It’s a very specific dream, but it sounds like it’s shared by a lot of people.

In the Ivory Tower, we hear less about that part of the relationship between Higher Ed. and businesses. Those colleagues of ours who are so against the 100-year push for universities to become more vocational tend to assume that employers are the ones doing the pushing. While it’s quite possible that some managers wish for universities to produce optimised employees, many people on that side of the equation argue that they’re quite able to train employees, as long as they’re able to learn. Now, there’s a whole thing about the “talent pipeline” which might get faculty in a tizzy. But it’s not about moulding learners into employees. Like much of Higher Ed., it’s about identifying (and labeling) people who conform to a certain set of standards. Not less problematic, perhaps, but not so much of a distinction between academia and employability.