defining a university of radicals: education in the modern age
Originally published: April 3rd, 2018 on The Reading Gene
“We are in a new age – the age of the student.”
This was the divisive rallying cry from Sam Gyimah at the launch of the Office for Students. We are, apparently, present at the inception of a ‘revolution in accountability’ – and his speech made it quite clear that he feels that this is a novel concept in academia.
Gyimah was right in a way. It is the ‘age of the student’. I don’t think that means what he thinks it does. The current narrative that this government, and its predecessors, have spun to students places them securely in the post of ‘Defender of Value’, ‘Champion of the Student Voice’. If you break down this narrative though, it’s clear that their words themselves dispossess them of the right to claim this. We hear repeatedly of the need for universities to generate employable students, to fill the oft-referred-to ‘skills gap’. Look closely at what this says. Yes, the country has inevitable ‘skills gaps’. Education, interests and, lets face it, employment opportunities created or denied by any sitting government, ebb and flow like tides being pulled by forces that are multitude and complex. It is absolutely the government’s responsibility to highlight these gaps so that all students, of all ages, can make decisions about their future aims and the education they need to get them there. So, we have the current push to rebrand universities as employment pipelines. I propose though, that this is not at all an indication that we are in ‘the age of the student’ or that a government that pushes for this is acting in the student’s best interest.
Let me elaborate, before someone rebrands this as an argument against producing employable students. Universities have always produced employable students and will always continue to adapt to the changing needs of an ever-evolving world. More than that, they will remain at the forefront of the minds that create new knowledge that enables the world to evolve. The difference is, our focus (and particularly the focus of my organisation, the Open University) is on the needs and aspirations of individual students rather than the need for a pipeline to fill certain job niches. Of course, we will provide them with the skills and education to enter the work market. We see each student as more than that though, and we see our duty to them as greater than simply providing a pipeline for jobs. It is our responsibility to challenge our students intellectually and, in doing so, to ensure that they see the entire range of possibilities that their life holds for them. If they choose to follow a path that takes them into areas represented by the ‘skills gap’ then they will be qualified to do so and we as institutions will facilitate that but we will only succeed in our duty to our students if, in reaching that point of choice, we have forced them to challenge themselves in a way that means that they see that action as a choice, one of many, one they can revoke at any time, one that they have taken ownership of rather than simply drifting into along a government pipeline.
Education can never be a consumer exercise. I don’t mean that we, as educators, don’t have a responsibility to provide a high level educational experience – that is the bare minimum we owe our students. At the Open University, and increasingly elsewhere in higher ed, we also take the responsibility of delivering the support and tools necessary to enable as many students as possible to qualify further incredibly seriously. It is not enough for us to simply provide educational material as a hub and a certificate at the end – we also need to teach. If students don’t feel they receive that, then their voices should be heard. Does this mean that the tuition fees students pay guarantees them a degree though? Bear in mind, before I answer, that we as educational institutions fought long and hard to prevent governmental tuition fee imposition. Given the choice and the funding, we would educate students for free. That choice is not ours. To distil higher education to simply a consumer transaction devalues it for all. There is a partnership involved in achieving a degree. As a university, we must deliver on our part of that. Students too, must contribute something to this partnership. If modern students do not fully engage with the intellectual challenge a university is delivering, then I would argue that ultimately, no, they do not necessarily have a right to a degree and we, as institutions, have not failed them in not awarding that. What is lost in the commercialisation of education and the language of division that permeates our discourse, is that sense of partnership, with dual-sided responsibility. In fully embracing this universities, both academic and student bodies, can achieve something that I would define as ‘radical’.
We live in an age of outrage and division, where opposition is becoming a societal norm. How then, do we truly become a ‘University of Radicals’ – Peter Horrocks, our Vice Chancellor, called on the Open University to return to those radical roots and ‘[embrace] innovation and disruption’ in a speech to the university a while ago. I would argue that we have never left those radical roots, that we are still and will remain, a University of Radicals. The real question is what passes for ‘radical’ in today’s world. In a world that is characterised by division, surely the only radical path is that of unity. We effect disruption by embracing cohesion. Our society is a disposable world – when something’s value isn’t immediately apparent, we cull it. It is the age of decluttering. In doing so though, we absolve ourselves of the challenging task of seeing past our superficial divisions and finding the common core values that drive us academically and personally. We are the university. Students, academics, staff of all categories that support teaching, research and administration, that support the university. Including the Vice Chancellors. Do we best serve this by ‘decluttering’ our institutions?
A spotlight has been directed on the Vice Chancellors of our country’s universities in recent months, not just for their salaries but for the role they play in defining the trajectory of the country’s academic institutions. I’m an academic, a teacher. I do not have the facts at my disposal that the Vice Chancellor of my institution, or of any other, has. Nonetheless, I have an opinion on this. It may be disruptive and somewhat radical. I guess that depends on your perspective. I believe it is time to stop simply ‘decluttering’ when we don’t agree with the direction our universities are travelling in, only to refill the empty space with another version of the same. I think that is the easy option. Instead, we need to reclaim the academic vision for our institutions and demand leaders who will work with us to sustain that vision far into the future, not leadership that believes it is their role to craft it. We are educators. It is not enough to declutter when we find that this academic vision differs from the vision of our higher management. As educators (to self-quote), we need to break this vision down into its component parts and give our Vice Chancellors the tools to rebuild these parts, developing both an understanding of the concepts and the skills they need to execute them. We need to be radical. We need to respect that professionals at all levels have skills that can be levied to drive our institutions headlong into a future that puts our students and our study at the forefront. It is our responsibility to build the bridges that enable a dynamic synergy to form between ostensibly contrasting views. In doing so, we can become beacon institutions, leading others towards a more cohesive educational structure. In doing so, we can really usher in ‘the age of the student’ and embrace the fact that this does not preclude it also being ‘the age of the university’.
It could be that the Open University is about to ‘declutter’ at a higher level, I neither know nor am I going to use this piece to speculate on the outcome of our internal debate. I am going to use this opportunity as a rallying cry to higher educational institutions throughout the country though. I watched my daughter perform an ensemble poetry piece a few weeks ago and listened to the feedback the judges gave them. I mention it because it applies here. The judge noted that there were many strong individual voices but that it was when each of these were used to support the less confident performers, when the girls listened to each other and truly heard their co-performers, when they responded as one, that the performances flew. In higher ed right now, I think that we have many strong individual voices but I think that we are still learning to listen rather than speak. I think we need to stop allowing the government to define our narrative. As institutions, we need to hold our leadership to account and own our academic vision. We need to build bridges and accessways across institutions, and all the country’s universities need to raise their voices in one choral whole. I can think of no better common cause to rally behind than my university, the Open University.
Our current VC talked at Durham University, about breaking down ‘fortress university’. I am arguing for the contrary. I think we need to become a new and modern fortress. We need to unify students and institutions and raise our fortress walls to defend our right to educate and innovate from those outside who are attacking the essence of education. If what we need is more fluid qualifications, easier organisational transitions, a different student experience, then we need to take down ‘fortress government’. Universities are not hiding behind walls that are so long standing they believe they will never fall. Universities are redefining the concept of a wall.
We are the future. We are the students. We are the institution. We are the academics. We are the support staff. We are the thinkers. We are the innovators. We are a chorus of voices raised as one. We are the university. And we are Open.