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Universities’ Engagement with Society
Universities’ Engagement with Society D Watson, University of London, London, UK ã 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Until the advent, in the late twentieth century, of company or for-profit universities, all university institutions grew in some way from the communities that originally sponsored them. These acts of foundation varied according to a range of local circumstances, in time and location. Many such founding commitments have been transformed – positively and perversely – over the ensuing years, but the familiar image of a university as somewhat separate from its community – as, for example, an ivory tower – is curiously unfaithful to the historical record. This article explores the foundation and subsequent history of types of institution around the world from the perspective of their relationship with the community, civil society, and the state, before attempting a contemporary assessment of who can claim to own the university enterprise, and with what implications.
Foundations Most university foundations had an immediate element of service to the community in their agreed mission and purpose. The idea of responsiveness to social priorities was much more central to the founding goals of their institutions than many subsequent generations of university leaders and members have come to believe. There is a pattern here, as set out in the following stages of establishment of universities. Stephen Lay’s The Interpretation of the Magna Charta Unversitatum provides an excellent overview of these developments culminating in the proposal that ‘‘an expectation of public service could be written into the Magna Charter and thus become a guideline for university administration’’ (Lay, 2004: 18–71, 109). The early foundations were specialist communities such as the late medieval colleges for poor scholars in England (Oxford and Cambridge), and for urban professionals (such as Bologna and Paris in continental Europe). Three centuries later, a similar trajectory was followed by the American colonial seminaries (many of which subsequently became expensive private schools in the United States, including the heart of the Ivy League). Lay points out that what distinguished all of these foundations from their ancient predecessors was the presumption of independence from the state, or what has subsequently become termed autonomy. After a further fallow period, the next significant wave of foundations took place in the mid- and late-nineteenth century. These grew similarly out of perceived social and
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economic needs, but in the radically different context of industrializing societies. Examples are the great Victorian and Edwardian Civic universities in the UK and the Morrill Act-inspired Land Grant universities of the American West and mid-West, leavened by specific, primarily research-based institutions on the German Humboldtian model, such as Johns Hopkins. It is often helpful to go back to the founding acts or charters to see what was intended. The illustration below is of extracts from the royal charter of what is now the University of Sheffield. Note the emphasis on practical knowledge, as well as the sense of place (Case study 1). In the next wave of development, the mid-twentieth century saw the establishment of local authority-based public systems of higher education, as in the English polytechnics, the Scottish central institutions, and American state systems (of which the archetypes are Wisconsin and the Californian Master Plan). These were equally specifically tied to expectations about relevant education and training, with a new element of ensuring both access by groups previously underrepresented, and progression. In many societies, the result was to create what came to be known as binary systems of higher education – a group of traditional university institutions contrasted with a more local, apparently more locally accountable, and apparently more responsive pattern of provision. Around the turn of the twenty-first century, this juxtaposition posed real dilemmas for policymakers dealing with the advent of mass higher education. Those with binary systems felt that they had run their course; those without them felt that the only way to re-inject mission diversity was to try to create a polytechnic-style counterpoint to unresponsive autonomous universities; others who had tried the change decided they needed to change back. These were followed by late-twentieth-century experiments in curriculum, pedagogy, and a further drive toward accessibility (such as, notably, the pioneering of open access, or admission of adults without formal qualification by the UK’s Open University and New York’s City College system, and their imitators around the world). At the same time, nations began to establish the mega-universities, as analyzed by John Daniel, making use of open and distance learning (ODL) technologies to speed up participation, and to cut costs. The Indira Gandhi National Open University, founded in 1985 had 1.4 million enrolments in 1996, and the Islamic Azad University had 1.2 million. The notion of community interest is thereby dramatically expanded.
Universities’ Engagement with Society
Case study 1 Extracts from the Charter granted by Edward VII in 1905, to convert the University College of Sheffield (founded 1836) into the University of Sheffield To provide for:
Instruction and teaching in every Faculty. Such instruction in all branches of education as may enable students to become proficient in and qualify for degrees diplomas associateships and certificates in arts pure science applied science commerce medicine surgery law and all other branches of knowledge. Such instruction whether theoretical technical artistic or otherwise as may be of service to persons engaged in or about to engage in education commerce engineering metallurgy mining or in other industries or artistic pursuits of the city of Sheffield and the adjacent counties and districts. Facilities for the prosecution of original research in arts pure science applied science medicine surgery law and especially the applications of science. (University College Charter, 1905: Paragraph 14).
However, even the experiments in ODL built upon traditional foundations. In 2007, the University of London’s external degree scheme (which celebrated 150 years of such business in 2008) supports 43 000 students in 183 countries. Finally, the latter part of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries have seen significant action on the frontier activity between compulsory education, optional tertiary provision, and the initial rungs of higher education. Examples are the UK phenomenon of higher education in further education and the vitally important American Community College network: the former, especially in the provision of intermediate qualifications such as the higher national certificates and diplomas and foundation degrees, and the latter through 2-year (when taken full-time) associate degrees. The latest descriptor of activity in this borderland is that of dual sector provision. These latter two waves of developments illustrate that as communities have changed – most recently in response to global communications – not only have existing universities had to respond, but also the acts and intentions of foundation of new institutions have also adapted.
