Corporate Fantasy and the “Brave New World of Digital Education”
Abstract
This article confronts the virtual university movement by analyzing its promotion in Washington state, particularly during 1998. I critically evaluate key speeches and policy proposals made by Locke and his advisors and analyze planning and promotional documents of the Western Governors University and the 2020 Commission. I also consult PricewaterhouseCooper’s Reinventing the University (1998). Analysis of these texts shows that the virtual university serves as a discursive toolbox that helps rationalize and obfuscate strategies to reorganize higher education. In so doing, the e-cademy distracts us from the less dramatic, less visible ways in which policymakers and administrators intend to finance higher education and deskill and downsize its labor force.
Abstract
This article confronts the virtual university movement by analyzing its promotion in Washington state, particularly during 1998. I critically evaluate key speeches and policy proposals made by Locke and his advisors and analyze planning and promotional documents of the Western Governors University and the 2020 Commission. I also consult PricewaterhouseCooper’s Reinventing the University (1998). Analysis of these texts shows that the virtual university serves as a discursive toolbox that helps rationalize and obfuscate strategies to reorganize higher education. In so doing, the e-cademy distracts us from the less dramatic, less visible ways in which policymakers and administrators intend to finance higher education and deskill and downsize its labor force.
