Profit, prestige and the liberal arts in the “neoliberal” academy: Observations from Canada
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2982
I argue that the Canadian academy, at least, is not neoliberal in the sense of acting as a profit-seeking corporation. Rather it serves the agenda of the corporate sector while operating under what is better seen as a symbolic economy of prestige and status.
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Alan Smart
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Profit, prestige and the liberal arts in the “neoliberal” academy: Observations from Canada
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Forum: Anthropologists Witnessing and Reshaping the Neoliberal Academy
2017-07-18
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2017-07-17
2017-07-18
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Alan Smart
2017/07/18
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2982
59
University of Calgary, Canada
2239-625X
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Profit, prestige and the liberal arts in the “neoliberal” academy: Observations from Canada
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                                                  2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 59-62




                                                                                              FORUM




Student demonstration against fees and cuts, Aberdeen. Credits: http://anticuts.com/wp-content/uploads /
2015/07/ Aberdeen-student-left-banner.jpg


Anthropologists witnessing and reshaping the neoliberal academy
Edited by
Tracey HEATHERINGTON & Filippo M. ZERILLI

Contributions of
Virginia R. DOMINGUEZ, Sam BECK, Carl A. MAIDA, Martin A. MILLS, Berardino
PALUMBO, Alan SMART, Ger DUIJZINGS, Alexis M. JORDAN & Shaheen M. CHRISTIE,
Boone W. SHEAR, Alex KOENSLER & Cristina PAPA, THE RECLAIMING OUR UNIVERSITY
MOVEMENT.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © ALAN SMART
ANTHROPOLOGISTS WITNESSING AND RESHAPING THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY                             59




Profit, prestige and the liberal arts in the “neoliberal” academy
Observations from Canada

Alan SMART
University of Calgary



ABSTRACT: I argue that the Canadian academy, at least, is not neoliberal in the sense of acting
as a profit-seeking corporation. Rather it serves the agenda of the corporate sector while op -
erating under what is better seen as a symbolic economy of prestige and status.


   In the first set of essays on the neoliberal academy, Cris Shore and Sue
Wright stressed that in current academic conditions, «what “counts” are
those things that can be “counted”, quantified and translated as financial re-
turns to the institution» (2016: 48), while also noting that reforms are con-
tradictory, producing chaos and corruption rather than efficiency. In my
comments, I will suggest, at least in Canada where my professional experi-
ence has been concentrated, that these divergent observations can be partly
reconciled by recognition that post-secondary institutions are being pres-
sured to provide service to profit-making corporations but have not been op-
erating as one would expect profit-oriented capitalist enterprises to. In par-
ticular, I want to stress that in the absence of generous research overhead
payments, the STEM fields (Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathemat-
ics) are rarely profitable for Canadian universities, while many liberal art dis-
ciplines are profit centres but are systematically starved of resources. This is
the result of senior administrators operating in an economy of prestige and
fast policy (Peck 2002) rather than one that rewards profits.
   In 2008, I wrote an entry, perhaps more of a rant than a scholarly essay, for
the GlobalHigherEd blog (Smart 2008). Little appears to have changed since
that time, so I will draw in part on my arguments there. The administration
at the University of Calgary where I have taught for 28 years has adopted a
strategic vision based on moving up the ranks of research intensive universi-
ties. The main benefits have gone to the STEM disciplines, particularly
Medicine and Engineering. This could be seen as a sign of the corporatiza-


                                                 2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 59-62
60                                              TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)


tion of the university. I would agree, but only in the sense that the university
concentrates on things that the dominant business community would like to
see done, not in the sense that the university is acting like a profit-seeking
enterprise. James Turk (2016) provides a detailed account of a scandal
around a Centre funded by the pipeline company Enbridge, which led to a
Board of Governors inquiry into conflict of interest by University of Calgary
President Elizabeth Cannon, who had been a Director at Enbridge.
   At a university that acted like a corporation, rather than for a corporate
agenda, we might expect to see investment in profit centres at the expense of
other units, but it tends to operate the other way around. In 2008, the Fac-
ulty of Social Sciences, with the most students, had a budget basically equal
to the tuitions paid by its students, even though Alberta policy is that tu-
itions should not be higher than 25% of the operating budget. Social Sci-
ences (and the other core arts and sciences to a somewhat lesser extent) are a
cash cow for Faculties that cannot cover their own costs. The situation has
changed in 2017 only to the extent that Social Sciences has been merged
with Humanities and Fine Arts in a much larger Faculty of Arts.
   One could point to the substantial research funds brought in by Medicine
in particular, but this has little positive effect on the university’s financial
situation since grant overhead payments are very low in Canada, unlike the
United States. In any case, the usual pattern when a medical researcher has a
breakthrough or receives a major grant is that they get offers from other in-
stitutions and turn to the administration to say that they couldn’t justify
staying without a new lab, additional colleagues, postdocs, graduate stu-
dents, etc. This doesn’t produce any real advantage to the administration’s
budget, unlike the large number of bums on seats in the arts and sciences
faculties. Especially when those bums on seats are being taught by session-
als. A sessional being paid $5,250 for a one-semester course with 400 stu-
dents paying $500 each for that course generates a profit of $194,750, or a re-
turn on investment of 37 times. What profit-oriented business would turn
down returns like that? Yet, because tuition goes to the central administra-
tion without any direct return to the department or faculty offering the
course, such courses provide no benefit to the unit offering the course, de-
spite intense student demand. The current response to budget problems in
2017 has focused on cutting sessional teaching (for cost saving reasons, not
social justice ones, I must stress).
   If this is a corporate model, it would seem a very dysfunctional example of
one. But I think it is corporate only in the sense that it provides research and


