Barrett J. Taylor

Quasi-Markets in U.S. Higher Education: The Humanities and Institutional Revenues

We conceptualize colleges and universities as embedded in quasi-markets, meaning competitive sites created by policy, that disfavor the humanities. We therefore posit that increased revenues from a quasi-market predict institutional de-emphasis of the humanities. Results indicate that private colleges and universities follow this pattern while public institutions do not.

Rise of the Science and Engineering Postdoctorate and the Restructuring of Academic Research

Since the 1980s the number of postdocs employed at U.S. research universities has increased dramatically as has the importance of postdocs to academic research. Growth in postdoc employment has coincided with increased dependence on external research funds. Using panel regression analysis, this article explores the organizational characteristics associated with the tendency to employ postdocs and the relationship between postdoc employment and dependence on external research funds.

Organizational Segmentation and the Prestige Economy: Deprofessionalization in High- and Low-Resource Departments

Research often considers vertical stratification between U.S. higher education institutions. Yet differences also exist within higher education institutions, which we term “organizational segmentation.” We understand organizational segmentation as a consequence of the external “prestige economy,” which favors research revenues from high-resource science and engineering fields relative to instructional revenues collected by low-resource humanities departments. We use qualitative data from 83 interviews with faculty in high- and low-resource departments to examine how organizational segmentation, academic work, and professionalization are shaped by external and internal resource pressures. We find that deprofessionalization has occurred in different ways for faculty in high- and low-resource academic units. Faculty in high-resource units, like Brint’s (1994) “expert” professionals, depend on external research resources and shape their careers accordingly, whereas faculty in low-resource units rely upon teaching revenues distributed by campus administrators.

The Field Dynamics of Stratification Among US Research Universities: The Expansion of Federal Support for Academic Research, 2000–2008

This chapter applies Mettler’s (2011) concept of the “submerged state” to understand the role of competition for research and development (R&D) funding in the stratification of universities in the US. Universities are conceptualized as members of a field whose contours are shaped by R&D policy. Analysis of data from 2000-2008 shows that, as the research policy environment has changed, patterns of stratification among public universities have shifted. The number of “middle class” public universities declined, while the “striving” group grew slightly and the lowest-resource group expanded notably. The group of elite public universities and all groups of private universities changed minimally. While policy changes appear associated with increased stratification, then, this association seems more pronounced for some (e.g., low- and moderate-resource public) universities than for others. Elite universities may use other resource bases – such as endowments – to maintain positions in evolving status hierarchies.

Responses to Conflicting Field Imperatives: Institutions and Agency Among Evangelical Christian Colleges

This multi-site qualitative study focuses on evangelical Christian colleges, which sit at the juncture of the institutionalized fields of religion and higher education. Because widely held norms and reward structures characterize institutionalized fields, these two social spheres stand ripe for conflict with one another. I conceptualize field-level conflicts by drawing on “classic” institutional theory. I illuminate campus officials’ responses to field-level conflicts using recent innovations in the neo-institutional tradition that emphasize agency, strategic action, and field-level hierarchy. Findings therefore both describe these colleges as organizations and refine emerging concepts in neo-institutional theory.

Ordering the global field of academic science: money, mission, and position

ABSTRACT Researchers have identified the emergence of a global field of academic science. In order to understand the dynamics of this field, this study used latent profile and regression techniques to analyze data gathered for a sample of 114 research universities from around the world. Sociological theory informed the framing and conceptualization of the study. Results demonstrated that leading research universities emphasized different areas of science, that science emphasis was patterned by geographic region, and that region, resource levels, and science emphasis all predicted status in the field. Implications for theory and future research were discussed.

Phil Knight and the Public Purposes of Higher Education

Philip H. Knight, co-founder of Nike, Inc., pledged

The Crème de la Crème: Stratification and Accumulative Advantage Within US Private Research Universities

400 million to Stanford University last year (Gioia, 2016; Stanford University, 2016a). The gift will partially endow a

Affiliated Nonprofit Organizations: Strategic Action and Research Universities

750 million fund intended to support 100 graduate students per year, with awards typically lasting for three years. The resulting Knight–Hennessy Scholars program will be the largest fully endowed scholarship program in the world (Stanford University, 2016b). This is great news for Stanford and a small group of high-ability students, but it is also emblematic of the serious, systematic inequities that plague our higher education system. This inequality is, to some degree, a function of a tax code blind to the disparate resources and educational missions of higher education institutions. New policies may be needed if higher education leaders wish to align resources with broader access imperatives. Mr. Knight’s generosity is, of course, to be admired; he need not have donated the money to higher education. There are other sectors deserving of charitable contributions. Many of these other areas, however, do not face the same cost pressures as higher education. Archibald and Feldman (2011) and others have demonstrated that most universities face persistently rising costs. Research universities such as Stanford are particularly prone to sharp cost increases due to the expense of materials, facilities, and expert labor. Using one’s personal fortune to offset the growing costs of academic excellence is admirable, and Mr. Knight’s choice to donate to a core academic function is also to be celebrated. He had previously devoted much of his philanthropy to college athletics, particularly the University of Oregon’s Fighting Ducks, making him “the most impactful booster in college sports” (Peter, 2014). By choosing to support graduate education rather than auxiliary operations that often drain institutional coffers (Desrochers, 2013), Mr. Knight has embraced higher education’s core academic mission and endorsed priorities that make strategic sense.

Patents and University Strategies in the Prestige Economy

This chapter examines how changing field conditions for US private research universities relate to stratification and accumulation of economic and cultural capital at a handful of elite institutions. We used latent profile analysis to identify and describe subgroups of institutions by endowment holdings and enrollment demand, and drew on descriptive data to examine how levels of resources within these subgroups changed over time. Findings indicated that by restricting seats and recruiting high-scoring students, a small number of private research institutions maintained their position, using these gains along with growth in endowment investments to leverage additional resources.