Penn State

Consortium forSocial Movements and Education
Research and Practice

Corporate Fantasy and the “Brave New World of Digital Education”

Corporate Fantasy and the “Brave New World of Digital Education”

Michelle Rodino-Colocino
2002
2002

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.

Article
Our Research

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.

Social Movements

Keywords

Higher Education, North America, Policy

Theme

Social Movements Within; Through; and for Public Education

Related People

Michelle Rodino-Colocino