CB
>>> sokol at jhu.edu 06/26/00 02:18PM >>>
It sounds like moanings of the scared professoriate that see the writing on the wall.
First, the role of universities and basic research they conduct have declined during the past decade - they have been increasingly replaced by applied research with immediate commercial applications carried by public-private outfits (e.g. a marriage of university and commercial firms). To conduct such research one does not need academic credentials (like in teaching) - research skills and familiarity with proprietary technologies will do. So why getting a PhD?
Second, the production of knowledge and technology is being increasingly taylorised. A research project might be headed by a single intellectual celebrity to give it a name, managed by professional managers who have no clue how to do research but are efficient in fundraising and keeping labour in line, and executed by intellectual proletariat (aka "cognitariat") who does the research work. Of course the role of the cognitariat is hardly an incentive to get a Phd in science or engineering, but that is not a problem. Members of the cognitariat can easily be recruited overseas, in Eastern Europe, Russia, India, or China - and if they do not speak English, that is even better, becaused they can still crunch numbers, but they are less likely to cause trouble.
So yes, changes in the mode of production of knowledge are rendering university-based credential system (aka higher education) obsolete, so no wonder that the professoriate is running scare. Soon they will be transformed into managers of intellectual property rights and foremen supervising intellectual labor, while those untrainable will be made redundant.