Ben Wolfgang writes:
"The most striking change has been an increasing number of presidents coming from backgrounds that are not academic. They're coming from law, from business, and they don't have an understanding of a commitment to the academic enterprise," said Robert Kreiser, senior program officer with the American Association of University Presidents (AAUP). "Their emphasis has to do with corporate values. More and more, unfortunately, they're seen not as educators, but as managers and fundraisers."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/21/in-academia-today-financial-savvy-trumps-curriculu/ (accessed 20120612).
Comment: This trend has been developing ever since the 1960s, but it really began to take off in the early- to mid-1990s. Faculty I speak to today are generally well aware of the extent and history of bureaucratization, because there is still good institutional, disciplinary, and professional memory among academics. Among students, however, and more dismayingly among lower-tier academic bureaucrats themselves, there is very little awareness of the fact that universities today are not much like what they were thirty years ago, to say nothing of fifty years ago. They didn't used to be nearly so corporate.