"End the University"

Mark Taylor's call to radically restructure the contemporary university (abolishing traditional department divisions & tenure, etc.) generated impassioned and not-entirely-self-interested comment in yesterday's Times letters section.

Tenure does offer protection for free thinkers, though I'm not sure how many of my colleagues actually take advantage of that freedom. And indeed, it's too easy for Know-Nothings to poke ignorant fun at obscure-sounding research that they don't understand. Above all: the bottom line should be driven by intellectual, not financial, considerations. Most of the "reforms" currently sweeping campuses like mine clearly are not.