2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 59-62
ANTHROPOLOGISTS WITNESSING AND RESHAPING THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY                            61


training subsidies which are captured by private firms, and that it follows
corporate administrative styles, but not corporate goals of achieving profits.
Within the University of Calgary, and apparently in other Canadian universi-
ties at least, the pattern of distributing resources follows a different logic,
one that I believe is based on status and prestige, not maximizing financial
returns to the institution based on what can be counted. Presidents like to
brag about their neurosciences or cancer treatment or energy research cen-
tres. Transferring resources into sexy high profile fields makes it easier for
them to swagger when they get together with other Presidents or potential
donors, and hopefully step up to a better job before their house of cards,
looking impressive and lofty but without stable foundations that will allow
them to withstand even a light adverse breeze, collapses around them. Or to
use another analogy, their fiscal operations are like a bicycle, stable only
while it continues to move forward.
   The desire by University Presidents to invest in shiny research toys and
programs is prompted in part by the utility of having such projects to show-
case to potential corporate, governmental and private funders. But there also
seems to be a growing frequency of national and international events at
which university administrators get together to discuss new trends and pri-
orities. This results in less “cutting edge” administrators returning with
“new” ideas about “best practices” to try out on their institutions. Similar
dynamics have been identified in urban and national governance institu-
tions, leading to increasingly “fast” policy transfer (Clarke et al. 2015; Peck
2002; Peck, Theodore 2015)
   I believe that it would be an insightful endeavour to examine the competi-
tion for prestigious programs, indicators, and research centres in terms of
the ideas of economic anthropologists about status economies and conspicu-
ous consumption. Ideas from scholars like Thorstein Veblen, Franz Boas,
Bronislaw Malinowski, Marcel Mauss, Karl Polanyi, Pierre Bourdieu, and
Georges Bataille might shed a rather different light on the contemporary
governance of universities than do the neo-marxist and neoclassical eco-
nomic perspectives that are usually deployed. Bracketing our usual assump-
tions about the formally rational character of capitalist institutions might al-
low anthropology to bring to light very different accounts of what is going on
in the governance potlatches of our administrative leaders.
   To my mind, the remarkable thing is that really being corporate and pur-
suing profits, rather than serving as a handmaiden to corporations or gov-
ernment agencies, would encourage the things that universities (at least
those without massive endowments) should be doing, providing a well-

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62                                                TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)


rounded education in the liberal arts and sciences, with a smaller set of ap-
pendages in the professions doing the far more expensive but “sexier” things.
Instead of being seen as essential, the core of the University of Calgary is be-
ing gutted to support a host of showcase programs and projects much larger
than the modest financial reality can support. How widely this destructive
prestige economy and its white elephants and misallocated resources is
found in other parts of the world, I cannot say, but it seems likely to me to be
far too common.

REFERENCES
Clarke, John, et al. 2015, Making Policy Move: Towards a Politics of Translation and
       Assemblage, University of Bristol, Policy Press.
Peck, Jamie, 2002, Political economies of scale: Fast policy, interscalar relations, and
       neoliberal workfare, Economic geography, 78, 3: 331-360.
Peck, Jamie, Nik Theodore, 2015, Fast policy, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
       Press.
Shore, Cris, Susan Wright, 2016, Neoliberalisation and the “Death of the Public Uni-
       versity”, Anuac, 5, 1: 46-50.
Smart, Alan, 2008, The ripple effects of the global fossil fuel boom: a view from inside the
       University of Calgary, GlobalHigherEd blog, January 29, 2008, available at: https://-
       globalhighered.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/the-ripple-effects-of-the-global-fossil-
       fuel-boom-a-view-from-inside-the-university-of-calgary/ (accessed on 31/12/ 2016).
Turk, James, 2016, University debased, Alberta Views, August 2016, available at https://alber-
       taviews.ab.ca/2016/08/22/university-debased/ (accessed on 31/12/2016).




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