Centre for Higher Education
and Equity Research (CHEER)
Imagining the
University
of the Future
Professor Louise Morley
University of Sussex, UK
www.sussex.ac.uk/cheer/
28 June, 2016
The University of the Past
•Elitism
•Exclusion
•Inequalities
28 June, 2016
The University of Today
• Diversified
• Liquified
• Expanded
• Globalised
• Borderless/ Edgeless
• Marketised
• Technologised
• Neo-liberalised
• Privatised?
28 June, 2016
Turbulence and Torpor
Caught between:


Archaism
Hyper-modernisation
Negotiating:



Nostalgia
Frenzy
Inertia
Tensions between:



Desire
Desiccation
Distributive justice
28 June, 2016
Do These Discourses Excite and Delight
You?
 Excellence
 Knowledge Economy
 Innovation and Enterprise
 Knowledge Transfer
 Teaching and Learning
 Widening Participation
 Lifelong Learning
 Employability
 Globalisation
 Internationalisation
 Civic Engagement
 Digitisation
 Economic Impact
 Quality Assurance
 League Tables
28 June, 2016
Futurology
• Are current policy discourses:
Limiting or generating creative
thinking about the future of
universities?
Commensurate with aspirations/
desires of students/ staff?
Reducing universities to delivery
agencies for government-decreed
outcomes? (Young, 2004)
28 June, 2016
Whose Imaginary?
• Neo-liberalism/ austerity rather
than academic imaginaries or
social movements?
• Who/what is currently informing
policy?
(Ball and Exley, 2009)
• What new vocabularies can be
marshalled to consider the
morphology of the university of
the future?
28 June, 2016
The University of the Future
• Is the present the future that was
imagined in the past?
• Did left/ counter hegemonic
advocates predict the scale of neoliberal/ austerity driven change?
• Did traditionalists predict the
industrialisation and massification
of higher education?
• Is the University of the Future the
University of the Past?
28 June, 2016
From Knowledge Economy to
Knowledge Recession?
• Public sector = profligate, sluggish,
self-serving, and archaic (1980s).
• Migration values, power and authority
across public/private.
• Private sector crashes (2008/9)= risk
and debt carried by public sector
(2010).
• New cast of grotesques- research
inactives, humanities, baby boomers.
• Austerity driven affective ecologies.
• Private sector = rescuer
(See Gamble, 2009)
28 June, 2016
UK Policy Futures in Turbulent Times:
From Expansion to Contraction
Denham (2008)
• Expansion of technology
Willetts/ Cable (2010)
• Innovation
• Fees/ Graduate Tax
• Research-based wealth creation.
• Reduction in HE funding/ places
Mandelson (2009)
• Diverse HE provision = Private HE/
Commodification of knowledge?
• Social justice (poorer students)
• Diversity of models of learning
• Strengthening research capacity
28 June, 2016
Dystopic Futures and Cultures of
Closure
• Callousness of prestige
• Decline in academic freedom
• Employees permanently temporary
• Job training, not education
• Teacherless classrooms
• Increased political, cultural and
economic assault
• Corporatisation/ academic-capitalist
values
• Countercultures and opposition
crushed.
(Bousquet, 2008)
28 June, 2016
The Edgeless University (Bradwell,
2009)
• Open Access Publishing
• Flexible learning outside the
university
• Social media
• Progressive Austerity (Reeves, 2009)
• Strategic technological investment
• New providers
• Collaborative research/ open
research communities
• Universities as partners, not sole
providers of learning, research
• Engaging stakeholders in course
design
• New forms of accreditation.
28 June, 2016
Absences and Silences
• Equalities and Intersectionality of
Social Identities (Morley et al, 2010)
• Learning Landscapes/ Aesthetics/
Spatial Justice/ (Lambert, 2010; Neary, 2010)
• Affective Domain (Hey, 2009, 2011)
• Environment and Sustainability
(Sterling, 2004)
• Global North/ South Power
Geometries and Cognitive Justice
(Robinson, 2009; Santos, 2007)
28 June, 2016
Equalities and Identities
28 June, 2016
Desiring Higher Education
• Aligning personal aspirations with
needs of economy
(Appadurai, 2003; Morley et al. 2010; Walkerdine,
2003, 2011).
