GRAD PROFILE

Grad says market forces threaten universities & academic freedom

By Elizabeth Frogley

Canadians are worried about the education system, as post-secondary education becomes less affordable. Colin Gilker is worried too, and sees the education system torn between the possibilities of today's information age and the pressure to commercialize.

Gilker, who recently completed a PhD in English from the University of Saskatchewan, says intellectual independence is threatened by the current economic climate. Shrinking education budgets, huge tuition increases, the growing emphasis on the student as customer, and "mainstream suspicion of academic activity" are all symptoms of the pressure on universities, he says.

"Today's information technology, and the designation of the present as the 'information age' may signal a particularly auspicious historical moment for students and teachers," Gilker says. "However, pressure to reconstruct the university in the image of the market presents a very real threat to the pure sciences, the humanities, and academic freedom."

Gilker focused his research on Canadian academic values. He says his research demonstrates the continued importance of a Marxist analysis of value in today's context of technological change. This idea of value includes not only monetary value, but other elements such as social impact.

"My dissertation maps the political forces acting to transform the Canadian university," he says.

"It argues for extending our concept of value beyond the purely economic to include aesthetic value, cultural value, and so on."

Gilker says our ideas of what is valuable and how value is determined change as society changes. The current idea that education needs to yield immediate financial benefits to be valuable is a threat to universities.

"Value is created through social interaction and exchange; therefore, what constitutes value, the connections between economic value and other social formations, is politically contested," he says.

Technology also influences ideas about value. For example, Gilker is concerned that microelectronic finance is increasing the separation between the economic and social aspects of life.

Gilker is skeptical about whether his research will influence education policy or the value people place on education.

"In universities, considerable lip-service is paid to the 'commons' at the same time as social class increasingly determines who attends and who does not attend university, and determines how debilitating their debt load will be when they finish," he says.

Gilker came to the University of Saskatchewan from the University of British Columbia.

"I came here with an abiding interest in literary theory, and the project arose out of a course in Marxist aesthetics as well as conferences on post-secondary education issues presented by the University of Saskatchewan's Humanities Research Unit," he says.

"Not least, I came here to work with Dr. Len Findlay to whom I am most grateful for his dedication to students and the discipline, and for his generosity, experience, and intelligence," Gilker concludes.