Communities, Civil Society, and the State The big question that then arises is about how universities as institutions fit into the structure and function of public life. Various theoretical models are available, and one of the most influential conceptualizations in modern political philosophy can be used. Writing in Prussia in the early nineteenth century (a decade after Humboldt’s founding of the University of Berlin), Hegel saw a rising standard of
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collective identity, behavior, and self-realization through three circles: the family and community (or what he called ethical life), civil society, and the state. The intermediate point – of civil society – he described as follows in The Philosophy of Right (1821): In the course of the actual attainment of selfish ends – an attainment conditioned in this way by universality – there is formed a system of complete interdependence, wherein the livelihood, happiness, and legal status of one man is interwoven with the livelihood, happiness, and rights of all. On this system, individual happiness etc. depend, and only in this connected system are they actualized and secured. . . . . (para. 183) (Knox, 1952: 123).
For Hegel, the Prussian State was an ethical end-point, a proposition which it would be hard to defend today: The state is the actuality of the ethical idea. It is ethical mind qua the substantial will manifest and revealed to itself, knowing and thinking itself, accomplishing what it knows and in so far as it knows it. The state exists immediately in custom, mediately in individual self-consciousness, knowledge and activity, while self-consciousness in virtue of its sentiment towards the state finds in the state, as its essence and the end and product of its activity, its substantive freedom (para. 257) (Ibid.: 155).
The contention here is more modest: the university occupies a critical role within civil society. According to Michael Edwards of the Ford Foundation, ‘‘as a concept ‘Civil Society’ speaks to the best of us, and calls upon the best of us to respond in kind’’ – and so should the university (Edwards, 2004: 3). There is a corollary: when it becomes over-identified with the political interests of the state, it has probably lost its way. The sticking point is well-articulated by Michael Daxner, former president of Oldenburg University and post-war European Union (EU) education commissioner in Kosovo. ‘‘East of Vienna,’’ he has said, ‘‘the role of universities is in society-making, not state-making.’’ Universities are needed, he says ‘‘because of our dangerous knowledge.’’ At a conference of the European University Association and the American Council of Education in 2004, he went on to explain how this priority can easily become masked: No wonder that most of the harmonizing structures in higher education refer to pure scholarship, administration, government, and institutional autonomy, whereas the basic notions of the university as the ‘lead institution’ in civil society – republican legitimacy, democracy, and citizenship – are rarely included in modern concepts of academic freedom, or treated only nominally in the mission statement of universities (EUA/ACE 2004: 64).
The notion of dangerous knowledge – that is of being critical as well as supportive of activities across civil
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society leads to moral injunctions for both states and their universities. How do these work in practice? In a work on Managing Civic and Community Engagement, it has been suggested that universities relate to their communities in three main ways (Watson, 2007: 132–141).
First-Order Engagement First-order engagement arises from the university simply being there. One of the primary roles for universities is to produce graduates who go to work (perhaps in areas completely unconnected with those they have studied); who play their parts in civil society (where the evidence suggests they are likely to contribute more than if they had not been to university); who have families (and read to their children); who pay their taxes (and return a proportion of their higher-than-average incomes as graduates through progressive taxation); and who support their universities through gifts and legacies. An analysis of national cohorts in the UK summarized in the work by Schuller et al. (2004) on The Benefits of Learning has securely established that graduates are not only wealthier, but also happier, healthier, and more democratically tolerant than their non-graduate peers. Also, in this first domain, universities guard treasures (real and virtual) in their museums, galleries, and archives. They provide a safe place for the exploration of difficult issues or challenging ideas. They also supply material for a branch of popular culture (the campus novel, film, and television series). Together these features add resonance to the university as a social institution in its own right: at its best, a model of continuity and a focus of aspiration for a better and more fulfilled life; at its worst, a source of envy and resentment. First-order considerations also imply that universities should strive to behave well, to be ethical beacons. Universities can choose to behave well or badly in a number of different directions, in relation:
to applicants (and their families); to students (and their sponsors); to staff (of all kinds); to the local community (or neighbors); to the institutions of civil society (as above); to investors and supporters (the stakeholders discussed below); to government (in their role as a commentator and contributor to policy, as well as a deliverer of a public service); to global citizenship (e.g., by progressive engagement with political, economic, social, and environmental issues); and to groups of other higher education institutions (locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally).
Some of the sticking points include the following. Universities can offer misleading promotion and advice, to staff, students, and potential students, about their real performance and intentions. As powerful institutions they can undermine and intimidate their members, their partners, and their clients. They can perpetuate self-serving myths. They can hide behind specious arguments (narrow constructions of academic freedom, force majeure and the like). They can displace responsibilities, and blame others. They can fail the stewardship test (e.g., by not assessing and responding to risk, by cutting corners, or by failing to safeguard their assets). They can be bad neighbors. Above all, they can fail to tell the truth to themselves at least as easily as failing to tell the truth to others.
Second-Order Engagement Second-order engagement is generally structured and mediated by contracts. In this domain, the university produces graduates in required disciplines and professional areas (whether directly or indirectly required to do so). It responds to perceived needs for particular skills, or for professional updating, or to more general consumer demand for courses in particular subjects. It supplies services, research and development, and consultancy at either a subsidized or a for-profit rate. The university may run subsidiary businesses – some as spin-outs or joint ventures, others in the service sector of entertainment, catering, conference-organizing, or the hotel business. Also, in this domain, the university is often an important local and regional economic player. It supplies employment – from unskilled occupations to the highly skilled. It provides an expanded consumer base, as students and staff are attracted to the institution and its locality. The university offers a steady, well-indemnified customer for goods and services. It is a source of development, such as of buildings, amenities, office space, and green spaces, although this has its downsides, like controversy over planning, car-parking, congestion, or studentification (the perceived takeover by temporary student residents of streets and neighborhoods, as well as the potential displacement of local residents from low-paid jobs). The first domain affects the second in some complex and significant ways. The university, as a kind of moral force, is expected to behave better than other large organizations (which are similarly concerned about the bottom line).