Globally: 1960 - 13 million
2005 - 137.8 million
2025 - 262 million?
(UNESCO, 2009).
• Multiversities (Fallis, 2007)
• or
• Multiple providers (Ball, 2008).
28 June, 2016
Global Expansion
Asia
China enrolment is now 20%
(Marginson et al., 2011)
India (world’s third largest HE
system) plans 15% by 2012
Sub-Saharan Africa
8.7% annual expansion
5.1% for the world as a whole.
Regional Variations in Participation
Tanzania 1% (DFID, 2008)
Iceland 65.6%
Austria 60.7% (UNESCO, 2009)28 June, 2016
Toxic Correlations/ Access and
Social Identities
• 18.8% first-degree students were
black and minority ethnic (BME)
(ECU, 2009)
• More black young men in prison in
UK and US than in HE.
• 4% of UK poorer young people
enter higher education.
(David et al, 2009; Hills Report, 2009).
• 5% of this group enter UK’s top 7
universities (HESA, 2010).
• Universities = hereditary domain
of financially advantaged (Gopal,
2010).
28 June, 2016
Reproducing Power and Privilege?
Graduates from elite universities
control:
the media
politics
the civil service
the arts
the City
law
medicine
big business
the armed forces
the judiciary
think tanks
(Monbiot, 2010)
28 June, 2016
Closing the Gender Gap?
• Global Gender Parity Index of 1.08
(UNESCO, 2009).
• The number of male students globally
quadrupled from 17.7 to 75.1 million
between 1970-2007.
• The number of female students rose
sixfold from 10.8 to 77.4 million.
• New Zealand 13.7% for females and
11% males in 2009.
In UK, women are:
•
•
•
•
57.1% of students
42.6% of academic staff
20% of professoriate
28 June, 2016
13% of Vice Chancellors (ECU, 2009).
Feminisation Crisis Discourse or
Misogyny Posing as Measurement?
• A woman’s place is in the minority.
• Reconstructs dominant group as
victims.
• Assumes that women’s success has
come about by damaging males.
(HEPI, 2009; Leathwood and Read, 2008;
Morley, 2011).
• Ignores gender in wider civil society.
• UK ranked 15 the Global Gender
Gap Index (13 in 2008)
(World Economic Forum, 2009).
28 June, 2016
Women in Power?
• 19% of European Union
professors are women (She
Figures, 2009).
• 70% Commonwealth countries,
all universities are led by men
(Singh, 2008).
• Gender Pay Gap
• 18.2% UK (ECU, 2010)
•
21% Australia
(Currie, 2011)
• Gender equality =
representational space?
28 June, 2016
Gender Mainstreaming?
• Sexual harassment (Morley, 2011, NUS,
2010);
• Women and leadership (Eveline, 2004;
Neale, 2011; Valian, 1999);
• Gender insensitive pedagogy (Welch,
2006);
• Women and Technology (Clegg, 2011);
• Promotion, professional
development and tenure (Acker, 2009;
Knights and Richards, 2003);
• Knowledge production and
dissemination (Hughes, 2002);
• Curricula and subject choices (Morley
et al, 2006).
• Inequalities and gender
mainstreaming (Morley, 2010; Rees,
2006);
28 June, 2016
Gender…
ignored when women suffer
discrimination or underrepresentation
amplified in crisis form when women
start to be ‘over-represented’.
inequalities resistant to
hypermodernisation forces?
disqualified from the Impact Agenda?
28 June, 2016
The (Gender Equitable) University of
the Future
• Gender statistics and impact plans.
• International benchmarks and data.
• Gender to be taken out of crisis mode and into proactive,
resourced, strategic interventions.
