大学与知识:重构智力城

Universities and Knowledge: Restructuring the City of Intellect

美国研究型大学遇到了挑战 :在经济与政治环境变化的情况下与知识变革保持同步 ,这要求它们在政府拨款以外创收并展示出对经济的直接贡献。基于一个跨度较大项目的比较个案研究 ,本文阐明了美国研究型大学的合法性基础如何在 2 0世纪最后 2 5年间发生变迁。在这个时代里 ,学术重构的组织话语开始进入一种产业逻辑 ,这一逻辑补充并在某些情况下成为“社会制度”逻辑的可行性选择。几种因素促成了产业逻辑获得优势 :资源匮乏的作用 (无论是实存的还是察觉的 )、政治行动者和广大公众对责任制需求的增长、重新阐释服务传统使技能训练和经济发展处于优先位置、管理科学作为一种意识形态的凸显、对于知识之适当价值的认可以及市场力量作为决策制定指南的合理性增强而相应地减少对专业自身的考虑。在指出这种适应的一般模式之外 ,本文还分析了与大学的独特传统和沿袭而来的学术结构相应的差异情形。

American research universities have been challenged to keep pace with knowledge change within changing economic and political conditions that call on them to generate non-state revenue and demonstrate their direct contributions to the economy. Based on comparative case studies drawn from a larger longitudinal project, this article illuminates how the basis for legitimacy of American public research universities has been in transition during the last quarter of the twentieth century. During this era, organizational discourse about academic restructuring came to be cast in an industry logic, which supplemented and in some circumstances became a viable alternative to the logic of “social institution.' A number of factors contributed to the ascendance of an industry logic: the role of scarcity (whether actually or perceived), the rise of accountability demands from political actors and the wider public, reinterpreting the service legacy to make skill training and economic development priorities, the prominence of management science as an ideology, a recognition of knowledges proprietary value, and a declining regard for professions that corresponded to a rise in market forces as a legitimate compass for decision-making. Beyond identifying this general pattern of adaptation, this article analyzes variation that corresponds to universities distinctive legacies and inherited academic structures.