Expanding the Critical Potential of Institutional Analysis: the Case of Making Academic Individuals.

Is the idea of science as a meritocracy dying with current developments in universities? A broad range of new professionals have emerged in higher education. Many of these professionals support the academic staff. Examples are grant specialists, career mentors, and emotional support specialists. These helping professionals claim to empower the academic individual in a very broad sense, but they also highlight the need to overcome his or her deficits. To address both institutional conditions and effects of this making of the academic individual, we relate three established foci of institutional analysis: (1) formal structures and management issues of organizations; (2) broader societal discourses and belief systems about leadership and individuality; and (3) practices of professionals that link organizations to their environment. In sum, our theme is the institutional making of the modern individual; our case is the academic individual in higher education; and our critical reflection directs attention towards impacts on both what it means to be a proper individual and which potential effects on science as a meritocracy need to be considered.