No University is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom (review)

In a time when the corporatization of American universities has become far too prevalent, Cary Nelson, tenured professor of liberal arts and sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of Manifesto of a Tenured Radical (New York: NYU Press, 1997), and president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) since 2006, provides a detailed threat assessment of the university as corporation and how it is destroying the integrity of academia. Nelson pulls from his own academic experiences, from his role as AAUP president, and from case studies and court rulings. No University is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom looks at the crises of weakened shared governance and due process, right-wing polemics, and traumatic world events and how they have impacted the inner workings of universities. It is a call for collective action among educators.

Nelson begins with an overview and history of the issues concerning academic freedom. He strongly believes that the three core values to sustain a rich academic environment are academic freedom, shared governance, and tenure. No University is an Island is part memoir, especially as it focuses on faculty. He warns against a loss of institutional memory, observing that the "faculty hired in the 1960s and 1970s are being replaced by younger faculty and contingent teachers who have no memory of a time when some administrators could be counted on to defend academic freedom…" (p. 74) Despite the cynicism the reader might feel from the author, Nelson also fills the book with hope in the possibility of corrective action. He tries to demonstrate this in the evolution of AAUP into more of a watchdog group during his presidency. Academic memory and action go hand-in-hand in his hope to transform the corporate-inspired path down which academia is headed.

Nelson pays close attention not only to how research independence is being attacked, but also to how the assault on academic freedom has moved into the classroom. He explores challenges facing non-tenure track faculty, graduate students, and other academic professionals such as librarians who teach in the classroom. He advocates for tenure track positions, strongly believing that there is no academic freedom without job security. This theme is present in several chapters, especially in chapter six when he looks at the struggle of graduate students to unionize. Nelson also looks at how faculty were denied due process in the aftermath of traumatic events, such as when tenured faculty were fired following Hurricane Katrina, and the effects of the events of 9/11 on Middle Eastern studies programs and scholars.

Nelson covers other corporatization strategies of university administrators including the formation of online degree programs. The for-profit style degree programs are often made up of adjunct faculty, many of whom do not have classroom experience. These faculty are often hired without the input of tenured faculty. Nelson asserts that the exclusion of tenured faculty in the hiring process and curriculum design of online programs can greatly harm the mission of American universities.

Case studies throughout the book deal with public, private, and faith based institutions and Nelson is careful to pull examples from across the nation, making it clear that no region is exempt from violations of academic freedom. He looks at attack trends coming from the Right, and the major impact of corporatization on curriculum development and faculty involvement in policy setting. Nelson discusses the impact of Stanley Fish (New York Times blogger and professor at Florida International University) and David Horowitz (Founder & President, Horowitz Freedom Center), both of whom he has debated.

Although there does not tend to be much public interest in the politics of university hiring, firing, and pedagogical strategies, Nelson engages the reader with his consistently well articulated and documented accounts. His storytelling ability brings suspense and intrigue to the issues surrounding academic freedom and will make readers look at their institutions in a different way. Nelson's personal experiences and humor make this...