What purpose should the university serve? What are the true callings of academics? In Academic Callings, prominent Canadian scholars tackle these big questions and provide a timely survey of the state of the Canadian university. With so much current interest in the university’s role in the economy, and so much emphasis on research tied to funding opportunities, this volume seeks to revive the idea of the university as it has been and could be again: a democratic institution committed to advancing critical thought and serving the public interest.
With contributions from diverse disciplines — Classics to biology, nursing to sociology — Academic Callings aims to provoke a wide-ranging conversation, one that concerns everyone, whether as members of academic communities or as citizens.
Contributors include Joel Bakan, George Sefa Dei, Barbara Godard, Paul Hamel, Dorothy Smith, Nasrin Rahimieh, Andrew Wernick, and more than twenty others.
Introduction: Academic Callings and the Past, Present, and Future of the Canadian University – Janice Newson and Claire Polster
Part 1: Against All Reason: Wake-up Calls
Chapter 1: Are We Losing Our Minds? Unreason in Canadian Universities Today – Claire Polster
Chapter 2: Beyond Market Self-serving: Recovering the Academy’s Vocation – John McMurtry
Chapter 3: The Risk of Critique: Voices across the Generations – Barbara Godard
Chapter 4: We Are Saying Too Much … and Not Enough – Karen Rudie
Chapter 5: A Requiem for Fundamental Biology – Arthur Forer
Chapter 6: Idea and Reality: The University or the Universities – John P. Valleau
Part 2: Taking Stock of Personal and Institutional Histories: Calls to Account
Chapter 7: A Brief Memoir from the Trenches – Andrew Wernick
Chapter 8: A Career against the Grain: An Academic Callings Interview – Dorothy Smith
Chapter 9: Living through Revolutionary and Reactionary Times – in the Wrong Order – Roberta Hamilton
Chapter 10: Force without Reason – Gordon Shrimpton
Chapter 11: Two Hours Left and Nothing to Say – Bruce Curtis
Chapter 12: From the Personal to the Political: Some Reflections and Hopes – Jennie Hornosty
Part 3: Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Calls to Administrative Leadership
Chapter 13: Yesterday and Today: Universities and the Growth of the Market Model – Howard Woodhouse
Chapter 14: A Postcard from the Belly of the Beast – Janice Ristock
Chapter 15: How Can One Be Persian in the Canadian Academy? – Nasrin Rahimieh
Chapter 16: The Paradoxes of Academic Administration – Mary Ellen Purkis
Part 4: Making Space: Calls to Open Paths
Chapter 17: Academic Activism and Nomadic Paths – Jamie Magnusson
Chapter 18: Transforming the University from an Aboriginal Perspective – Jo-ann Archibald
Chapter 19: Engaging Race, Anti-racism, and Equity Issues in the Academy: A Personal Odyssey – George J. Sefa Dei
Chapter 20: Feminists in Academe: From Outsiders to Insiders? – Joan Sangster
Chapter 21: An Ode to Wisdom: Got, Don’t Got, Borrowed, and Sought – Elizabeth (Bessa) Whitmore
Chapter 22: The University and Its Political Economy: An Academic Callings Interview – Joel Bakan
Part 5: Re/generating Publics: Calls to Collectivity
Chapter 23: Exploits in the Undercommons – Alison Hearns
Chapter 24: Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy, and the Co-operative University – Len Findlay
Chapter 25: The University Public and Its Enemies – Frank CunninghamChapter 26: Reflections on Teaching and Learning – Margaret-Ann Armour
Chapter 27: Offside: Playing Hockey at the University of Saskatchewan – Glenis Joyce
Chapter 28: Making the University Work for Communities – Barbara Neis
Chapter 29: Recovering the University as a Collective Project – Janice Newson
About the Authors
Biography
Janice Newson is Professor Emerita in the Department of Sociology at York University.
Claire Polster is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Studies at the University of Regina.
"Editors Janice Newson and Claire Polster have achieved a rare and delicate balance in their editorial direction, where personal narratives, rather than breaking up or obscuring the larger picture, speak to the complexity,the tensions, and the shifting ideals extant in the Canadian university."— Canadian Journal of Communications
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