A Crisis of Mistaken Identity: The Ethical Insufficiency of the Corporate University Model

Today, universities and their administrators increasingly see themselves through the eyes of a corporate university model that defines the university as a business and asserts that it is best understood in strictly economic terms. Although business perspectives have much to offer university leaders, this article argues that the nonprofit university in general, and the Catholic university in particular, loses something central to its identity when the for-profit corporation becomes the defining metaphor for its daily operations and long-term planning. After defining the three key characteristics of the corporate university model as the economic reductionism of students and faculty, the commodification of university services, and a deference to competition in internal structures, the article identifies inherent contradictions between each of these features and the theological interpretation of economic life advanced by Catholic social teaching. The article then explains how these contradictions leave the Catholic university with a frustrated telos when it embraces the corporate university model, before articulating four strategies Catholic universities can employ to resist corporatization and navigate a potential crisis of mistaken identity.