Universities in the Marketplace: the Commercialization of Higher Education.

• Author: Kellman, Steven G.
• Position: Book Review

BY DEREK BOK PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 2003, 234 PAGES, $22.95

Already in 1905, Harvard University was paying its 26-year-old foot ball coach a salary equal to that of its president and twice that of its full professors. In Universities in the Marketplace, Derek Bok, who was president of Harvard from 1971 to 1991, argues that higher education today stands at a critical juncture, documenting the ways in which economic pressures have diverted academic institutions from their mission of teaching and research. Contending that the trend toward excessive commercialization is not yet irreversible, Bok offers cogent, urgent arguments for reorienting universities toward fulfilling their unique purpose uncorrupted by the insidious influence of money.

Bok points to intercollegiate athletics as the most dramatic and deplorable cases of commercialization run amok. He notes that, although dreams of lucrative TV contracts, capacity crowds, and generous alumni contributions entice schools to become voluntary farm teams for the National Football League and the National Basketball Association, very few colleges achieve consistently winning seasons and fewer still avoid losing large sums better spent on academic matters. He is even more disturbed by the cost to institutional integrity exacted by the fiction of the student-athlete--the young gladiator who does not meet admission standards, participate In ordinary campus life, receive a satisfactory education, or graduate.

Bok observes how the names of campus buildings and faculty chairs are routinely sold to the highest bidder, and he even cites an Instance in which one university let advertising be posted...