In theory, the academy is an institution of research and learning intended to advance human knowledge and educate citizens. In practice, however, the academy appears evermore as a site of prospecting, or a source of raw material for aggressive forms of neoliberal mining and extraction. Through various speculative and extractive behaviors, academic practice is increasingly managed and shaped by internal and external forces as a means of “optimizing” academic activities and making them more efficient in order to cut costs and maximize revenue. As is well documented in the growing literature of critical university studies, this prospecting is manifest in…