The Autocratic Academy

“A root cause of higher education's spiraling crises is a governance system that’s radically antidemocratic. This book is among the few to attack the problem directly and is nearly alone in breaking with a century of failed compromises with academic autocracy. If you’re looking for a fascinating, easy-to-read organizational history or a deep solution to current university problems that uses the master’s corporate tools to dismantle the master’s house, this book is for you.” - Christopher Newfield, author of The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them

“Through an erudite history of corporations and American higher education, Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn pillories the notion that corporatization rather than autocratic rule is responsible for wrecking universities and especially shared governance. This learned, thoughtful, and provocative analysis will be useful to faculty everywhere concerned with what the powers governing higher education have become, and might be.” - Wendy Brown, Institute for Advanced Study

"The book is extraordinarily important at precisely this moment when we need to think seriously about how dangerous our institutions’ bylaws are and how devastating it is that we never found a way to give shared governance doctrinal heft or to enshrine faculty control over curricula into law. The path to Commonwealth University—the name Kaufman-Osborn gives to his imaginary member-incorporated institution of higher education—is murky, but we can and should start to renegotiate our governance rules." - Jennifer Ruth, Academe

"The Autocratic Academy does not just critique the present condition of higher education in the United States; through its stories of resistance and its vision of an alternative, it gives readers something else to want. These glimpses of flourishing show us what the health of the body politic might look like. We can begin our convalescence now." - Joel Alden Schlosser, American Political Thought

“The strength of Kaufman-Osborn’s book is its ability to demonstrate that the authoritarian corporate structure is only one way to legally incorporate an academic institution. . . . This is a compelling book and one that is more necessary now than ever before.” - Isaac Kamola, Political Science & Politics

“The Autocratic Academy, provides a successful critique of the limitations of shared governance within the current model of higher education. His arguments suggest that the corporate governance of the academy must be reimagined.”

“The Autocratic Academy is a powerful contribution to a growing literature on contemporary higher education in the United States.”

“The Autocratic Academy offers wide-ranging and persuasive arguments about the need to free institutions of higher education from rule by undemocratic governing boards. . . . Kaufman-Osborn advises that a different type of university is possible if we change its corporate structure. With this analysis, I am optimistic that we can summon our reserve to remake our institutions.”

“The brilliant promise of Kaufman-Osborn’s book . . . lies in offering an alternative model grounded in American history that might inform practical appeals. . . . Kaufman-Osborn provides a compelling historical narrative that could become a useful resource in struggles for change.” - Michael W. McCann, Political Science & Politics

"Timothy Kaufman-Osborn outlines with great lucidity what’s lacking from today’s repetitive critiques of the 'corporatized' university." - Adam Sitze, Cultural Critique

"Kaufman-Osborn brings into view not only problems besetting universities, but also new solutions." - Joshua Barkan, Cultural Critique

"Kaufman-Osborn’s unusual book urges and equips us to renounce the rumor that progress expresses itself only in that which is new." - Michael Banerjee, Cultural Critique