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This paper was invited as a commentary on the keynote paper for this special issue by Simon Marginson and Lili Yang. The paper begins by noting the importance of a fully balanced approach to comparison in higher education, that gives equal value and weight to Sinic and Anglo-American views by adopting a transpositional approach and also recognising the linguistic challenges involved. It then considers strengths of the Sinic approach and of the contrasting Anglo-American approach and their outcomes over history, using a frame drawn from recent work by Francis Fukuyama. Finally it turns to weaknesses on both sides, and ways in which learning from the other could make a difference. [For Marginson and Yang's, "Individual and Collective Outcomes of Higher Education: A Comparison of Anglo-American and Chinese Approaches," see EJ1323341.]

The US global leadership in science and technology has greatly benefitted from immigrants from other countries, most notably from China in the recent decades. However, feeling the pressure of potential federal investigations since the 2018 launch of the China Initiative, scientists of Chinese descent in the United States now face higher incentives to leave the United States and lower incentives to apply for federal grants. Analyzing data pertaining to institutional affiliations of more than 200 million scientific papers, we find a steady increase in the return migration of scientists of Chinese descent from the United States to China. We also conducted a survey of scientists of Chinese descent employed by US universities in tenured or tenure- track positions (n = 1,304), with results revealing general feelings of fear and anxiety that lead them to consider leaving the United States and/or stop applying for federal grants. If the situation is not corrected, American science will likely suffer the loss of scientific talent to China and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we theorize the intersectional gendered impacts of COVID‐19 on faculty labor, with a particular focus on how institutions of higher education in the United States evaluate faculty labor amidst the COVID‐19 transition and beyond. The pandemic has disrupted faculty research, teaching, and service in differential ways, having larger impacts on women faculty, faculty of color, and caregiving faculty in ways that further reflect the intersections of these groups. Universities have had to reconsider how evaluation occurs, given the impact of these disruptions on faculty careers. Through a case study of university pandemic responses in the United States, we summarize key components of how colleges and universities shifted evaluations of faculty labor in response to COVID‐19, including suspending teaching evaluations, implementing tenure delays, and allowing for impact statements in faculty reviews. While most institutional responses recenter neoliberal principles of the ideal academic worker that is both gendered and racialized, a few universities have taken more innovative approaches to better attend to equity concerns. We conclude by suggesting a recalibration of the faculty evaluation system – one that maintains systematic faculty reviews and allows for academic freedom, but requires universities to take a more contextualized approach to evaluation in ways that center equity and inclusion for women faculty and faculty of color for the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics of school choice claim support for educational options was an outgrowth of racist, segregationist views following the U.S. Supreme Court's Ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In this paper, I examine these claims by analyzing the development of the public school system in the United States and the historical records from Citizens for Educational Freedom. Founded in 1959 in St. Louis, Missouri by Martin and Mae Duggan, CEF was a grassroots school choice organization. The records contain newsletters, text from speeches and national conventions, and personal correspondence, among other relevant materials. The records help us understand the motives and mind-set of the early school choice movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US higher education accreditation agencies provide external quality evaluation for institutions and programmes to deliver quality control and assurance. Although there is ample discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of the accreditation process, this article reviews the academic literature to consider the impact that accreditation might have on the academic freedom of the teaching staff. Specifically, this article centres on how standardisation, assessments and the fundamental elements of accreditation affect academic freedom in higher education and how these might dilute academic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, academic freedom and shared governance have stood as cornerstones of higher education in the United States, but these principles face unprecedented challenges. Recent developments point to a disturbing decline in these critical values, stirring debates on the future viability of the higher education system. This study delves into the problematic trajectory of modern higher education, spotlighting the rise of corporate practices within academic institutions, the swelling ranks of university administration, and the disproportionate weight given to student evaluations in assessing faculty. These factors have converged to push academia into an unstable transition, a liminal phase fueled by external and internal forces. This study examines the evolving landscape of academic freedom within the corporatized university model. Utilizing the concept of liminality, it explores the transitional challenges faced by academia in balancing traditional scholarly values with emerging market-driven paradigms, arguing that the corporatization of universities represents a liminal phase, wherein the identity and purpose of academic institutions are in flux, significantly impacting the notion of academic freedom. The shift toward a consumer-oriented ethos endangers the foundational principles of higher education, risking substituting educational substance with the mere transaction of educational services. The study concludes by issuing a call to action for all stakeholders in higher education to acknowledge and confront these detrimental trends, thereby safeguarding the principles of academic freedom, shared governance, and the educational system's overall integrity and dynamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse around school choice often is divisive. Less understood is the effect polarization has within advocate groups. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) approach offers a systematic approach to understanding how political actors use narratives to affect policy debates. Because NPF assumes bounded relativity, the approach requires a theory of political ideology that can explain why narratives stick within certain ideological boundaries. Because Kling's three-axes model provides non-mutually exclusive character identification, it can help illuminate in-group overlap and conflict. This essay uses NPF and Kling to examine how narratives are used by various subgroups within the school choice advocacy coalition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study examined how early career faculty of color in higher education departments of educational leadership and administration across the United States were able to manage the cultural taxation associated with faculty service and achieve promotion and tenure. In the U.S., receiving academic tenure promises faculty both academic freedom and job security. This study utilizes cultural taxation as a theoretical framework to explore how faculty of color navigated service demands at their institutions. Three commonalities were found among participants: (1) being strategic about commitments to students and promotion and tenure efforts; (2) making connections between faculty workloads and motivation for pursuing promotion and tenure; and (3) believing relationships with students were a benefit during the promotion and tenure process. The results of this study indicated that successfully navigating cultural taxation helped faculty in their pursuit of promotion and tenure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US colleges and universities have operated on the belief that academics need the freedom to question received wisdom, test new pedagogical methods, and produce knowledge that can be transparently shared for the public good. However, the same institutions are increasingly engaged in competition for resources through externally imposed accountability measures, such as performance funding. This article draws upon qualitative data from a year-long ethnographic study of institutional reforms to critically interrogate the impact of performance funding in US higher education. Data depict three ways in which performance funding—and the resulting competitive pressures—negatively impact faculty's ability to impart their expertise for the benefit of their institutions: (1) a diminishment of control over the content of coursework and the curriculum; (2) a decline in shared governance; (3) and a chilling effect on scholarly inquiry and innovation. In turn, the central argument of this article is that institutional competition has the potential to undermine academic freedom and the intrinsic motivation of professors currently working in performance funding environments. This article also contends that similar policies that purport to catalyze positive learning outcomes could actually hinder the open exchange of ideas that foster a productive teaching and learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]