Blog #6 - Seeing #2

Rev, John P. Minogue uses many metaphors in his essay The Twentieth-Century University Is Obsolete to describe the state of education in liberal arts institutions. Through them, Minogue is able to argue how universities are more like corporations rather than learning institutions.

In the third paragraph, Minogue describes higher education as a "global commodity" and how similar it is to the movie industry. Much like when a company makes a movie and distributes it, universities teach their students and send them out into the world with what knowledge they have. When the students are from other countries, they bring what they were taught back to their home countries. This makes education seem like a factor in the marketing progress in globalization and adds to Minogue's belief that education is more of a commodity rather than actual learning institutions.

Minogue also compares university faculty and staff to factory workers by calling them "knowledge engineers" in the sixth paragraph. By teaching certain courses and having them arranged on various time slots, universities are able to efficiently, yet not effectively, teach many students at once. This also allows the "working professionals" to "wrap courses into a degree to be distributed in cookie-cutter institutions" for students based on their majors or intended career paths. Much like a mass assembling-line in a factory, university faculty and staff are able to churn-out numerous students in order to reach the needed graduation percentage.