Proles, entrepreneurs, or public scholars?

Faculty in higher education are socially, politically, and economically situated such that then must as individuals and collectively take a stand on the nature and future of academic life. The positions available to faculty are shaped by the vast structural changes that accompany late capitalism. Most feared is that of faculty as powerless, contingent work force; experts without position or security of tenure, always on the move, their competencies on their backs and in their laptops; competencies quickly outmoded. Another option, faculty as entrepreneurs may seem exciting to many. But that too has limitations in terms of the long-standing commitment of higher education to democratic values beyond market capitalism. A third option is to reenter public space as public scholars and there reconnect with a critical inquiry into what democracy means and how might institutions including higher education, pursue in practice, ideals suddenly found essential after September 11, 2001.