{"id":141,"date":"2018-05-12T18:21:41","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T22:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/?p=141"},"modified":"2018-05-12T18:21:41","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T22:21:41","slug":"what-are-universities-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/2018\/05\/12\/what-are-universities-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What are Universities for?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collini, S. (2012).\u00a0What are universities for?<\/em> London: Penguin.<\/p>\n

\"\"The author is a professor of English and History at Cambridge University, and the book is primarily from a British, secular and research institution perspective.\u00a0 But it is interesting to compare the issues he discusses with those in US Catholic higher education.\u00a0 Of particular note, Collini discusses Newman\u2019s \u201cideal university\u201d in a contemporary light. It is a highly readable and provocative book.<\/p>\n

Collini identifies the key issue in his introduction: the view that \u201cuniversities need to justify getting more money, and the way to do this is to show that they help to make more money\u201d (x).\u00a0\u00a0 He counters that the true purpose (and value) of universities is \u201cnot chiefly, and certainly not exclusively, economic [but] intellectual, educational, scientific and cultural.\u00a0 In addition, it must be emphasized that higher education is a public good<\/em>. \u201c(p. x, my italics).<\/p>\n

Collini acknowledges the great diversity of universities (\u201cmultiversities\u201d) including research, vocational and technical institutions, but rather than lamenting the \u201cdilution or distortion\u201d of a \u201cpure\u201d or \u201cideal\u201d university of the past, he asks what is (or should be) distinctive about what universities do. \u00a0He suggests four \u201cminimum characteristics\u201d of modern universities (p.7), summarized as<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Post-secondary education that \u201csignals more than professional training\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. Scholarship or research that is not \u201cwholly dictated by the need to solve practical problems\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. These activities are pursued in more than one or discipline or a \u201ctight cluster\u201d of disciplines<\/li>\n
  4. Universities have \u201cintellectual autonomy\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Underlying all four is the concept of intellectual freedom. \u00a0In addition, universities \u201cselect and shape their own future staff\u201d (p.8) \u2013 meaning that faculty were previously students, so how they \u201cshape\u201d students is heavily influenced by how they were \u201cshaped\u201d (a subtle but important point).<\/p>\n

    Collini notes that university education involves both achieving \u201cmastery of a discipline\u201d and \u201cthe capacity to challenge or extend received understanding\u201d; university teaching involves a \u201cparadox\u201d of \u201ctelling someone to be autonomous\u201d (p.9).\u00a0 [This seems to parallel Crowe\u2019s integration of \u201cthe way of heritage and the way of achievement]. Universities are about \u201cenlarging the understanding\u201d (p.12).<\/p>\n

    Noting various changes to higher education during the past 50 years, an addition to a familiar list (including commercialization, technology, increased cost and decreased funding) is \u201cincreased mobility of students\u201d, which not only leads to (welcome) diversity but also to accelerating competition between universities to attract students, grants etc., and an unhealthy preoccupation with getting into \u201cthe top 50 or top 100\u201d (p. 18).<\/p>\n

    \u201cUniversities in Britain: a brief history\u201d (chapter 2) is interesting in its own right and as a companion to various histories of American universities. \u00a0A common problem with historical interpretation is \u201csuggesting that everything would be alright if we could just go back to universities as we think they were c. 1959\u201d (p.20). [An example of the \u201cclassicism\u201d that Lonergan deplores]. He concludes that the major changes in universities in the past few decades have not been in \u201cscholarship or science\u201d but \u201cchanges in the ways universities are administered, financed and overseen by their host societies\u201d (p. 38).<\/p>\n

    Discussing Newman (chapter 3), Collini critiques the disjoint between Newman\u2019s \u201cideal\u201d and \u201cpractice\u201d, the lack of actual \u201ccontent\u201d in his \u00a0(overblown) rhetoric, class and gender snobbery and, since this is a secular critique, Newman\u2019s assertion on the primacy of revealed truth and Catholic theology.\u00a0 But, in addition to admiring Newman\u2019s prose and passion, he stresses that Newman\u2019s \u201cideals\u201d passionately support pursuing knowledge beyond the boundaries of \u201cutility\u201d.\u00a0 He observes that even disciplines initially devoted to \u201cutility\u201d eventually lead to open-ended (philosophical) question, and attempts to restrict academic enquiry to \u201cutility\u201d are ultimately bound to fail, because:<\/p>\n

    \u201cIntellectual enquiry is in itself ungovernable; there is no predicting where thought and analysis may lead \u2026. It is not the subject matter itself that determines whether something is, at a particular moment, classed as \u201cuseful\u201d or \u201cuseless\u201d.\u00a0 Rather, it is a question of whether enquiry into that subject is being undertaken under the sign of limitlessness \u2026 where the open-ended quest for understanding has primacy over any application or immediate outcome\u201d (p.55)<\/p>\n

    Although Collini frequently expresses wonder at the persistence (and misunderstanding) of Newman\u2019s work, he notes that \u201cThe twenty-first century university needs a comparable power to articulate in the idiom of our time the ideal of the untrammeled quest for understanding\u201d (p.60).\u00a0 This is a challenge indeed!<\/p>\n