Third-Order Engagement Third-order engagement relates to commitments between the university and its members. Universities are voluntary communities: around the world, they are rarely part of the compulsory educational
Universities’ Engagement with Society
infrastructure of the state. Thus, they should not be regarded as agents of the state in creating citizens or subjects. This is not to say, following the precepts of first-order relationships, that universities do not play a role in ensuring social cohesion, in promoting community solidarity, and in problem-solving for policymakers and practitioners of all kinds. University members have a similar set of obligations as individuals; this is the dimension of academic citizenship. To be a full member of a university requires more than completing basic, obvious tasks. For traditional academics, this has meant collective obligations: to assessment, to committee membership, and to strategic scoping. There is a growing body of literature about such professional academic practice. Since the late twentieth century, such practice has been recognized as no longer belonging exclusively to the ranks of the faculty. The teaching, research, and service environments are increasingly recognized as being supported and developed by university members with a variety of expertise (e.g., finance, personnel, estates, libraries, and information and communications technology), each with their own spheres of professional competence, responsibility, and recognition. At the heart of academic citizenship is the concept of membership. As consumers, students have entitlements and expectations. Both students and staff have responsibilities, along with all of their rights, within the community. Such responsibilities include the following: a special type of academic honesty, structured most
clearly around scientific procedure; reciprocity and honesty in expression, for example,
avoiding plagiarism by accurately and responsibly referring to other people’s work within one’s own; academic manners, such as listening to and taking account of other people’s views; self-motivation and the capacity for independent learning, along with learning how to learn; submission to discipline (most clearly in the case of assessment – for both assessors and the assessed); respect for the environment in which members of the college or university work; and adherence to a set of collectively arrived at commitments and policies (on equalities, grievances, harassment, etc.).
Who Owns the Modern University? According to the conventions of corporate governance, organizations are governed in the interests of either shareholders (the institutions, groups, or individuals who own the shares – and expect dividends) or stakeholders (the individuals and groups, including the staff – whose interests might
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be affected by aspects of the organization’s performance). To the frustration of several commentators, most universities are neither shareholder nor stakeholder institutions. On one end of a spectrum, institutions with the university title may be wholly for-profit institutions, especially in jurisdictions where the title is relatively unprotected by law. At the other end, they may be unmediated emanations of the apparatus of the state. However, in the vast center–ground, they are unashamedly sui generis, with, as Lay says, institutional autonomy lying at the heart of the conception of the modern university. In these circumstances, who owns the university (or pieces of it) or thinks that they do? There are several potential candidates. The state, directly and indirectly, is invariably a major funder. It will also claim to represent the people’s share by investing the proceeds of taxation. However, attempts to co-opt universities into politically influenced national priorities is, as Daxner warns, dangerous. Nor is it likely to work. Early results from a 15-country project on the role of universities in the transformation of societies would urge caution on the more aggressive advocates of higher education and the national interest. Brennan et al. (2004) find, in general, a relatively weak role for higher education in stimulating economic change, complex and contradictory influence on political change, and a social role that is at least as much about reproduction as about transformation. Other big investors may be other public services, the professions, business, and employers, including through sponsorship and purchase of student places. The professions are a particularly interesting case. They were in at the beginning of the modern European university (law at Bologna; theology at Paris), and they played their part in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century expansion of the system (science and technology in the civics – especially engineering throughout the Commonwealth, and beyond – and more recently the addition of health professions to the traditional formation of doctors of medicine). Then there is the public more generally, especially as refracted through the media. There are contrasts between cultural roles of universities and colleges in different national contexts: in the United States, they are more loved and respected than may be deserved; in Australia and the UK, they stimulate more opprobrium than is objectively fair. This picture may, however, be changing, as US higher education is hitting – almost for the first time – a combination of cuts in public subsidy, consumer resentment, and consumer debt. So far, the various communities which interact with and within the university have been outlined. But probably most important in the historical sense are the members of the university. Here a degree of detachment and self-knowledge is required. As Gordon Graham concludes his study of The Institution of Academic Values,
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‘‘when it comes to debates and disagreements about their own affairs, universities are as prone to self-protecting flights of unreason as any other institution’’ (Graham, 2005: 280). To describe all these as stakeholders is by no means straightforward. Stakeholder, is one of those words which has almost exactly the opposite meaning now, since when it was originally coined. The stakeholder used to be the person who held the coats – and the prize-money – while the fight was on; the notion was one of scrupulous disinterest. Stakeholders need to understand that if they are to live up to the modern designation (as having invested something themselves), they have to put something at risk. A rigorous stakeholder analysis from the perspective of the university would throw up some surprising results. Questions that arise include the following: whose are the stakes on the table (really) in the sense of sharing risk? And who can most effectively (i.e., legitimately as well as logically) claim to hold the third party stake (the celebrated people’s money) on behalf of the community as a whole? The politicians would like to claim the latter is theirs – through democratic validation – although they too can fail the stewardship test.
