Policy conflicts on the move: a ‘mobilities’ case study of neoliberal postsecondary policy

Abstract

In light of multiple, dispersed forms of online civic participation, we must reconceptualize how public intervention into policy production and enactment takes place. This study examines a case of academic and operational restructuring termed ‘TransformUS’ that took place at a Canadian university in Saskatchewan from 2013 to 2014. Our analysis centers on a sequence of high profile events in May 2014 at the University of Saskatchewan, sparked by the firing of a tenured dean who publicly criticized TransformUs. We examine the mobilization of this policy conflict, and specifically, how discourses and actors were implicated in its movement, alongside articulations of neoliberalism/anti-neoliberalism and academic freedom. We analyze data posted by Twitter users (tweets), in combination with hyperlinked articles, to examine content and methods of communication. We argue that broader mobilization of TransformUs was enabled through the decontexualization of a localized conflict situation and its recontextualization as an issue of academic freedom.

Keywords:

• Program prioritization
• higher education
• social media
• education policy
• neoliberalism
• mobility

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the thoughtful comments of anonymous reviewers whose feedback improved the quality of this paper. We would also like to thank Marcia McKenzie, Naomi Maina, and Andrew Bieler for their feedback on an early draft of this manuscript.

Notes

1. For instance, within the United States, proclamations that public schools were failing were utilized to implement more privately funded school vouchers (Anijar and Gabbard 2009, as quoted in Orlowski 2011).

2. Facebook is a popular social media website where registered users construct profiles and interact with other users accepted as ‘friends.’ Twitter allows registered users to view and send short messages called tweets; default settings provide all tweeted content as public to any internet users (Twitter Privacy Policy 2014). Blogs, short for ‘weblogs,’ allow users to publish discrete posts that are informational and/or commentary-based.

3. The Twitter search engine has a (variable) maximum number of discrete tweets it is able to pull per search. In our searches, this ranged from <400 to <500 tweets per search. In order to collect all tweets referencing #TransformUS, we completed several sub-searches for this term, using either month-by-month, week-by-week, or day-by-day searches of this term, depending on tweet volume during a given time period.

4. Only #TransformUs articles are discussed as only one article was accessible through #DefendUs and echoed themes from #TransformUs. This article is footnoted within the relevant discussion.

5. See Kilian (2014) for the only accessible #DefendUs article, which also references corporatization and decreased public spending.

6. According to M. McKenzie (personal communication, December 11, 2014), a speaker at the rally called for the online posting of ‘rally selfies.’

7. Consider, for example, a series of events that took place at the University of Missouri (MU) in 2015. Unhappy with how then University President, Timothy M. Wolfe, and the MU administration handled a series of racist incidents, a student group called Concerned Student 1950 formed to hold the university accountable (Hartocollis 2017). Among other demands, the student-led group insisted that the university require racial awareness curriculum for students, faculty, staff, and administrators, hire a larger percentage of black faculty, and create a 10-year strategic plan to increase the retention rate of marginalized students (Concerned Student 1950 2015). A year later, the MU’s student newspaper reported that over half of the Concerned Student 1950’s demands had been met (Forbes 2016). Time magazine later highlighted the hashtag #ConcernedStudent1950 as one of ten hashtags from 2015 notable for their influence in amplifying news stories through social media (Waxman 2015). In the case of MU, it appears that the pairing of social media with an articulation of social justice/racism impacted the response to and movement of an educational policy conflict. It should also be noted, however, that student enrolment at MU has fallen by 35% in the two years following this incident (Hartocollis 2017).

8. Epilogue: Though the ‘TransformUs’ program was ultimately abandoned by university administration, the University of Saskatchewan continued to face budgetary challenges, particularly through sudden reductions in government funding in 2016 and 2017. The response to these cuts from the university community was very different than in 2013, likely because the provincial government provided an external enemy around which to rally. Perhaps in recognition of the ‘us and them’ dynamics that fomented opposition to TransformUs, the university appointed an internal candidate as president in October 2015. The new president, through internal and external communications, appears to have created a greater sense of campus unity, including through pay cuts to senior administration (Hill 2017). Having first-hand experience of the effects of TransformUS as a departmental administrator, the new president also emphasized departmental/collegial autonomy, stating ‘Transform US was a system that was put in place that reflected a central administration … and we’ve moved from that to a very decentralized one where the colleges make their decisions themselves …’ (quoted in Hill 2017).