Humanizing Conversations: Lecture

Privileging Science over Humanities:
How Privatization and Vocational Training in Higher Education Reinforce Social Stratification

Sheila Slaughter (University of Georgia)

2 April 2013, 6:00-7:30 pm, Ustler Hall Atrium (2nd Floor)

This lecture may viewed online at:

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/rehumanizing

In her public lecture, Professor Sheila Slaughter will discuss the rising emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and professional fields, and the many disparities this has created between these disciplines and the humanities in research universities. Among the disparities that will be discussed are: salaries, research funding, infrastructure, investment, course loads, and student numbers. In raising these issues, Professor Slaughter will speak to the ensuing deprofessionalization of the humanities. She will conclude by addressing how these trends may be changed.

Sheila Slaughter is the first occupant of the McBee Professorship of Higher Education at the University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education. A distinguished scholar of higher education, her most recent book is Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State and Higher Education (2004, Johns Hopkins University Press) with Gary Rhoades. Professor Slaughter’s current scholarship concentrates on the relationship between knowledge and power as it plays out in higher education policy at the state, federal and global levels. During the last fifteen years she has focused on topics such as intellectual property and statutes, commercialization of academic science and technology, and market mechanisms in higher education. Professor Slaughter has served as the President of Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), and received the ASHE and AERA lifetime research awards. She has substantial funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and has served as program director of Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science, and Technology at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Slaughter has also worked with the European Universities Project, Hedda - the European association of research centres, the Salzburg Seminar, and various groups in Mexico and Argentina. Her past publications include over 34 refereed articles, 25 book chapters, 11 edited books or special journal issues, three additional monographs: Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University with Larry Leslie (1997, Johns Hopkins University Press), The Higher Learning and High Technology: The Dynamics of Higher Education Policy Formation (1990, SUNY Press), and Serving Power: The Making of the American Social Science Expert with E.T. Silva (1984, Greenwood).


Humanizing Conversations

Following the 2011-2012 speaker series “Rehumanizing the University: New Perspectives on the Liberal Arts,” the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere invites UF faculty, students, and members of the public to join in this series of panel discussions on academic freedom and activism; racial, gender, and ethnic integration; sexual freedom; dialogues between sciences and humanities; and the impact of market forces at the University of Florida (and North Florida more generally).

Further information on "Humanizing Conversations" and "Rehumanizing the University," including video recordings of most events, can be found in the UF Digital Collections here.

Events in this Series

Humanities Center Events

Center for the Humanities
and the Public Sphere
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
tel 352.392.0796
fax 352.392.5378
humanities-center@ufl.edu

200 Walker Hall
P.O. Box 118030
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611