An essay on the American wannabes and the Norwegian quality debate

Abstract

This short discussion aims to delineate the discourse similarities between Tuchman’s landmark contribution Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate Universityand the latest White Paper Kultur for kvalitet i høyere utdanning by Norway’s Ministry of Education. Initially, it reviews in detail Tuchman’s book by means of providing a critical foil for articulating the rhetorical and political identity of an inspiring higher education institution. Next, it outlines the rudiments of the Norwegian White Paper and argues for the striking similarities between the two documents with regard to the subsisting discourses of competitiveness. The discussion concludes with a criticism of the dearth of actionable and evidence-based solutions regarding the lexis of higher education’s institutional competitiveness.