Suggested CUS Research Topics

Possible CUS research topics might include (and this is not an exhaustive list, by any means):

  • the political economy of government funding of public higher education and the impact of government budget cuts and concomitant rise in tuition costs in public universities
  • the history of public university systems nationally and internationally
  • issues of meritocracy vs. open access at public universities and the impact of those divergent ideologies on the historical and contemporary demographic make-up of public universities
  • the impact of technological changes on public university teaching and learning
  • curricular transformations and challenges, including the creation of alternative pedagogies and fields of scholarly inquiry (e.g. ethnic/gender/sexuality studies; digital humanities) and related challenges to existing curricula (e.g., the humanities “crisis”)
  • the dramatic growth in administrative hiring, costs, and business practices in public universities
  • the differential impact of budget cuts and increasing austerity in public institutions on students of color and poor and working-class students
  • neoliberal attacks over the past four decades on public institutions in general and public universities in particular by politicians and business interests intent on privatizing public goods like education;
  • the rise of contingent academic labor and its impact on the structure, function, and very purposes of public higher education
  • the history of academic unionism and analyses of its current status at public institutions
  • oppositional responses of college faculty, staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and the larger communities they serve to the funding cuts and disciplining faced by public higher education systems around the country as public demands for access have increased
  • the narrowing gauge of what is considered appropriate or acceptable curricula in public institutions and the scrutiny/surveillance of scholarship and teaching faculty and staff, not least in social media and its discourses.
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