Case study 2 The Talloires Declaration (2005)
Expand civic engagement and social responsibility programs
The Challenge of Engagement What are the implications of this analysis for universities in the early twenty-first century? One response, as set out in Iacobucci and Touhy’s Taking Public Universities Seriously has been to try to establish systematic compacts between universities and all of their stakeholders, including the government (Iacobucci and Tuohy, 2005: 11–19). The UK’s National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (the Dearing Committee of 1996-97) tested this approach – some would say to destruction (Watson, 2007: 18–28). Another response has been to rediscover the role of universities and colleges as fully engaged members of their communities. An emphatic lead has been taken here by the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU). According to the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), ‘‘engagement is [now] a core value for the university.’’ In the Association’s widely circulated consultative paper (published as The Idea of Engagement: Universities in Society), this proposition was revealed as follows: Engagement implies strenuous, thoughtful, argumentative interaction with the non-university world in at least four spheres: setting universities’ aims, purposes and priorities; relating teaching and learning to the wider world; the back-and-forth dialogue between researchers and practitioners; and taking on wider responsibilities as neighbours and citizens (Bjarnson and Coldstream, 2003: 312–313).
in an ethical manner, through teaching, research and public service. Embed public responsibility through personal example and the policies and practices of our higher education institutions. Create institutional frameworks for the encouragement, reward and recognition of good practice in social service by students, faculty, staff and their community partners. Ensure that standards of excellence, critical debate, scholarly research and peer judgement are applied as rigorously to community engagement as they are to other forms of university endeavor. Foster partnerships between universities and communities to enhance economic opportunity, empower individuals and groups, increase mutual understanding and strengthen the relevance, reach and responsiveness of university education and research. Raise awareness within government, industry, charitable, not-for-profit and international organizations about higher education’s contributions to social advancement and wellbeing. Specifically, establish partnerships with government to strengthen policies that support higher education’s civic and socially responsible efforts. Collaborate with other sectors in order to magnify impacts and sustain social and economic gains for our communities. Establish partnerships with primary and secondary schools, and other institutions of further and higher education, so that education for active citizenship becomes an integral part of learning, at all levels of society and all stages of life. Document and disseminate examples of university work that benefits communities and the lives of their members. Support and encourage international, national and regional academic associations in their efforts to strengthen university civic engagement efforts and create scholarly recognition of service and action in teaching and research. Establish a steering committee and international networks of higher education institutions to inform and support all their efforts to carry out this Declaration.
In similar vein, in September 2005 Tufts University brought together leading figures from universities across the world at their conference center in Talloires, southwest France. The meeting resulted in a draft declaration on the civic roles and responsibilities of higher education which has attracted signatories from around the world, and which is now being used to design systematic interventions, for example, on literacy (Case study 2). These are serious challenges for the leaders and managers of higher education institutions. They can absorb some lessons from history. Without a sense of obligation to the spirit of its foundation, university communities will find it hard to develop and adhere to a core set of values underlying strategic choices. There are some lessons from the needs of civil society, especially through partnerships of various kinds. This is the necessary moving picture against which the institutions
Universities’ Engagement with Society
need to test their plans. It is also the context for what Donald Kennedy has eloquently described as academic duty. And there are some lessons about restoring the traditional role of universities in the special circumstances of a globalized knowledge economy. The post-Enlightenment project of a liberal higher education requires constant reinvention to meet new needs. In the process of its early twenty-first century reinvention, engagement is indeed a core value.
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See also: Academic Freedom; Higher Education and the Transformation of Society; Universities and Regional Development.
Iacobucci, F. and Tuohy, C. (eds.) (2005). Taking Public Universities Seriously. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Knox, T. M. (1952). Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Translated with Notes. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lay, S. (2004). The Interpretation of the Magna Charta Universitatum and its Principles. Bologna: Bononia University Press. Schuller, T., Preston, J., Hammond, C., Brassett-Grundy, A., and Bynner, J. (2004). The Benefits of Learning: The Impact of Education on Health, Family Life and Social Capital. London: Routledge Falmer. Talloires (Talloires Conference on the Civic Roles and Social Responsibilities of Higher Education) (2005). Strengthening the Civic Roles and Social Responsibilities of Higher Education; Building a Global Network. Tufts University. http://www. tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/conference.shtml (accessed May 2009). Watson, D. (2007). Managing Civic and Community Engagement. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press.
Bibliography
Further Reading
Bjarnson, S. and Coldstream, P. (2003). The Idea of Engagement: Universities in Society. London: Association of Commonwealth Universities. Brennan, J., King, R., and Lebeau, J. (2004). The Role of Universities in the Transformation of Societies: An International Research Project (Synthesis Report). London: Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI). Edwards, M. (2004). Civil Society. Cambridge: Polity. European University Association/American Council on Education (EUA/ ACE) (2004). Charting the Course between Public Service and Commercialisation: Prices Values and Quality Conference. Proceedings, Turin, 3–5 June. Graham, G. (2005). The Institution of Intellectual Values: Realism and Idealism in Higher Education. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic.
Daniel, J. (1996). The Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media. London: Routledge. Kennedy, D. (1997). Academic Duty. London: Harvard University Press. National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NICHE) (1997). Higher Education in the Learning Society (The Dearing Report). London: HMSO.
