Professor or Professionals?

Books and articles are written with titles like The Last Professors and The End of the University. Of course these headings should not be taken literally. What they indicate are deep changes in the nature of the university and in the understanding of what is a professor. They also demonstrate a profound malaise, especially - but not only-among academics in the Humanities. In this brief paper an attempt is made to understand what is happening. Universities have been changing from institutions dedicated to specific "ends in themselves" (academic teaching and research) into organizations geared towards the production of specific forms of outcome or product (credits, diploma's, publications, etc.). Professors have become professionals in the service of such organizations. It is argued that these changes produce effects which pervert the internal aims of university teaching and research. They originate in a wider cultural, quasi-religious belief in mastery and control.