    Discussing the often-cited need to \u201cdefend the humanities\u201d, he notes that the humanities are \u201cin many ways not so different from work in the natural and social sciences.\u00a0 The effort to understand and explain is at the heart of all scholarly activity\u201d and separating groups of disciplines leads to \u201clazy notions of their being two cultures\u201d (p.62). Attempting to deepen our understanding of \u201cwhat it means to be human \u2026 is an end in itself\u201d and \u201cThe kinds of understanding and judgment exercised in the humanities are of a pieces with the kinds of understanding and judgment involved in living a life\u201d (p.85).<\/p>\n

    On \u201cdefending universities\u201d, Collini argues that there is \u201cstill a popular conception, almost a longing, that the university is a protected space\u201d for the pursuit of ideas, with \u201cideals and aspirations that go beyond any form of economic return (p. 87).\u00a0 Adopting a \u201cdefensive posture\u201d in the face of criticism (e.g. but universities do actually contribute to economic growth) overlooks this and can be self-defeating.\u00a0 He notes \u201chow little public discourse about universities in contemporary society appeal to this widespread appreciation on the part of ordinary intelligent citizens that there should be a place where these sort of enquiries are being pursued at their highest level\u201d; part of the problem is that universities are not good at \u201cexplaining what they are doing when they do this\u201d (p. 89).\u00a0 The section on communicating this \u201cvalue\u201d to public funders and politicians may be more applicable to Britain than the US, but the underlying message is that universities represent a \u201cpublic good\u201d that goes beyond mere economics.<\/p>\n

    In the second section of the book, Collini gives a scathing discussion of the culture of assessment and \u201ccounting publications\u201d as an indication of a university\u2019s \u201cproductivity\u201d, noting that \u201cwe don\u2019t measure<\/em> it, we judge <\/em>it\u201d (p. 122).\u00a0 Simple \u201cbibliometric data\u201d is misleadingly \u201cobjective\u201d, but frequently used to \u201cmake decisions, primarily about funding, by those not qualified to judge\u201d (p.126).\u00a0 He has a deliciously satirical piece on citation analysis (p. 126-7) and the American \u201cno book no tenure\u201d system (p. 128) that should be circulated among our administrators and rank and tenure committees.<\/p>\n

    The subsequent chapters are primarily devoted to policies and practices in Britain (bearing in mind that higher education there is \u2013 or was \u2013 almost entirely government funded) but they deserve reading and pondering similarities with the US, most notably \u201cmeasuring performance\u201d and \u201cthe market model\u201d. \u00a0A few notable observations include:<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt is a mistake to think that if you make people more accountable for what they do, you will necessarily make them more efficient in doing it\u201d (p. 135).<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe most important goals of a university \u2026 can\u2019t be measured \u2026 they need to be judged\u201d (p. 138).<\/p>\n

    \u201cUniversity education [is] a social good\u201d over and above \u201ceconomic prosperity\u201d, and \u201csome kinds of intellectual inquiry are goods in themselves\u201d (p. 167)<\/p>\n

    The system \u201crewards research disproportionately more than it does teaching\u201d (p.179)<\/p>\n

    On the significance and value of universities \u201cconserving, understanding, extending, and handing on to subsequent generations the intellectual, scientific and artistic heritage of mankind\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cWe are merely custodians for\u00a0 … a complex intellectual inheritance which did not create \u2013 and which is not ours to destroy (P. 198-199).<\/p>\n

    Questions<\/h4>\n
      \n
    1. Is the observation that even subjects originally studied for \u201cutility\u201d end up asking philosophical questions correct, and if so, how might we \u201cspeed the process\u201d? (Consider, for example, Pieper\u2019s insistence that all disciplines should be approached in a \u201cphilosophical way\u201d).<\/li>\n
    2. Economic determinism, consumerism and \u201cproductivity as assessment\u201d are also prevalent in the US. Can we find a \u201cvoice\u201d like Newman\u2019s to advocate for universities as having value without resorting to economic arguments, especially in regard to the Humanities?<\/li>\n
    3. Collini\u2019s emphasis on free and open-ended questioning and the notion of \u201cthe good\u201d seem close to a Catholic philosophy of education, but without Catholic theology. How might we address the question \u201cdoes a university education need God or theology?\u201d (This seems critical for non-Catholic faculty and students)<\/li>\n
    4. Collini\u2019s closing remarks are a clear appeal to Crowe\u2019s \u201cWay of Heritage\u201d. How do we interpret his choosing to end on this note?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Collini, S. (2012).\u00a0What are universities for? London: Penguin. The author is a professor of English and History at Cambridge University, and the book is primarily from a British, secular and research institution perspective.\u00a0 But it is interesting to compare the issues he discusses with those in US Catholic higher education.\u00a0 Of particular note, Collini discusses … Continue reading “What are Universities for?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challenges-in-higher-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}