Relevant Websites http://www.shef.ac.uk/calendar The University of Sheffield. www.president.tufts.edu Tufts University.
Until the advent, in the late twentieth century, of company or for-profit universities, all university institutions grew in some way from the communities that originally sponsored them. These acts of foundation varied according to a range of local circumstances, in time and location. Many such founding commitments have been transformed – positively and perversely – over the ensuing years, but the familiar image of a university as somewhat separate from its community – as, for example, an ivory tower – is curiously unfaithful to the historical record. This article explores the foundation and subsequent history of types of institution around the world from the perspective of their relationship with the community, civil society, and the state, before attempting a contemporary assessment of who can claim to own the university enterprise, and with what implications.
Foundations Most university foundations had an immediate element of service to the community in their agreed mission and purpose. The idea of responsiveness to social priorities was much more central to the founding goals of their institutions than many subsequent generations of university leaders and members have come to believe. There is a pattern here, as set out in the following stages of establishment of universities. Stephen Lay’s The Interpretation of the Magna Charta Unversitatum provides an excellent overview of these developments culminating in the proposal that ‘‘an expectation of public service could be written into the Magna Charter and thus become a guideline for university administration’’ (Lay, 2004: 18–71, 109). The early foundations were specialist communities such as the late medieval colleges for poor scholars in England (Oxford and Cambridge), and for urban professionals (such as Bologna and Paris in continental Europe). Three centuries later, a similar trajectory was followed by the American colonial seminaries (many of which subsequently became expensive private schools in the United States, including the heart of the Ivy League). Lay points out that what distinguished all of these foundations from their ancient predecessors was the presumption of independence from the state, or what has subsequently become termed autonomy. After a further fallow period, the next significant wave of foundations took place in the mid- and late-nineteenth century. These grew similarly out of perceived social and
398
economic needs, but in the radically different context of industrializing societies. Examples are the great Victorian and Edwardian Civic universities in the UK and the Morrill Act-inspired Land Grant universities of the American West and mid-West, leavened by specific, primarily research-based institutions on the German Humboldtian model, such as Johns Hopkins. It is often helpful to go back to the founding acts or charters to see what was intended. The illustration below is of extracts from the royal charter of what is now the University of Sheffield. Note the emphasis on practical knowledge, as well as the sense of place (Case study 1). In the next wave of development, the mid-twentieth century saw the establishment of local authority-based public systems of higher education, as in the English polytechnics, the Scottish central institutions, and American state systems (of which the archetypes are Wisconsin and the Californian Master Plan). These were equally specifically tied to expectations about relevant education and training, with a new element of ensuring both access by groups previously underrepresented, and progression. In many societies, the result was to create what came to be known as binary systems of higher education – a group of traditional university institutions contrasted with a more local, apparently more locally accountable, and apparently more responsive pattern of provision. Around the turn of the twenty-first century, this juxtaposition posed real dilemmas for policymakers dealing with the advent of mass higher education. Those with binary systems felt that they had run their course; those without them felt that the only way to re-inject mission diversity was to try to create a polytechnic-style counterpoint to unresponsive autonomous universities; others who had tried the change decided they needed to change back. These were followed by late-twentieth-century experiments in curriculum, pedagogy, and a further drive toward accessibility (such as, notably, the pioneering of open access, or admission of adults without formal qualification by the UK’s Open University and New York’s City College system, and their imitators around the world). At the same time, nations began to establish the mega-universities, as analyzed by John Daniel, making use of open and distance learning (ODL) technologies to speed up participation, and to cut costs. The Indira Gandhi National Open University, founded in 1985 had 1.4 million enrolments in 1996, and the Islamic Azad University had 1.2 million. The notion of community interest is thereby dramatically expanded.
Universities’ Engagement with Society
Case study 1 Extracts from the Charter granted by Edward VII in 1905, to convert the University College of Sheffield (founded 1836) into the University of Sheffield To provide for:
Instruction and teaching in every Faculty. Such instruction in all branches of education as may enable students to become proficient in and qualify for degrees diplomas associateships and certificates in arts pure science applied science commerce medicine surgery law and all other branches of knowledge. Such instruction whether theoretical technical artistic or otherwise as may be of service to persons engaged in or about to engage in education commerce engineering metallurgy mining or in other industries or artistic pursuits of the city of Sheffield and the adjacent counties and districts. Facilities for the prosecution of original research in arts pure science applied science medicine surgery law and especially the applications of science. (University College Charter, 1905: Paragraph 14).
However, even the experiments in ODL built upon traditional foundations. In 2007, the University of London’s external degree scheme (which celebrated 150 years of such business in 2008) supports 43 000 students in 183 countries. Finally, the latter part of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries have seen significant action on the frontier activity between compulsory education, optional tertiary provision, and the initial rungs of higher education. Examples are the UK phenomenon of higher education in further education and the vitally important American Community College network: the former, especially in the provision of intermediate qualifications such as the higher national certificates and diplomas and foundation degrees, and the latter through 2-year (when taken full-time) associate degrees. The latest descriptor of activity in this borderland is that of dual sector provision. These latter two waves of developments illustrate that as communities have changed – most recently in response to global communications – not only have existing universities had to respond, but also the acts and intentions of foundation of new institutions have also adapted.
