The New Power University: The social purpose of higher education in the 21st century

Chapter 7

Staffing the New Power University

The instrumentalised managerialism of today’s university will only end through disruptive innovation of how the New Power University is staffed

One of the most surprising aspects of university life I discovered on becoming an academic in 2014 was the divide between administrators and academics. It quickly reminded me of my Naval upbringing where there is also a divide, in that case between ‘officers’ and ‘ratings’. The difference, though, is that the military divide, which is horizontal, is possible to cross. The divide in universities is vertical and is very difficult to cross. I used to term this (somewhat inappropriately) ‘academic apartheid’ but then discovered there was a body of literature using ...