http://rethinkuva.org/blog/2015/04/27/neoliberal-academia-vs-the-super-diverse-society/ UvA Staff for a New University Wed, 10 Feb 2016 23:45:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 http://rethinkuva.org/blog/2015/04/27/neoliberal-academia-vs-the-super-diverse-society/#comment-807 Tue, 05 May 2015 20:12:02 +0000 http://rethinkuva.org/?p=1349#comment-807 This is a powerful and brilliantly written piece. I subscribe every word of it. Thank you for formulating so well what needs to be formulated: diversity is not an issue next to all the other, really important ones. Rendementsdenken, profitability and efficiency thinking dehumanizes the university in a broad and substantial way and this becomes especially apparent regarding the problems of structural racism and sexism and the failure to create a university that reflects the diversity of our societies. These problems are in part so difficult to talk about because they are shame triggers for many. We need to start talking about our own often unconscious entanglement in and reproduction of these structures on a daily basis, regardless of our conscious and explicit political convictions. As a self-proclaimed feminist since the age of 18 and as a historian who takes the category of gender very seriously in my work, I recently took one of Harvard University’s “implicit bias” tests on gender and – guess what – I learned that I am gender biased. (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html) I truly believe that the only thing that will start making things better is to have honest and open conversations about this, including the things that make us feel uncomfortable such as our own possible advantage in the system through the workings of white or male privilege.

]]> http://rethinkuva.org/blog/2015/04/27/neoliberal-academia-vs-the-super-diverse-society/#comment-700 Sat, 02 May 2015 21:17:59 +0000 http://rethinkuva.org/?p=1349#comment-700 Great article Hilla, thank you for writing this. I’m part of the committee trying to get gender diversity taken seriously at FNWI – with very limited results. On the other hand, there is at least a committee for gender diversity. Racial diversity? We can only dream.

]]>