The Idea of the University of the Future
Reykjavik, University of Iceland
2 & 3 May 2005
Conference Report
On 2 and 3 May, under the co-sponsorship of the Magna Charta Observatory and the University of Iceland, a taskforce of 18 university leaders met in Reykjavik to debate the core missions and fundamental values of tomorrow’s university, an institution now asked to meet the challenges of the emerging knowledge society. Participants had been invited either by the Observatory – mainly members of the Collegium and Board as well as two of the finalists of the 2004 Romanzi Award – or by Prof. Pall Skulason, the Rector of the University of Iceland, who asked colleagues interested in the development of higher education and research to join as well as international partners, officers from the European University Association (EUA) or the Luxemburg Ministry of Education, and colleagues from outside of Europe, Argentina and the United States in particular. Madeleine Green, from the American Council of Education (ACE), acted as the facilitator of the 2 days conversation (cf. list of participants in annexe).
Participants had been asked to read in advance a few papers[1] offering some points that the discussions could refer to, directly or indirectly. Moreover, Pall Skulason, the Rector, and Michael Daxner, from the Magna Charta Collegium (who had to cancel his participation) also sent around documents dealing more specifically with a specific area of interest – governing the university’s future.
A.On Monday 2nd, after the members introduced themselves by looking over their shoulder back to year 2005 seen from a 2025 perspective – pointing to the main changes that had happened over this twenty year period – the group focused on the shared values and common functions that have shaped the university’s identity over the centuries. Does indeed the university strive on common basic assumptions - in terms of education, innovation, social commitment to change and development, for instance? If so, what are the key features of a shared identity – not only per se but also in relation to those other providers of knowledge and information who are part of the system of tertiary education?
A grid of analysis had been proposed for structuring a very open discussion – especially in terms of the long-term perspective of the debate. A probable future, it was suggested, results from the tensions between pull, push and weight factors. The vision – for example of an institution serving democracy – could represent the pull factor while the growing commercialisation of knowledge, an on-going trend, would correspond to the push factor; the weight factor consists in the existing shape of the institution, the given points that need to be taken along or changed in order to progress, like the present under-funding of higher education, the ageing of staff or the disciplinary organisation of science. Participants thus attempted to focus on the fundamental core of the university as an institution, i.e., its founding myths as expressed by the narratives they could refer to, implicitly or explicitly. What is the recognised raison d’être of universities? This usually untold part of the university’s self-understanding becomes more explicit in the culture of the institution – that acts as a Leitbild, a worldview embodied in the functions met by the institution that are orientate the organisation of the university as a social system, whose visible life finds expression in a litany of small or big events – decline of student numbers, new partnerships with local industry, reorganisation of the office for international relations, etc …-, events that seem to have little in common when they are not related to levels of deeper connections – the system, the Leitbild or even the core myth[2].
This led to a lively discussion on the ‘true’ university, a term used in the Magna Charta itself: that has to be set up in the context of the second half of the1980’s, when the document was drafted for possible endorsement by hundreds of academic leaders convened in September 1988 at the 900th anniversary of the University of Bologna. At the time, the idea was to codify the university tradition in Europe after the centrifugal forces of the 1968 student revolt had questioned the existence of the institution as such. In a European landscape of waning national bureaucracies and growing European integration (the Single Act was to suppress borders internal to the Union by 1992), the Magna Charta represented a pro-active move of the academic community towards reinforced autonomy and re-asserted academic freedom, both seen as tools for its long-term contribution to the development of Europe’s collective future. In that context, the university was perceived as a self-conscious institution (at system level) and as an instrument of progress and social justice (at Leitbild level).
‘True’, however, supposes a reference to the absolute that requires some kind of pre-definition of the main aspects of academia and its intellectual role in society - a very self-centred debate on academic a priori that often does not evoke agreement on the specifics of university identity. This makes it very difficult for the supporting community to define an accepted part for higher education and research in today’s world – not to speak of tomorrow’s. A more empirical approach would start from the functions now fulfilled by the university in the higher education system - with national and regional differences. An analysis of the existing overlaps would point to the common core of the system and could be aligned with models structuring university operations and social behaviour, such as the Napoleonic service institution, the Humboldtian research for training set up or the ‘multiversity’ of our day and age. But then, does the litany of changes linked for instance to the use of new information and communication technologies reflect transformations in the organisation and culture of universities that go deeper than the simple extrapolation of accepted progress because of the use of powerful instruments of development? In other words, do ICT induce a qualitative leap in academic identity, the growing quantity of computerised data asking for a different approach to knowledge than the traditional methods of information management that are being taught at present in the universities of Europe and the world?
