Take Your Time: The corporate university steals it -- let's grab it back

While much has been written on the corporatization of universities, its effect on time begs further attention: Corporatization has sped up the clock. A 2001 survey conducted by MIT compared university faculty and CEOs. Seventy-eight percent of faculty members reported that "no matter how hard they work, they can't get everything done" compared with 48 percent of CEOs, and 62 percent of faculty reported that they "feel physically or emotionally drained at the end of the day" compared with 55 percent of CEOs. What is it about the university that makes people feel unable to cope? It speaks volumes that Harry Lewis and Philip Hills, in Time Management for Academics, deem it necessary to state that "we have a right to health" and "we have a right to a private life, to a family life, to some waking time on personal projects (even to keep up with the mundane necessities of existence: getting ourselves housed, clothed, and fed, paying bills, attending to basic maintenance); and so a right to limit our total working time in such a way as to allow for these activities." The fact that we need to give ourselves permission to eat, bathe, and pay bills reflects our loss of balance in the current university climate.