Communities, Civil Society, and the State The big question that then arises is about how universities as institutions fit into the structure and function of public life. Various theoretical models are available, and one of the most influential conceptualizations in modern political philosophy can be used. Writing in Prussia in the early nineteenth century (a decade after Humboldt’s founding of the University of Berlin), Hegel saw a rising standard of
399
collective identity, behavior, and self-realization through three circles: the family and community (or what he called ethical life), civil society, and the state. The intermediate point – of civil society – he described as follows in The Philosophy of Right (1821): In the course of the actual attainment of selfish ends – an attainment conditioned in this way by universality – there is formed a system of complete interdependence, wherein the livelihood, happiness, and legal status of one man is interwoven with the livelihood, happiness, and rights of all. On this system, individual happiness etc. depend, and only in this connected system are they actualized and secured. . . . . (para. 183) (Knox, 1952: 123).
For Hegel, the Prussian State was an ethical end-point, a proposition which it would be hard to defend today: The state is the actuality of the ethical idea. It is ethical mind qua the substantial will manifest and revealed to itself, knowing and thinking itself, accomplishing what it knows and in so far as it knows it. The state exists immediately in custom, mediately in individual self-consciousness, knowledge and activity, while self-consciousness in virtue of its sentiment towards the state finds in the state, as its essence and the end and product of its activity, its substantive freedom (para. 257) (Ibid.: 155).
The contention here is more modest: the university occupies a critical role within civil society. According to Michael Edwards of the Ford Foundation, ‘‘as a concept ‘Civil Society’ speaks to the best of us, and calls upon the best of us to respond in kind’’ – and so should the university (Edwards, 2004: 3). There is a corollary: when it becomes over-identified with the political interests of the state, it has probably lost its way. The sticking point is well-articulated by Michael Daxner, former president of Oldenburg University and post-war European Union (EU) education commissioner in Kosovo. ‘‘East of Vienna,’’ he has said, ‘‘the role of universities is in society-making, not state-making.’’ Universities are needed, he says ‘‘because of our dangerous knowledge.’’ At a conference of the European University Association and the American Council of Education in 2004, he went on to explain how this priority can easily become masked: No wonder that most of the harmonizing structures in higher education refer to pure scholarship, administration, government, and institutional autonomy, whereas the basic notions of the university as the ‘lead institution’ in civil society – republican legitimacy, democracy, and citizenship – are rarely included in modern concepts of academic freedom, or treated only nominally in the mission statement of universities (EUA/ACE 2004: 64).
The notion of dangerous knowledge – that is of being critical as well as supportive of activities across civil
400
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society leads to moral injunctions for both states and their universities. How do these work in practice? In a work on Managing Civic and Community Engagement, it has been suggested that universities relate to their communities in three main ways (Watson, 2007: 132–141).
First-Order Engagement First-order engagement arises from the university simply being there. One of the primary roles for universities is to produce graduates who go to work (perhaps in areas completely unconnected with those they have studied); who play their parts in civil society (where the evidence suggests they are likely to contribute more than if they had not been to university); who have families (and read to their children); who pay their taxes (and return a proportion of their higher-than-average incomes as graduates through progressive taxation); and who support their universities through gifts and legacies. An analysis of national cohorts in the UK summarized in the work by Schuller et al. (2004) on The Benefits of Learning has securely established that graduates are not only wealthier, but also happier, healthier, and more democratically tolerant than their non-graduate peers. Also, in this first domain, universities guard treasures (real and virtual) in their museums, galleries, and archives. They provide a safe place for the exploration of difficult issues or challenging ideas. They also supply material for a branch of popular culture (the campus novel, film, and television series). Together these features add resonance to the university as a social institution in its own right: at its best, a model of continuity and a focus of aspiration for a better and more fulfilled life; at its worst, a source of envy and resentment. First-order considerations also imply that universities should strive to behave well, to be ethical beacons. Universities can choose to behave well or badly in a number of different directions, in relation:
to applicants (and their families); to students (and their sponsors); to staff (of all kinds); to the local community (or neighbors); to the institutions of civil society (as above); to investors and supporters (the stakeholders discussed below); to government (in their role as a commentator and contributor to policy, as well as a deliverer of a public service); to global citizenship (e.g., by progressive engagement with political, economic, social, and environmental issues); and to groups of other higher education institutions (locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally).
Some of the sticking points include the following. Universities can offer misleading promotion and advice, to staff, students, and potential students, about their real performance and intentions. As powerful institutions they can undermine and intimidate their members, their partners, and their clients. They can perpetuate self-serving myths. They can hide behind specious arguments (narrow constructions of academic freedom, force majeure and the like). They can displace responsibilities, and blame others. They can fail the stewardship test (e.g., by not assessing and responding to risk, by cutting corners, or by failing to safeguard their assets). They can be bad neighbors. Above all, they can fail to tell the truth to themselves at least as easily as failing to tell the truth to others.
Second-Order Engagement Second-order engagement is generally structured and mediated by contracts. In this domain, the university produces graduates in required disciplines and professional areas (whether directly or indirectly required to do so). It responds to perceived needs for particular skills, or for professional updating, or to more general consumer demand for courses in particular subjects. It supplies services, research and development, and consultancy at either a subsidized or a for-profit rate. The university may run subsidiary businesses – some as spin-outs or joint ventures, others in the service sector of entertainment, catering, conference-organizing, or the hotel business. Also, in this domain, the university is often an important local and regional economic player. It supplies employment – from unskilled occupations to the highly skilled. It provides an expanded consumer base, as students and staff are attracted to the institution and its locality. The university offers a steady, well-indemnified customer for goods and services. It is a source of development, such as of buildings, amenities, office space, and green spaces, although this has its downsides, like controversy over planning, car-parking, congestion, or studentification (the perceived takeover by temporary student residents of streets and neighborhoods, as well as the potential displacement of local residents from low-paid jobs). The first domain affects the second in some complex and significant ways. The university, as a kind of moral force, is expected to behave better than other large organizations (which are similarly concerned about the bottom line).
