From Stanley Fish's article in the Times:
But in the academy there is no product except knowledge, and that may take decades to develop, if it develops at all. The concept of market share is inapposite; efficiency is not a goal; and there is no inventory to put on the shelves. Instead the norms are endless deliberations, explorations that may go nowhere, problems that only five people in the world even understand, lifetime employment that is not taken away even when nothing is achieved, expensively labor-intensive practices and no bottom line. What is an outsider to make of that?
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/wanted-someone-who-knows-nothing-about-the-job/?8dpc
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Are the business of the academy and the business of running a multi-campus state university system really the same, as Fish would have us believe? Granted, the academy is a curious enterprise, and even an elite CEO would be particularly ill-suited to run a university college or department, or a professional society. However, running a university system is a far different endeavour, and it's not clear that academic experiences is a prerequisite. In fact, traits which are conducive to achievement in the academy may not be positively correlated with traits attractive for a university system president. For example, the description of the academy says nothing about instruction. Yet at a major state university, conveying core knowledge to a student body that will become the future electorate is clearly an important objective. Likewise, the university system devotes substantial resources to professional programs. These students are not trained for the academy. Only a small fraction of the university is dedicated to repopulating the academy--the rest are there for a credential, the football team, and beer pong. So it seems logical to get the best fundraiser possible (even if that person isn't an academic), the guy who can give all of these diverse (and perhaps divergent) groups the maximum resources possible.
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