Commercialization of the education of economists versus integrity of the university

Abstract

The article presents changes in the education of economists in Poland, referring in particular to the experiences of the Poznań University of Economics and Business and its institutional predecessors in the years 1926–2016. The aim of the article is to analyze the contemporary framework of the university as a commercial enterprise versus the classical integrity of the academy, related to Humboldt’s conception of a university. The analysis includes an approach to the modelling of educational programmes in economics, starting from serving the needs of the immediate business environment in the inter-war period to education according to the standards of the university which conducts research and educational activities within the system in harmony with the Bologna Process. Proposals of an analytical approach were also formulated in connection with dilemmas concerning the organization of a university and its organizational units which diff er in their substance, quality and personnel. The concluding part expresses the opinion that although transformations of academic culture are multidirectional and complex, the present times have witnessed a final dismantling of the classical academic culture and which takes on the shape of the corporate culture of businesses operating in the market economy, dominated by economic calculus and the application of competition rules. It is important to ensure that the humanistic values of science and higher education as the mainstays of universitas are not lost in the processes of rationalizing and reforming the structures of universities of economics.