Dynamics of the Contemporary University

Neil J. Smelser is a University Professor Emeritus of Sociology and former director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. He is a former president of the American Sociological Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1958 and has authored fifteen books, including The Theory of Collective Behavior.

• Acknowledgments Chapter I: Dynamics of American Universities Apologia What Kind of Creature is Higher Education? Functions The Problematic Status of "Functions" Moral Embeddedness Structural Changes Accompanying Growth Increasing the Size of Units Segmentation of Units Differentiation Proliferation Coordination A Peculiar Case in Higher Education: Structural Accretion A Historical Sketch of the Process The Discipline-based Academic Department: So Strong and Yet So Frail The Organized Research Unit as Distraction from Departments Reactions and Conflicts Endemic in the Process of Accretion Conditions Producing the Endemic Pattern Two Long-term Consequences of Accretion The Structuring of Faculty Activities Implications for Academic Community Chapter 2: The Dynamics Ramify: Academic Politics, Conflict, and Inequality Instabilities Imposed on Inertial Stability Of Pythons and Goats Economic Fluctuations Competitors for Resources Relevance to Accretion Accretion and the Growth of Political Constituencies Internal Constituencies External Constituencies Accretion, Revenues, and Costs Accretion, Academic Administration, and Higher Education Politics Management as Science and Art Administration as Threat to Academic Culture Administration as Parkinsonian The Structural Alternative Implications for Shared Governance Accretion and Academic Stratification Institutional Prestige Multicampus Systems and Stratification Prestige Among Disciplines Chapter 3: Contemporary Trends: Diagnoses and Conditional Predictions An Unprecedented Perfect Storm Unproductive Paradoxes: Starvation, Accountability, and Governance General Consequences of Shifts in Support and Costs Accountability, Governance, and Support. The Many Faces of Commercialization The Language and Imagery of Corporatism and Its Consequences Consumerism Economizing as a Way of Life University-Industry Relations On-line Distance Instruction and the Rise of the For-profits Non-tenured and Part-time Faculty Implications for Tenure Excursus on Academic Freedom Coda References