Subverting the Enterprise University: The Case of the Alternative Campus Tour at York University, Toronto, Canada

Abstract

For the enterprise university, the campus tour is less of a student recruitment strategy and orientation event than a marketing exercise to enhance the university’s brand in the competition for world class ranking status and private donor money. The premise of this article is that the campus tour can also be a teaching device or subversive moment where the enterprise university is subject to critical analysis on the basis of its history, day-to-day operations and educational mandate. The Alternative Campus Tour at York University, Toronto, Canada, is an example that seeks to uncover the colonial and patriarchal legacies of the campus; that embodies learning through walking; and that contains a community outreach component. It shows that the enterprise university is a project in the making that is not always impenetrable to subversion or unsympathetic to messages that run counter to its basic premise.