Corporate Bondage

In the 1970s, I hung out with some molecular biologists at Harvard. Like the rest of our group of graduate students and young faculty members, they worked hard, worried about tenure and promotion, and partied a lot. But they were also busy setting up private companies. Little did we know that they were riding the crest of the corporate tsunami that has overwhelmed or, as Jennifer Washburn argues, deformed the nation's campuses. By infusing academic research with bottom-line concerns, these entrepreneurial ventures have, she claims, helped to transform American universities into commercial rather than educational institutions.

Of course, American universities have always catered to outside interests. Public service was, after all, one of the principal justifications for establishing the country's state university system. Farmers, businesses, and state and local agencies all profited from academic research, but higher education's main client, at least since the Second World War, has been the federal government, the Defense Department in particular. As a result, national security considerations have often determined the kind of work that would get done on campus. Although Washington remains a major player, it now operates within an academic climate that has become increasingly permeated by corporate values.