van Klink, Bart; de Vries, Ubaldus --- "Introduction: re-thinking academic legal education" [2016] ELECD 963; in van Klink, Bart; de Vries, Ubaldus (eds), "Academic Learning in Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 1

Book Title: Academic Learning in Law

Editor(s): van Klink, Bart; de Vries, Ubaldus

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784714888

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Introduction: re-thinking academic legal education

Author(s): van Klink, Bart; de Vries, Ubaldus

Number of pages: 12

Abstract/Description:

In many countries across the world, the nature of the university and the purpose and function of academic education are subject to intense academic, social and political debate. The protests in cities such as Amsterdam, Hong Kong, London and Melbourne, in Spring 2015 have created a momentum to re-evaluate what the university is about and, in particular, what we want to achieve with academic education. Both students and lecturers call for a fundamental re-evaluation of the Academia. A common thread in the protests is the resistance against the managerial culture (or ‘managerialism’) prevailing at universities. According to RethinkUvA (an Amsterdam based protest movement consisting of both lecturers and students), ‘[o]utput-focused management has severely compromised the quality of both university education and research. […] What is called for, are ‘structural reforms in education and research.’ RethinkUU (based in Utrecht) argues that the ideals of the academic community are under pressure and warns that the ‘trend toward efficiency and standardization threaten the depth and versatility of academic learning and expand bureaucracy on paper and between individuals’. At the London School of Economics (LSE) in London, students and lecturers oppose the current trend of neoliberalism in the academic world: ‘LSE is the epitome of the neoliberal university. It is managed and organised around corporate interests, which promote elitism and perpetuate inequality.’ OccupyLSE has started a project called the ‘Free University of London’, proposing that students, lecturers and workers run the university together.