Christopher Newfield’s third book about the American higher education system, The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them , is a stinging indictment of the corporate mentality that has undermined a system that was once the envy of the world.
A professor of literature and American Studies at UC Santa Barbara , Newfield brings an insider’s perspective to what ails higher education, and offers a number of solutions to halt the cycle of decline. Brian Tanguay recently caught up with him.
Part of your thesis is that the privatization of public universities -- exemplified by what you term the American Funding Model -- has had a detrimental effect on both teaching and learning. By adopting a corporate orientation, have public universities sacrificed themselves?