Academic Fads as a Practical and Ethical Challenge in Higher Education
This paper examines the phenomenon of "academic fads" — the periodic adoption of externally derived management philosophies by higher education institutions. Drawing on Birnbaum, Sunstein, Pondiscio, Srikianthan and Dalrymple, and Donaldson, the paper traces how corporate management trends infiltrate university administration, follow a predictable life cycle of adoption and abandonment, and ultimately impose practical and ethical costs. Key concerns include the treatment of students as test subjects for unproven reforms, threats to academic freedom, cognitive biases among administrators, and the mismatch between business-oriented management strategies and the distinctive values of higher learning. The paper argues for greater critical scrutiny before adopting sweeping changes and calls for a return to greater institutional independence.
- Introduction: External Pressures and the Academic Fad: How social and financial pressures generate academic fads
- Defining the Academic Management Fad: Birnbaum's characteristics distinguishing fads from real change
- Cascade Effects and Reputational Pressures: Sunstein on how academics follow management bandwagons
- Ethical Costs: Students, Curriculum, and Academic Freedom: Students as guinea pigs and threats to academic freedom
- The Life Cycle of Fads and the Quality Management Case: TQM adoption, failure, and the fad life cycle
- Management Education and the Problem of Universality: Donaldson on theory-practice gaps and universality claims
- Conclusion: Toward Greater Independence and Critical Scrutiny: Call for critical reflection and institutional independence
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What makes this paper effective
- Synthesizes multiple scholarly sources coherently, weaving together Birnbaum, Sunstein, Pondiscio, Srikianthan and Dalrymple, and Donaldson into a single sustained argument rather than treating each as a separate summary.
- Grounds abstract claims in concrete examples, such as the 22% adoption rate of TQM among public institutions versus 6% among private ones, lending empirical weight to the argument.
- Balances critical analysis with acknowledgment of complexity — recognizing that external political pressures sometimes leave administrators little choice — which prevents the argument from becoming one-sided.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective source integration through comparative synthesis. Rather than proceeding source by source, the writer layers multiple authors' arguments to build a cumulative case: Birnbaum identifies the fad's life cycle, Sunstein explains the social mechanism (cascade effects), Pondiscio names the ethical harm, and Srikianthan and Dalrymple provide a detailed case study. This technique shows how a literature review can function as unified argumentation rather than annotation.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a broad framing of higher education's adaptation pressures before narrowing to Birnbaum's definition of the academic fad. It then introduces Sunstein's cascade-effects mechanism, pivots to Pondiscio's ethical critique, returns to Birnbaum's life-cycle model for empirical grounding, uses Srikianthan and Dalrymple's Quality Management case as a sustained illustration, and closes with Donaldson's management-education angle before synthesizing toward a resolution. The conclusion is brief but ties the argument back to the introduction's opening tension.
Introduction: External Pressures and the Academic Fad
The notion of academic transformation has long permeated discussions on higher education in America. As culture, economy, and political pressures have shifted, so too have the demands and imperatives felt by the educational community to adapt where appropriate. This challenge has created an ongoing demand for universities to develop new ways of approaching new learning problems, new paradigms for promoting the values of any given discipline, and new points of focus as they relate to meeting student needs. Likewise, the financial realities of higher education have had an impact on this discussion, promoting consideration of how we should define the university, how higher education should regard its role in relation to the student "customer," and how broad institutional changes can be made without upsetting the fundamental values of higher learning.
The discussion here considers a significant dilemma that has emerged in the critical evaluation of this challenge — namely, the nature of the "academic fad." This is often the best way to characterize the sweeping and temporal changes that may occur throughout the university system as it attempts to address the challenges of social change and shifting philosophies. At times, academic fads are the stimulus for more appropriate and long-standing changes. At others, they can be an impediment to more meaningful and necessary change. The discussion that follows works to resolve this dilemma, with a particular focus on the ethical implications of academic fads.
This discussion begins with Birnbaum's (2000) analysis of the so-called "academic fad," which arises from the array of pressures imposed upon educational institutions from outside the system. According to Birnbaum, "institutions of higher education are always under pressure to become more efficient and effective. In response, many have attempted (either voluntarily or under mandate) to adopt new management systems and processes that were originally designed to meet the needs of (presumably) more efficient business or governmental organizations" (p. 1). Accordingly, the university system adopted an approach not unlike the corporate structure of America as the two developed in tandem. According to Birnbaum's assessment, more than two dozen management philosophies co-opted from the business sphere passed through the halls of America's college administrative offices between 1950 and 1990 (Birnbaum, p. 1). A simple consideration of the number of shifts in perspective that took place over that time demonstrates that very few of these management approaches manifested as a lasting or meaningful framework.
This is the focus of Birnbaum's research, which ultimately demonstrates that there is a serious ethical consequence to the kneejerk adoption of management "innovations" at the academic level. This is tantamount to shortsightedness and mismanagement, and can have lasting effects on the university experience for students, educators, communities, and the professions shaped by our schools. Birnbaum's primary argument extends from the observation that universities have largely used corporations as a model for management decisions, yet lack the same latitude for handling the complexities of implementation that corporations possess.
Works Cited
Birnbaum, R. (2000). The life cycle of academic fads. The Journal of Higher Education, 71(1).
Birnbaum, R. (2000). Chapter 7: Managers and fads. Management Fads in Higher Education.
Donaldson, L. (2002). Damned by our own theories: Contradictions between theories and management education. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 3(1), 96–106.
Pondiscio, R. (2010). Specializing in educational fads. The Core Knowledge Blog.
Shu, G. (2009). Opinion: How academic fads harm research. The Tech.
Srikanthan, G. & Dalrymple, J. (2003). Developing alternative perspectives for quality in higher education. International Journal of Educational Management, 17(3), 126–136.
Sunstein, C. R. (2001). Foreword: On academic fads and fashions. Michigan Law Review.
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