Rate My Professor Daniel Saunders

Daniel Saunders serves as Associate Professor and Chair of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies within Florida International University’s College of Arts, Sciences, and Education. His academic specialty is higher education, with research interests centered on neoliberalism, ideology, faculty labor, and unionization. Saunders’ scholarship critically interrogates the neoliberalization of postsecondary education, exploring how market logics shape teaching practices, student identities, research methodologies, and institutional structures.

Saunders has an extensive publication record in top-tier journals. Key works include “Mirror on the Field: Gender, Authorship, and Research Methods in Higher Education's Leading Journals” (Journal of Higher Education, 2018), “Resisting the Neoliberalization of Higher Education: A Challenge to Commonsensical Understandings of Commodities and Consumption” (Cultural Studies ⇄ Critical Methodologies, 2017), “Against 'teaching excellence': ideology, commodification, and enabling the neoliberalization of postsecondary education” (Teaching in Higher Education, 2017), “Giving account of our (mobile) selves: embodied and relational notions of academic privilege in the international classroom” (Teaching in Higher Education, 2019), and “Critical Quantitative Research: Foreclosing Criticality within Education” (Critical Education, 2022). Additional significant publications encompass “Neoliberal Ideology and College Students Developing a Customer Orientation While in College” (Critical Education, 2017), “‘How We Know What We Know’: A Systematic Comparison of Research Methods Employed in Higher Education Journals, 1996−2000 v. 2006−2010” (Journal of Higher Education, 2015), “Gender and Realized Educational Expectations: The Roles of Social Origins and Significant Others” (Research in Higher Education, 2013), and “Online Disclosure: An Empirical Examination of Undergraduate Facebook Profiles” (Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 2008). His contributions have influenced discussions on ideological influences in higher education policy and practice.

Saunders has earned recognition through awards from FIU’s College of Arts, Sciences, and Education, including a Research Award in 2018 from the Leadership and Professional Studies department and Service Awards in 2019, 2020, and 2021.