• Action, monitoring and evaluation (contracts compliance).
28 June, 2016
Sociology of Absences
28 June, 2016
Widening Participation in Higher
Education in Ghana and Tanzania
Measuring:
• Sociological variables of gender, age,
socio-economic status (SES)
In Relation to:
• Educational Outcomes: access,
retention and achievement.
In Relation to:
• 4 Programmes of Study in each HEI.
• 2 Public and 2 private HEIs.
• Intersectionality
(Morley et al. 2010 http://www.sussex.ac.uk/wphegt
28 June, 2016
Equity Scorecard: Access to Level 200 on 4
Programmes at a Public University in Tanzania
According to Age, Gender and Socio Economic Status
% of Students on the Programme
Women
Low
SES
Age 30
or over
Mature
and
Low
SES
B. Commerce
32.41
8.59
1.13
0.16
0.32
0.0
0.0
LLB. Law
56.18
13.48
0.0
0.0
5.06
0.0
0.0
25.05
11.65
1.36
0.0
1.36
1.17
0.0
11.20
28.00
4.80
1.6
0.80
0.0
0.0
Programme
B.Sc.
Engineering
B. Science with
Education
Women
and low
SES
Women
30 or
over
Poor
Mature
Women
28 June, 2016
Steep Social Gradients
• Opportunity hording by
privileged social groups?
• Middle class capture of
affirmative action?
• Are we now educating
‘doctors' daughters rather
than doctors' sons’?
(Williams/ Eagleton 2008)
28 June, 2016
Learning Landscapes
28 June, 2016
New Ecology of Knowledge?
• Sacred/ profane knowledge binary.
• ‘Just-in-case’, ‘Just-in-time’, ‘wiki’
knowledge (Brabazon, 2007).
• Students = technologically oriented
(Morris, 2010).
• University = literary in structure.
• Tectonic relationship between
ideal / imagined students and new
constituencies?
28 June, 2016
Speeding Up v Slow Reading
(Carr, 2010; Miedema, 2009).
• Hyperactive online habits =
perpetual locomotion.
• Loss of ability to engage with
lengthy textual information.
• Multitasking = brain re-wiring.
• ICT = Information socialism or
Digital capitalism? (Schiller, 2000)
28 June, 2016
Networks Nomadic Subjects and
No/bodies
• Academic hyper mobility,
cosmopolitanism, nomadism
(Kenway, 2004);
• Diffusion of bodily and textual
selves into multiple locations;
• Generative potential of the global;
• Parochialism = cognitive
dispossession.
• Expectations of performativity =
lack of care
(Lynch, 2009).
28 June, 2016
The University of the Future needs
to balance…
• Academic norms/conventions with multiple,
post-literate knowledges and learning
practices.
• Global velocities with sustainability.
28 June, 2016
‘Now’ Universities Built on
Yesterday’s Foundations
Hyper-modernisation of:
Archaism of:
• Liquified globalisation
• Constructions of the ‘ideal’
student
• Entrepreneurial, corporate,
commercialised universities
• Digitisation
• Speeded up public intellectuals
on the move
• Turbo-charged consuming,
multitasking students.
• Male dominance of
leadership
• Gender inequalities and
feminisation fears
• Unequal participation rates
for different social groups.
28 June, 2016
The University of the Future Needs
to...
• Recover critical knowledge and be a think tank and policy driver.
• Discover new conceptual grammars to include equalities, identities,
affective and aesthetic domains.
• Reflect on spatial sociology and learning landscapes.
• Speak to diverse generational and geographical power geometries.
• Contribute to wealth/ opportunity distribution as well as to wealth
creation.
• Model sustainability/ apply its research to own conditions of production.
• Include more accountability on gender equality.
• Disrupt social class and gender privileges by interrogating and
accounting for the absences .
28 June, 2016
CHEER
ESRC Seminar Series:
‘Imagining the University of the Future’
(http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cheer/esrcseminars).
28 June, 2016