John Harp, professor of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University, is joining CAUT as a visiting scholar for the next year to study the impact of the commercialization of university research and the restructuring of post-secondary education in the wake of government cuts.

Professor Harp received his PhD in Sociology and Economics from Iowa State University where he taught for two years before taking up positions at Cornell University, the University of Michigan and Carleton University. Over the course of his career, he has been a visiting professor with the London School of Economics, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the Institute of Education at the University of London. Harp is the former director of the Muni Frumhartz Centre for Research in Education.

He has written extensively on the development and impact of private-sector partnerships between education institutions and industry, and has recently returned from Australia where he studied recent changes in post-secondary education policy.

"In both Canada and Australia there is a real and deliberate shift in policy toward promoting greater private sector involvement in post-secondary education," Harp said. "This clearly threatens the traditional public nature of universities and colleges and undermines academic freedom. I hope my work here can help CAUT challenge these developments and offer some sensible policy alternatives."