Third-Order Engagement Third-order engagement relates to commitments between the university and its members. Universities are voluntary communities: around the world, they are rarely part of the compulsory educational
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infrastructure of the state. Thus, they should not be regarded as agents of the state in creating citizens or subjects. This is not to say, following the precepts of first-order relationships, that universities do not play a role in ensuring social cohesion, in promoting community solidarity, and in problem-solving for policymakers and practitioners of all kinds. University members have a similar set of obligations as individuals; this is the dimension of academic citizenship. To be a full member of a university requires more than completing basic, obvious tasks. For traditional academics, this has meant collective obligations: to assessment, to committee membership, and to strategic scoping. There is a growing body of literature about such professional academic practice. Since the late twentieth century, such practice has been recognized as no longer belonging exclusively to the ranks of the faculty. The teaching, research, and service environments are increasingly recognized as being supported and developed by university members with a variety of expertise (e.g., finance, personnel, estates, libraries, and information and communications technology), each with their own spheres of professional competence, responsibility, and recognition. At the heart of academic citizenship is the concept of membership. As consumers, students have entitlements and expectations. Both students and staff have responsibilities, along with all of their rights, within the community. Such responsibilities include the following: a special type of academic honesty, structured most
clearly around scientific procedure; reciprocity and honesty in expression, for example,
avoiding plagiarism by accurately and responsibly referring to other people’s work within one’s own; academic manners, such as listening to and taking account of other people’s views; self-motivation and the capacity for independent learning, along with learning how to learn; submission to discipline (most clearly in the case of assessment – for both assessors and the assessed); respect for the environment in which members of the college or university work; and adherence to a set of collectively arrived at commitments and policies (on equalities, grievances, harassment, etc.).
Who Owns the Modern University? According to the conventions of corporate governance, organizations are governed in the interests of either shareholders (the institutions, groups, or individuals who own the shares – and expect dividends) or stakeholders (the individuals and groups, including the staff – whose interests might
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be affected by aspects of the organization’s performance). To the frustration of several commentators, most universities are neither shareholder nor stakeholder institutions. On one end of a spectrum, institutions with the university title may be wholly for-profit institutions, especially in jurisdictions where the title is relatively unprotected by law. At the other end, they may be unmediated emanations of the apparatus of the state. However, in the vast center–ground, they are unashamedly sui generis, with, as Lay says, institutional autonomy lying at the heart of the conception of the modern university. In these circumstances, who owns the university (or pieces of it) or thinks that they do? There are several potential candidates. The state, directly and indirectly, is invariably a major funder. It will also claim to represent the people’s share by investing the proceeds of taxation. However, attempts to co-opt universities into politically influenced national priorities is, as Daxner warns, dangerous. Nor is it likely to work. Early results from a 15-country project on the role of universities in the transformation of societies would urge caution on the more aggressive advocates of higher education and the national interest. Brennan et al. (2004) find, in general, a relatively weak role for higher education in stimulating economic change, complex and contradictory influence on political change, and a social role that is at least as much about reproduction as about transformation. Other big investors may be other public services, the professions, business, and employers, including through sponsorship and purchase of student places. The professions are a particularly interesting case. They were in at the beginning of the modern European university (law at Bologna; theology at Paris), and they played their part in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century expansion of the system (science and technology in the civics – especially engineering throughout the Commonwealth, and beyond – and more recently the addition of health professions to the traditional formation of doctors of medicine). Then there is the public more generally, especially as refracted through the media. There are contrasts between cultural roles of universities and colleges in different national contexts: in the United States, they are more loved and respected than may be deserved; in Australia and the UK, they stimulate more opprobrium than is objectively fair. This picture may, however, be changing, as US higher education is hitting – almost for the first time – a combination of cuts in public subsidy, consumer resentment, and consumer debt. So far, the various communities which interact with and within the university have been outlined. But probably most important in the historical sense are the members of the university. Here a degree of detachment and self-knowledge is required. As Gordon Graham concludes his study of The Institution of Academic Values,
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‘‘when it comes to debates and disagreements about their own affairs, universities are as prone to self-protecting flights of unreason as any other institution’’ (Graham, 2005: 280). To describe all these as stakeholders is by no means straightforward. Stakeholder, is one of those words which has almost exactly the opposite meaning now, since when it was originally coined. The stakeholder used to be the person who held the coats – and the prize-money – while the fight was on; the notion was one of scrupulous disinterest. Stakeholders need to understand that if they are to live up to the modern designation (as having invested something themselves), they have to put something at risk. A rigorous stakeholder analysis from the perspective of the university would throw up some surprising results. Questions that arise include the following: whose are the stakes on the table (really) in the sense of sharing risk? And who can most effectively (i.e., legitimately as well as logically) claim to hold the third party stake (the celebrated people’s money) on behalf of the community as a whole? The politicians would like to claim the latter is theirs – through democratic validation – although they too can fail the stewardship test.
