Richard D. Wolff

As a retired professor, I lived my academic career keeping to myself the personal belief that our universities (USA) were at odds with what we value most. I felt alone and did not press my opinion for fear of being misunderstood. How can a university boast that only 7% of their applicants were given admission! How can venerable institutions with such numbers not work to open their doors to this demand? Why elitism? It’s not even Neoliberal: imagine Walmart leaving 93% demand un-supplied! 2016 was an awakening to the stark realities of what our country is not. I am excited and hopeful by Joseph Mongai’s posts, not only for what Northern Italy means for “democracy at work”, but also for what Mondragon means for “democracy at school.”

Thank you Joseph Mongai, Rich Wolff, and Greylock Glass Growl!!

Leo

As a retired professor, I lived my academic career keeping to myself the personal belief that our universities (USA) were at odds with what we value most. I felt alone and did not press my opinion for fear of being misunderstood. How can a university boast that only 7% of their applicants were given admission! How can venerable institutions with such numbers not work to open their doors to this demand? Why elitism? It’s not even Neoliberal: imagine Walmart leaving 93% demand un-supplied! 2016 was an awakening to the stark realities of what our country is not. I am excited and hopeful by Joseph Mongai’s posts, not only for what Northern Italy means for “democracy at work”, but also for what Mondragon means for “democracy at school.”

Thank you Joseph Mongai, Rich Wolff, and Greylock Glass Growl!!

Leo

“…I spent ten days in Northern Italy as part of the Masters in Management – Co-operatives & Credit Unions program at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia (for more information, visit http://www.masterstudies.com/Master-of-Management-Co-operatives-and-Credit-Unions/Canada/Sobey-School/). The architecture was amazing, the people quite welcoming, and the food-of course-delicious. But what was most surprising about the visit was the sheer level of co-operation that was all around us. Italy has more co-ops per capita than any other country in the world. But in Emilia Romagna, a region in the northeast with 4.2 million people, there are more than 7,500 co-ops, two-thirds of which are worker-owned. Ten percent of the workforce is employed by co-operatives in a region with some of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe…” http://www.geo.coop/node/357

“We report from Spain on the University of Mondragon, which is fighting to preserve its teaching mission, industry-focused research and mutual governance model… In 2011, three academics – Rebecca Boden of the University of Roehampton, Davydd Greenwood of Cornell University and Susan Wright of Aarhus University – visited the university and wrote that Mondragon was a ‘highly successful’ alternative to what they called ‘neoliberalised university formations’. ‘It is possible to create and manage successful universities that do not involve the exploitation of faculty as passive employees and the treatment of students as mere clients in a fee-for-service educational scheme,’ they conclude in ‘Report on a field visit to Mondragón University: a cooperative experience/experiment’, published in the journal Learning and Teaching…” https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/inside-a-cooperative-university/2006776.article

Growl……… Growl……… Growl…….. Wonderful Presentation! Prof. Richard D. Wolff gives Testimony to the reason why Senior Scholars are so important in Higher Education. They have a great Historical Memory…… To hear Prof. Wolff speak of his experience from 1973 to 2008 makes any Professor of his generation Grateful for the voice he gives to so many of us who have dedicated our lives to an idea of the university where truth and academic freedom could be pursued freely. Go Richard, Go! Thank you and thank you Greylock Glass Growl! Prof. Gregory J. Walters