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Elizabeth Bertolino
23 September 2013
WRTG 2010
Professor Owens

Synthesis One
In the literature we reviewed for higher education, there are converging and
diverging ideas on the fundamentals and functionality concerning different types of
institutions, and whether they are successful or not. There were many ideas on how and
which ways the modern university can be improved, as well as critique on the direction it is
going. The communitarianism and neoliberalism approach to higher education will be
analyzed, as well as the middle ground found between these opposing views.
To begin, in the article Obtaining Integrity? Reviewing and Examining the Charter
Between Higher Education and Society, by Adrianna Kezar, a complete analysis of the
competing views was given. Kezar examined both the neoliberalism approach, where the
institute would be run similar to a corporation and generate profits, and the
communitarianism approach, where the institute would function similar to a community
as the name suggests. She analyzed the positive and negative aspect of each, starting with
neoliberalism. When exploring neoliberalism, she found converging ideas with Jeffrey
William's article, Deconstructing Academe: The Birth of Critical University Studies, which
recognized the productivity and lucrative potential.


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The Williams article examined a modern take on the institute where it is run similar
to a business rather than a community of education. The idea is that the competitive nature
and profitable institute results in both a more determined student and more modern,
lucrative program, helping the school overall. This idea is how higher education can have a
large potential for success if it is being run as a profitable corporation. Kezar categorizes
this as neoliberalism and recognizes the potential, but also examines the redeeming aspects
of communitarianism, the system analyzed in Linking Diversity with Educational and Civic
Missions of Higher Education, by Sylvia Hurtado.
Hurtado has diverging ideas with the Williams article, filling in the other side of the
two polar ideas Kezar examines. Hurtado argues diversity and community within a higher
education institute is essential. She emphasized how an institute should focus on providing
a diverse learning community to promote a more well-rounded student and graduate.
Along with believing higher education should work as a diverse community to improve, the
idea of adaptation and affirmative action within an institute was also a prevailing idea.
Hurtado is not the only opposition for Williams and his neoliberalistic approach, and the
article Research and the Bottom Line in Todays University, by Sarah Bonewits and
Lawrence Soley analyzes the negative impact of neoliberalism institutes beyond the ideas
Hurtado presented.
Bonewits and Solely argue how the scramble for corporate funds and research
which comes with the lucrative corporation higher education in neoliberalism is built
around creates a system which prioritizes profits over the original purpose of a university,
teaching.


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Kezar recognizes the positive and negative aspects of both the neoliberal approach
of Williams and the communitarian approach of both the Hurtado article and Bonewits and
Solely article. By recognizing both sides of the converging and diverging articles, Kezar
concludes it is the utilitarian approach found between these two ideas which is the way
higher education should function. Instead of creating one system or the other, positive
aspects can be taken from both to create a system lucrative and advanced, but also
centered around education and diversity.
Overall, whether it is a classical approach or neoliberalism, or somewhere in
between, there is obvious unrest with the current operation of institutes of higher
education. All articles made educational critique and suggestions that may offer an insight
to the future of what higher education will become.