Case study 2 The Talloires Declaration (2005)
Expand civic engagement and social responsibility programs
The Challenge of Engagement What are the implications of this analysis for universities in the early twenty-first century? One response, as set out in Iacobucci and Touhy’s Taking Public Universities Seriously has been to try to establish systematic compacts between universities and all of their stakeholders, including the government (Iacobucci and Tuohy, 2005: 11–19). The UK’s National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (the Dearing Committee of 1996-97) tested this approach – some would say to destruction (Watson, 2007: 18–28). Another response has been to rediscover the role of universities and colleges as fully engaged members of their communities. An emphatic lead has been taken here by the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU). According to the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), ‘‘engagement is [now] a core value for the university.’’ In the Association’s widely circulated consultative paper (published as The Idea of Engagement: Universities in Society), this proposition was revealed as follows: Engagement implies strenuous, thoughtful, argumentative interaction with the non-university world in at least four spheres: setting universities’ aims, purposes and priorities; relating teaching and learning to the wider world; the back-and-forth dialogue between researchers and practitioners; and taking on wider responsibilities as neighbours and citizens (Bjarnson and Coldstream, 2003: 312–313).
in an ethical manner, through teaching, research and public service. Embed public responsibility through personal example and the policies and practices of our higher education institutions. Create institutional frameworks for the encouragement, reward and recognition of good practice in social service by students, faculty, staff and their community partners. Ensure that standards of excellence, critical debate, scholarly research and peer judgement are applied as rigorously to community engagement as they are to other forms of university endeavor. Foster partnerships between universities and communities to enhance economic opportunity, empower individuals and groups, increase mutual understanding and strengthen the relevance, reach and responsiveness of university education and research. Raise awareness within government, industry, charitable, not-for-profit and international organizations about higher education’s contributions to social advancement and wellbeing. Specifically, establish partnerships with government to strengthen policies that support higher education’s civic and socially responsible efforts. Collaborate with other sectors in order to magnify impacts and sustain social and economic gains for our communities. Establish partnerships with primary and secondary schools, and other institutions of further and higher education, so that education for active citizenship becomes an integral part of learning, at all levels of society and all stages of life. Document and disseminate examples of university work that benefits communities and the lives of their members. Support and encourage international, national and regional academic associations in their efforts to strengthen university civic engagement efforts and create scholarly recognition of service and action in teaching and research. Establish a steering committee and international networks of higher education institutions to inform and support all their efforts to carry out this Declaration.
In similar vein, in September 2005 Tufts University brought together leading figures from universities across the world at their conference center in Talloires, southwest France. The meeting resulted in a draft declaration on the civic roles and responsibilities of higher education which has attracted signatories from around the world, and which is now being used to design systematic interventions, for example, on literacy (Case study 2). These are serious challenges for the leaders and managers of higher education institutions. They can absorb some lessons from history. Without a sense of obligation to the spirit of its foundation, university communities will find it hard to develop and adhere to a core set of values underlying strategic choices. There are some lessons from the needs of civil society, especially through partnerships of various kinds. This is the necessary moving picture against which the institutions
Universities’ Engagement with Society
need to test their plans. It is also the context for what Donald Kennedy has eloquently described as academic duty. And there are some lessons about restoring the traditional role of universities in the special circumstances of a globalized knowledge economy. The post-Enlightenment project of a liberal higher education requires constant reinvention to meet new needs. In the process of its early twenty-first century reinvention, engagement is indeed a core value.
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See also: Academic Freedom; Higher Education and the Transformation of Society; Universities and Regional Development.
Iacobucci, F. and Tuohy, C. (eds.) (2005). Taking Public Universities Seriously. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Knox, T. M. (1952). Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Translated with Notes. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lay, S. (2004). The Interpretation of the Magna Charta Universitatum and its Principles. Bologna: Bononia University Press. Schuller, T., Preston, J., Hammond, C., Brassett-Grundy, A., and Bynner, J. (2004). The Benefits of Learning: The Impact of Education on Health, Family Life and Social Capital. London: Routledge Falmer. Talloires (Talloires Conference on the Civic Roles and Social Responsibilities of Higher Education) (2005). Strengthening the Civic Roles and Social Responsibilities of Higher Education; Building a Global Network. Tufts University. http://www. tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/conference.shtml (accessed May 2009). Watson, D. (2007). Managing Civic and Community Engagement. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press.
Bibliography
Further Reading
Bjarnson, S. and Coldstream, P. (2003). The Idea of Engagement: Universities in Society. London: Association of Commonwealth Universities. Brennan, J., King, R., and Lebeau, J. (2004). The Role of Universities in the Transformation of Societies: An International Research Project (Synthesis Report). London: Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI). Edwards, M. (2004). Civil Society. Cambridge: Polity. European University Association/American Council on Education (EUA/ ACE) (2004). Charting the Course between Public Service and Commercialisation: Prices Values and Quality Conference. Proceedings, Turin, 3–5 June. Graham, G. (2005). The Institution of Intellectual Values: Realism and Idealism in Higher Education. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic.
Daniel, J. (1996). The Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media. London: Routledge. Kennedy, D. (1997). Academic Duty. London: Harvard University Press. National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NICHE) (1997). Higher Education in the Learning Society (The Dearing Report). London: HMSO.
Relevant Websites http://www.shef.ac.uk/calendar The University of Sheffield. www.president.tufts.edu Tufts University.