If the university remains a gatekeeper of knowledge, how does it share responsibility with other providers – firms and media – that have robbed the academic world of its monopoly on knowledge organisation and dissemination? Or is the monopoly now simply restricted – but for how long – to the validation of learning, i.e., to the placement of individuals into the social hierarchies born out of knowledge power – thus representing the last specificity universities can claim in terms of a recognised role in the shaping of society? Can such an instrumental view of higher education be reconciled with the culture of enlightenment, which the university refers to when it considers itself to be a centre of metamorphosis where individuals become citizens, e.g. responsible partners in the transformation of society? In a dispersed community, can a fragmented university be more than the servant of varied interests the commonality of which is illusive at most? Is not the normative debate on the reflexive and critical function of academia disappearing then behind pragmatic considerations, such as the existence and struggle for survival of an administrative structure supposed to support the professional relevance of jobs and careers that contribute to the adequacy of social change, i.e., signposting as best as possible the path of least resistance in community development? But who is to decide what adequacy implies – inside or/and outside the institution? The networked university (inside among disciplines or faculties, outside, among stakeholders and academic units of all kinds) is often mentioned as a key development but the concept stays at the instrumental level and rarely questions the culture and raison d’être of academia – both for university members and for stakeholders. The debate builds on two interlocking discussions, an internal appraisal of what the university could, should and would like to do, on one side, a conversation on the same topics with the financiers and consumers of intellectual goods and services, on the other. It should take into account the challenges facing tomorrow’s university – corresponding very much to the trends or push factor indicated above; the following were mentioned: at general level, virtualisation, and the application of science to all fields of reality, both leading to a growing abstraction from everyday realities; in terms of organisation, the increasing fragmentation and dispersion of institutions that is reinforced by devolution as well as by commercialisation – all moves that strengthen an expanding de-politicisation of society; in terms of people, growing challenges are born out of individualisation and de-motivation – that result in a ‘de-solidarisation’ among the members of the community. Can the university manage the resulting tensions between its shaping role in society and its critical function vis-à-vis the said society?
For the Magna Charta – since it is interested in the university’s fundamental values and rights – the aim of the Reykjavik taskforce (as a preliminary mapping exercise supporting such dialogues, internal and external) is to define a common vocabulary that can lead to a substantial understanding of the institution, i.e., of its boundaries in the higher education environment. To offer meaning to shared concepts, their placing in a historical context – thus trying to understand how they ‘loaded’ themselves over time with various connotations - seems essential if the discussion is not to fall into an idealistic trap (the illusory dream) – even if ideals are grounded in the subjective perception people may have of their situation, like in Plato’s cavern. Some participants, however, pleaded for the use of imagination as a way onto a possible future – so that what is improbable, but desirable, comes true when enhanced by shared will. Hence the interest of a multi-layered analysis[3] accounting for the various levels of reality, that sustain each other like ‘matriochkas’ in a Russian doll.
As a mapping exercise, the following quadrant of narrative concerning the universities’ raison d’être was mentioned as a possible grid of explanation:
IMAGINATION
Search for TruthSearch for Order and Freedom,
i.e., exploring the unknowni.e., moulding the person’s responsibilities
HUMBOLDTNEWMAN
Science & Research Education & Training
DISSENT ------Horizontal Axis of social Positioning ------CONSENT
Critical distance Social reproduction
Search for MeaningSearch for Welfare
i.e., re-organising knowledgei.e., meeting society’s requests
AQUINASNAPOLEON
Ethics & Aesthetics Innovation & Development
REALITY
Each corner[4] represents universities focusing on one essential aspect of their nature; most of them, however, combine these features in their different cultures and organisations; a balance between the four leads, today or tomorrow, to the search for unity – ad unum vertere– a motto drawn from the term universitas and suggested for academic action by Vaclav Havel, when welcoming the Association of European Universities in Olomouc in 1993.
