What is the university for?
A Southern perspective
David Watson
Principal, Green Templeton College
LLAKES Conference
“Lifelong Learning, Crisis and Social Change”
IoE
19 October 2012
Outline
• Some theory - forms of engagement
• Some history - communities and the
formation of universities
• Competing narratives
• A global perspective and a “southern
narrative”
What Stefan doesn’t see
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Expansion and democratisation
Scholarly peaks in surprising places
Achievement by non-standard students
Lifelong learning
The international campus
Adaptation to the internet
David Watson (2012): What are universities for?, London Review of
Education, 10:2, 237-239
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14748460.2012.691289
“First order engagement”
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“being there”
graduates
civil society
treasures
“Second order engagement”
• contracts
• partnerships
• “stakeholders”
“Third order engagement”
• academic citizenship
• membership
• strategic choices
University “foundations” in historical
perspective
• Late medieval specialist communities
• Regional and national institutions serving
post-industrial society
• Public “systems” of HE
• Curriculum and institutional innovation
• The “dual sector”
• “For-profit”
Know your history
UK
USA
• From seminaries to the Ivy
•Oxford and Cambridge
League
•Victorian & Edwardian civics
• Land grant
•The “public sector”
• State systems
•Institutional innovations (e.g. OU)
• Institutional innovations
•HE in FE
• Community colleges
University history: grand narratives
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Liberal emancipation
Professional formation
The research engine
Business services
National pride
The “civic and community” engagement
narrative
• Civic duty
• Curriculum
• Research, development and “business
services”
• Public sector partnership
• Shared and open access facilities
• Environmental impact
Talloires network: self-assessment
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An international association of institutions committed to
strengthening the civic roles and social responsibilities of higher
education
Initial 29 signatories from 23 countries of the Talloires declaration
(September 2005)
The Network “envisions universities around the world as a vibrant and
dynamic force in their societies, incorporating civic engagement and
community service into their research and teaching mission.”
As at April 2012 247 members from: Africa (34); East Asia and Pacific
(32); Europe and Central Asia (42); Latin American and Caribbean (37);
Middle East and North Africa (13); North America (59); and South Asia
(19). (Gaps are China, Japan and Nordic countries.)
See: www.tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/
Initial self-assessments based on Watson, D. (2007) Managing Civic
and Community Engagement Maidenhead: Open University Press
The Engaged University
International Perspectives on Civic
Engagement
By David Watson, Robert Hollister, Susan
E. Stroud, Elizabeth Babcock
Published April 6th 2011 by Routledge
What’s the jurisdiction?
• Governance (strategic direction,
appointment of leaders, accountability)
• Funding (direct and indirect controls, e.g.
fees)
• Operational conditions (subjects and
levels of provision, conditions of
employment, procurement etc.)
The cases: the North
• Georgetown University (USA), founded 1789, private,
14,000 students
• Portland State (USA), founded 1946, public, 24,000
students
• University of Winchester (UK), founded 1969, 5,500
students
The cases: the South
•Charles Darwin University (Australia),
founded 2003, public, 4,300 students
•University of Western Sydney (Australia),
founded 1990, public, 36,000 students
•SNDT Women’s University of Mumbai
(India), founded 1916, public, 70,000
students
•Al-Quds University (Jerusalem), public
and international, founded 1995, 8,000
students
•Universiti KebangsaMalaysia,public,
founded 1970, 24,000 students
•Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico),
private, founded 1943, 91,000 students
•Aga Khan University (Pakistan), private,
founded 1983, 2,000 students
•Universidad Señor di Sipán (Peru),
private, founded 1999, 7,500 students
•Notre Dame of Marbel University
(Philippines), private, founded 1955, 6,000
students
•Cape Peninsula University of Technology
(South Africa), public, founded 2003,
29,000 students
•Afhad University for Women (Sudan),
private, founded 1966, 5,400 students
•University of Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania),
public, founded 1970, 14,600 students
•Universidad Metropolitana en Caracas
(Venezuela), public, founded 1944, 56,000
students
The cases: “transitional”
• University of Melbourne (Australia), public, founded 1853, 33,600
students
• University of Haifa (Israel), public, founded 1972, 16,000 students
• Open University (UK), public, founded 1969, 180,000 students
• Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University (Ukraine), founded
1840, public, 5,000 students
University-community engagement: the
“northern consensus”
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“Being there”
Character and democratic instincts
Service-learning and volunteering
Public support
Knowledge transfer
“Southern Theory”
• “Social science can only have one, universal, body of
social theory, the one created in the global North”
(Connell, 2007: ix).
• The “new configurations of knowledge that result when
Southern theory is everywhere respected, and differently
formed theories speak together” (Connell, 2007: xiv).
“Globalization from below.”
• “It means stepping back from those obsessions and abstractions
that constitute our own professional practice to seriously consider
the problems of the global everyday.” (Appadurai, 2000: 17-18).
• “In the public spheres of many societies there is concern that policy
debates occurring around world trade, copyright, environment,
science and technology set the stage for life-and-death decisions for
ordinary farmers, vendors, slum-dwellers, merchants and urban
populations. And running through these debates is the sense that
social exclusion is ever more tied to epistemic exclusion and
concern that the discourse of expertise that are setting the rules for
global transactions, even in the most progressive parts of the
international system have left ordinary people outside and behind.
(Appadurai, 2000: 2).
The view from the South
Universities in the “global everyday”
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External national power and internal control
Social, political and economic circumstances
Professional/vocational training
“Translational” research
Aid
Academic freedom (and corruption)
A global header tank (e.g. brain circulation, IPR)
University-community engagement: a
“southern narrative”? (1)
– relative lack of a “comfort zone;”
– drive for “transformation” or “solidarity;”
– priority of “development” (or social returns) over
“character” (or individual returns); and of
“national cohesion” over personal enrichment;
– strong focus on human capital, and
“employment” over “employability;”
– “necessity trumps choice,” and investment in HE
is seen as more than a consumer good;
University-community engagement: a
“southern narrative”? (2)
– use of private bodies for public purposes;
– use of international partnerships for assistance
not “positioning;”
– fewer hang-ups about the instrumentality of the
“vocational curriculum;”
– acceptance that religion and science should work
in harmony;
– a very practical world of “Mode 2” engagement,
alongside Mode 2 research and teaching;
– a sense of societal pull over institutional push.
Discussion