The University Becoming Perspectives from Philosophy and Social Theory

Søren S.E. Bengtsen is Associate Professor in higher education at the Department of Educational Philosophy and General Education, Danish School of Education (DPU), Aarhus University, Denmark. Also, at Aarhus University, he is the Co-Director of the research centre ‘Centre for Higher Education Futures’ (CHEF). Bengtsen is a founding member and Chair of the international academic association ‘Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society’ (PaTHES). His main research areas include the philosophy of higher education, educational philosophy, higher education policy and practice, and doctoral education and supervision. Bengtsen’s recent books include The Hidden Curriculum in Doctoral Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, co-authored with Dely L. Elliot, Kay Guccione, and Sofie Kobayashi), Knowledge and the University. Re-claiming Life (Routledge, 2019, co-authored with Ronald Barnett), The Thinking University. A Philosophical Examination of Thought and Higher Education (Springer, 2019, co-edited with Ronald Barnett), and Doctoral Supervision. Organization and Dialogue (Aarhus University Press, 2016).

Sarah Robinson is an Associate Professor in the Center for Educational Development at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is an Educational Anthropologist interested in the role of higher education and the purpose and future of the university.  Her research spans curriculum reform, policy in practice, ethnographic methods, teacher agency and enterprise education. She has a strong international profile and has published in The Thinking University; A Philosophical Examination of Thought and Higher Education Springer (Bengtsen, S. & Barnett, R.; 2018) and The Idea of the University: Volume 2 – Contemporary Perspectives. Peter Lang (Peters, M. A., & Barnett, R. 2018), as well as being a co-author on Teacher Agency; An ecological approach Bloomsbury (Priestley, Biesta & Robinson; 2015). Sarah is on the board of the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society (PaTHES) and arranges conferences, webinars, and online discussions that bring together a range of international scholars interested in Higher Education and its reforms. Currently she is working to design ‘a pedagogy for change’ by combining an exploration of academic identity with learning from enterprise education.

Wesley Shumar is a professor in the Department of Communication at Drexel University. His research focuses on higher education, mathematics education, and entrepreneurship education. His recent work in higher education focuses on the spatial transformation of American universities within the consumer spaces of cities and towns. From 1997 to 2018 he worked as an ethnographer at the Math Forum, a virtual math education community and resource center. He continues to do research into the use of online spaces to support mathematics education. He is author of College for Sale: A Critique of the Commodification of Higher Education, Falmer Press, 1997, and Inside Mathforum.org: Analysis of an Internet-based Education Community, Cambridge University Press, 2017. He co-edited, with Joyce Canaan, Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University, Routledge/Falmer, 2008. He also co-edited,  with K.Ann Renninger, Building Virtual Communities: Learning and Change in Cyberspace, Cambridge, 2002.