Molding and Shaping from on High

Abstract

Molding & Shaping in this chapter is synonymous with the HEI managerial term of ‘enhancement’. Although enhancement suggests slight adjustment, as administrative informants explained the term, enhancement is less about doing things better, and more about doing better things. Molding & Shaping is derived from the economic clout gained through Hunting and Gathering, the evaluative activities of Weighing & Measuring, and provides administrative management in neoliberal universities with a ‘big picture’ view. Plans for enhancement and transformation proceed from administrative centres that have the qualities of inaccessible ‘green zones’, and consist of doing better things through creating and owning bureaucratic and pedagogic frameworks, becoming the primary source for strategic decisions, making an impact on campus life, and reshaping the professional identities of those within the university. Tertiary EAP at corporatized HEIs is often affected by these dynamics, and its very existence in organization often relies upon the patronage of administrative power. Professional identities are reshaped to meet the needs of administrative initiatives, as pedagogy is remolded to augment traditional language teaching with educational experiences. Because of the unyielding pressures of massification, by necessity the concepts of automated manufacturing processes are being applied to corporatized Tertiary-level EAP Units in order to cope with increasing student numbers and to improve pedagogy. TEAPs cease to be artisans and become a combination of pedagogic factory workers, language service technicians and/or administrative utility staff.