- On Tuesday 3rd, the group focused on alternative models for the university future keeping in mind the 2025 representation of higher education participants offered to the conference the day earlier. Comparing members’ contributions, Madeleine Green, the facilitator, showed that the institutions born out of the perceived future were essentially built on extrapolations of the present, with some participants asking for a strong differentiation between undergraduate studies (the BA level) and graduate and post-graduate training (the MA and PhD levels) – thus reconstituting an elite institution, more cosmopolitan, more research oriented, more trans-disciplinary than the lower level - in the wider context of the tertiary education sector. The first few years leading to a BA would then meet the full impact of an education extended to some 80% of an age cohort (perhaps in a rather school like manner). Others, however, questioned more thoroughly the university as an institution, speaking of its dissolution in order to serve learners of all ages with varied expectations; or of its de-nationalisation to serve regional or European needs, not to speak of its absorption by the tertiary sector of higher education as just another provider of knowledge – university monopolies of dissemination and validation having vanished for good. A way to pursue knowledge development in a more flexible and diversified manner (two qualities mentioned nearly by all participants) would be the networking of academic institutions with other universities or with their stakeholders (public authorities, industrial firms, research centres or media companies, for instance), thus structuring the dialogue for relevance through well defined compacts. But what of the authority of such a learning organisation: would it not need long-term horizons not provided for by urgent social requirements, i.e., a sense of its own purpose in the context of society’s own transformation? Would not some kind of balance be required between the horizontal axis of social positioning and the vertical one of what could be called the transcendence of immediate realities by the strength of imagination - some participants speaking of the spiritual structuring of mankind’s understanding of the world?
The longer the future envisaged, further back can the past be considered in order to understand university development - especially if an organic approach to change is being adopted. Every step taken expresses indeed a unique choice that excludes many other possibilities of growth, thus determining the next moves on the institutional playing field: what has been learned from earlier decisions shapes the potential for the future. From this perspective, the medieval university, after a preparatory education in the Arts, first trained for jobs structuring the society of the day (the professions covering physical wellbeing – medicine, social welfare – law, and spiritual development – theology) in the so-called major faculties. At the Renaissance, the service of mankind came to centre on humanism by criticising inherited knowledge and questioning the cosmological worldviews inherited from a long tradition. As a rule, the university survives when it reshapes such assets – training and rearranging knowledge - to meet new requirements, for instance when the industrial revolution asked for the formation to those jobs that structure a world order of engineering and technological change – up to the present when IT has become the horizon of the technical development supporting social growth. As for equity, it is a heritage from the French Revolution now expressed by the efforts made by universities to educate for democracy. At present, thanks to IT, old services that had the personal touch of individual crafts are being industrialised – meeting general laws that can be pre-chewed for a wide public rather than for specific individuals. The university is thus encouraged to become a factory for the training of service providers while, at the same time, there is a demand for tailor made courses to answer the needs for expert knowledge – also a prerogative of academic teaching, especially in an emerging society of knowledge. There is, from this point of view, a growing tension between specialisation processes and general training - at all levels of higher education, be it with the younger generation or with adult learners who take advantage of lifelong learning. To reduce such tensions, the university of tomorrow could be obliged to define the niche of activities it will excel in – when accounting both for external requirements and for the internal balance of its specialties. Such niches used to be determined by the Church in the medieval university, or by the State - following the humanistic transformation of the Renaissance or the democratic egalitarianism of the French Revolution. Tomorrow, even if the State retains a role as a stakeholder, authority and choice could be exercised by other partners – alone or as a result of collective bargaining: how can the university then use its assets, past and present, to meet best new external demands taking account also of the tyranny of trends such as the demographic decline in Europe and the concomitant ageing of society? This supposes reflecting on the re-organisation of curricula (combining professions and science), on the re-definition of quality (adapting the humboldtian heritage to purpose oriented activities), on the re-shaping of education and research (cross-fertilising personal and social responsibility for the management of a changing knowledge basis supposed to offer meaning to development).
In that context of varied forms of institutional empowerment, the taskforce discussed how the university, as it is today, does influence, shape or even re-invent its identity for tomorrow. Members also dwelt on the counteracting influences on the university of society – or of varied lobbies representing different if not divergent interests in the community. Following on the previous discussions, what are the mission and core functions of academia that are still valid for tomorrow’s society, what are the university’s enduring functions and could the narratives expressing its raison d’être (if strictly adhered to) put the institution at risk - considering the changes expected to occur over the next twenty years in clienteles, organisational structures or curricula? The group considered that success or failure in terms of survival would very much depend on the quality of governance: new concepts are needed to meet the challenges of adaptation to a transformed social set up. Income generation, for instance, will certainly reflect the difficulties and opportunities met by higher education and its institutions – that will have to develop responsible behaviour not as enterprises but like enterprises; this should help create mediating structures for the allocation of funds between various areas of academic work while sustaining general processes of change (rather than pursuing specific outcomes) in order to keep a balance of quality in all areas, a quality to be assessed by international accreditation procedures. In terms of management, tomorrow’s universities – still retaining their specificity of horizontal organisations – will need to invent new participation modalities, thus transforming the power structures that now resist to change, for instance in offering a real stake in the institutional future to university partners in society – an input to be combined with academia’s responsibilities for their own work and abilities.