostilities With Unions

By KATE BRONFENBRENNER and TOM JURAVICH

American higher education is in the process of a fundamental transformation. The vision of a sheltered ivory tower, where aca-demics from diverse perspectives are free to study, research, teach, debate, and self-govern, far from the more mundane world of commerce, is on the verge of extinction. Universities are becoming, to varying degrees, commercial institutions -- governed more by business practices and by individuals on boards of trustees and in key academic posts who come out of the

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First Person

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Notes From Academe

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Commentary

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Past Coverage

Organizers of TA Union at Yale Lose Unofficial Vote on Representation - May 16, 2003
Why Graduate Students Shouldn't Join Unions - September 25, 1998
War of Words Heats Up at Yale Over Graduate-Student Organizing - November 27, 1998
Labor: More Organizing and More Unrest - December 19, 2003
Teaching Assistants at U. of Minnesota Reject Union - May 21, 1999

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