Universities in the Marketplace:The Commercialization of HigherEducationby Derek BokPrinceton University Press: 2003. 256 pp.$22.95, £15.95

Jeremy Gunawardena

The president of a leading university uses a US$2-billion loan to attract “world-renowned scholars, dazzling new buildings,incredibly talented students”. The presidentis fêted as an innovative academic leader,but the inexorable demands for repaymentof the loan begin a steady process ofdecline. The athletic programme is refur-bished to raise lucrative television income.The university museum is forced to divestitself of its treasures. The rights to exploitthe university’s biological research are soldto a pharmaceutical company. A for-profitInternet venture is launched selling degreesto students worldwide. Advertisements areplaced in classrooms, and company logosappear on course material. Finally, in des-peration, 100 undergraduate places are auctioned to the highest bidder.

This not-so-hypothetical nightmaremust have surprised the audience at HarvardUniversity’s 1988 commencement whenHarvard’s then president, Derek Bok,recounted it to drive home his concern aboutthe perils of commercialization. The night-mare has continued to haunt him, and hereturns to it in this humane and beautifullycrafted book. Bok believes that the intrusionof the marketplace into the university iseroding fundamental academic values, andthat we must act now to halt this decline.

The universities and marketplace dis-cussed by Bok are American,and he has noth-ing to say about the very different historiesand contexts elsewhere. But readers who arepuzzled by the attention given to universitysports, a peculiarly American obsession, willfind much here that is of universal interest.

Corporate sponsorship of research is aconcern for many readers of Nature. Bokrecounts the cases of two researchers whoseattempts to publish the results of negativeclinical trials elicited ugly harassment fromthe drug companies involved but little sup-port from their respective institutions. Suchegregious examples at least attract consider-able attention. The subtle, and sometimesnot so subtle, effects of distortion and undueinfluence are much more damaging whenthey are largely invisible.A survey of academicstudies on the effects of passive smokingfound that,of the investigators with ties to thetobacco industry, 94% claimed that it is not

harmful, whereas 87% of those without suchties claimed that it is.Conflicts of interest thatwould be considered scandalous in public lifeelicit little comment, until some unfortunateincident attracts public attention.

As Bok argues, the remedy for such ills isto enforce full disclosure of all forms of spon-sorship. It is troubling that such an obvioussuggestion, so consistent with academic values, has not already been implemented by more universities and journals (Natureadopted such a policy in 2001;see Nature 412,751). Are some academics concerned that the uninformed public may draw the ‘wrong’conclusions from such revelations? If so,the public will eventually draw the right conclusions about such academics.

The commercialization of teaching raisesa different set of issues. Bok recognizes thepotential of the Internet to enrich the learningexperience, in the face of the faculty’s resis-tance to change (a deeply cherished ‘academicvalue’). As Bok once said: “I fully intendto break my lance, as presidents have beforeme, against the wall of better teaching.”Herehe attempts to balance the wall-breakingpotential against the dangers of selling poor-quality courses to ill-informed students for a quick,and probably illusory,profit.

It is a difficult balancing act throughout.The graceful language and judicious argu-

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ments do not conceal the leaps that Bok hasto take in navigating across this ethical quagmire. Private universities charge fees.Business and medical schools run their professional programmes as lucrative,profit-making enterprises. The money may not go into shareholder’s pockets, but that maybe of little comfort to those who pay. Ifcommercial companies insist on secrecy, it is nothing compared to the lengths to whichsome academics go to shield their ideas from their own colleagues. So graceful is Bok under such pressures that the odd hesi-tation goes almost unnoticed. The NovartisDepartment of Plant and Microbial Biology— I beg your pardon, the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, Department of Plantand Microbial Biology and its $25-milliondeal with Novartis — was “probably not asignificant threat to academic values”.

Bok is acutely sensitive to the complexi-ties of institutional governance and to theincentives that drive individuals. He is lessattuned to the cultural dynamic. Science andtechnology are no longer independent, theformer to be undertaken for its own sake and the latter for profit. They have becomesymbiotic. Indeed, in some cases — quan-tum computing comes to mind — industry,not academia, has made the running. It is not profit-making that drives universitiesand companies to jostle on the intellectual commons; it is the jostling that drives the profit-making. As the example of quantum computing suggests, the pattern of inter-action between academia and industry variesfrom discipline to discipline. If the bio-sciences need lines drawn to prevent abuses,the physical and computational sciences needencouragement to foster more collaborationbetween academia and industry,not less.

As Bok points out, there is a long historyof gloomy prophecies about the decline ofthe university. None of these have come topass. Here too there is a powerful dynamic atwork. The intellectual life is a vocation, andthe university has become its only real haven.If some academics and universities makefrightful blunders, others will learn fromthem — as many will do from this thoughtfuland thought-provoking book. ■

Jeremy Gunawardena is at the Bauer Centre forGenomics Research, Harvard University,Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.

More on US universitiesWho’s in Charge of America’s ResearchUniversities? A Blueprint for Reformby Thomas J. TigheState University of New York Press, $59.50 (hbk),19.95 (pbk)

Beware of false profitsAcademics must consider the true cost of dealings with the marketplace.

Crust under foot? Protesters failed to stopNovartis president Douglas Watson giving $25million to the University of California, Berkeley.

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