UNH president DeNardis on the Globalization of the academy.

Another critical issue is the role of higher education in the global economy. From the international trade perspective, higher education is now seen as a tradable commodity that should be regulated by the World Trade Organization. By agreement of world leaders, higher education will be included in the next round of WTO agreements. Ultimately, the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services will mean that nations will no longer have full control over higher education in their territories in ways that would be obstacles to free trade. GATS is designed to increase trade liberalization internationally.

As in the case of trading goods, advanced industrialized societies with stable higher education systems and strong entrepreneurial institutions, like the United States, are in a strong position to export higher education to developing countries. But difficult ethical problems will arise if developing countries have to ensure a trade-friendly environment for foreign higher education investors in ways that may undermine internal national values and priorities.

Educators in many nations are fearful that the jurisdictional scope of WTO and GATS regulation to align global higher education policy and practice with trade policy and practice will lead to an "ethics of the marketplace" at the expense of academic and cultural standards.

Globalization has transformed one American industry after another. In American higher education, our academic programs and our revenue streams are changing with the increase in student mobility and the freer exchange of knowledge across borders. Nevertheless, we have a moral obligation as educators to ensure that fully accessible, good quality education is available, regardless of who one is, where one is, or what one’s station in life might be, because it is indispensable for our well-being on the planet

Now that's some scary shit. DeNardis doesn't critiquie the commodification of higher ed, just kinda takes it for granted. His position that we have to all have equal access to this commodity is thus profoundly and characteristically (neo)liberal, as is the erasure of global and local educational inequality or any sense of education - teaching and learning - as work. Clearly, what he needs is some class instruction.

(Cause "We got to GET UP right now/Turn the system upside down/'sposed to be fed up right now... everybody GET UP" Same deal stands. You identify these lyrics, you get a meal.)
  ¶ 7:30 PM