The Idea of the University Today

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The Idea of the University Today

• Gerard Delanty
• University of Sussex

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The Idea of the University

• The Idea of the University debate
• Kant, von Humboldt 1780s
• Newman 1852
• Nietzsche 1872
• Eliot and Leavis 1930s
• Jaspers 1946
• Parsons 1973
• Lyotard 1979
• Habermas 1980s

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The Idea of the University?

• Do we need to re-think the modern idea of the
  University?
• If so, which one? There is not one idea, but many
• There has always been a diversity of traditions
• The University is largely a product of modernity

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Some more questions

• Does end of modernity mean the end of the
  University?
• Does globalization empower universities or bring
  about their demise?
• How can the idea of the University be re-invented
  today?
• Can universities be sites of cosmopolitanism?

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Three dimensions to the University

• The institutional context of governance
• The production of knowledge and expertise
• The ethos of education

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Functions of the University

• Teaching
• Research
• Training
• Transmission of culture

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Re-phrasing the question

• To what extent have current develops led to a
  change in the models of governance knowledge and
  education that have been the basis of the modern
  university?
• Can there be an idea of the university today
  given functional differentiation?

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Universitas

• Universitas designated a defined group whether
  a craft guild or a municipal corporation
• Bologna a student guild
• Paris a guild of masters
• Berlin (1810)
• University College London (1827)
• Johns Hopkins (1874)

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Four Modern Ideas of the University

• The Enlightenment (von Humboldt and Kant) vision
  of the unity of reason
• The liberal vision (Newman, Eliot, Jaspers and
  the transmission of heritage)
• The functionalist vision (Parsons, the University
  as an integrative institution)
• The radical idea (Habermas, Gouldner, Dewey - HE
  as a transformative project)

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The Regulatory order of the University

• The university as an institution is shaped by
• three regulatory principles of governance
• Regulation by professional bodies
• State regulation
• Market regulation

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Governance

• Today there is a major transformation in
  governance
• Shift from government to governance
• A governance of science
• How do universities govern themselves? Is there a
  crisis of governance today?

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Models of Governance

• Professsional self-governance
• Shared or co-governance
• Regulatory governance
• Corporate governance

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The University and Self-Governance

• Academic autonomy/freedom
• Autonomy and sovereignty
• The seminar as a communicative process
• Education as an agent of democratization

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Conflicting visions, competing ideas

• Reproductive versus transformative concepts of
  the University Von Humboldt/Kant and Newman
• Parsons the University as an integrative
  institution in society
• Habermas, pragmatism and the re-invention of the
  modern University

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Immanent Transcedence

• The concept of immanent transcendence in Heglian
  Marxism and pragmatism (Peirce)
• The capacity of societies to realise their
  potentials
• The normative and empirical
• The relation of knowledge to immanent
  transcendence

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The Modern University

• Disciplinary specialization
• Separation of basic from applied science
• Separation of facts and values
• Separation of the expert from the intellectual
• The research university
• The political neutrality of the university
• Professional training

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The University and the Project of Modernity

• Nation-state
• Secularization
• Industrialization
• Public culture/civil society/citizenship

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Four Academic Revolutions

• The von Humboldian university
• The civic university (UK)/state universities (US)
• The mass university
• The virtual university

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Types of knowledge

• Knowledge as science
• Knowledge as action/praxis
• Knowledge as creativity/reflexivity

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Reflective Knowledge

• The University has been constitutive of
  socio-cultural evolution
• Provided a means of cognitive evolution for
  society
• Articulated the basic values of modern society
  (secularization, self, knowledge)
• Facilitated key societal learning processes
• Modernity evolved through cognitive shifts

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The Knowledge Society

• The Enlightenment
• The professional society
• The information society
• Risk society
• The knowledge economy
• The knowledge society

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A definition

• The knowledge society is a condition in which
  knowledge is the key to social reproduction and
  to citizenship. It is a societal condition in
  which immanent transcendence occurs through the
  reflective appropriation of knowledge

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Implications for HE some scenarios

• From the university to the multiversity
• Loss of autonomy
• Increase in managerialism (if everyone has
  knowledge all that can be done is for knowledge
  to be managed)
• The impact of the market

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New Regimes of Governance 1

• The decline of academic self-governance
• External and internal governance
• Financial accountability
• Corporate governance (formal audits, rankings for
  research, teaching quality, internal reviews,
  appraisal schemes, self-assessment)
• Move from teacher to learner based forms of
  instruction

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New Regimes of Governance 2

• Legal accountability (complaints procedures,
  anti-racism, equality and diversity)
• The changing structure of professional competence
  (peer review, the citation index, users in
  industry)

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Ideologies of the Knowledge Society

• Postmodernism
• Neoliberalism
• Third-way

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Postmodernism as ideology

• Everything is culture
• Knowledge lacks meaning
• The impossibility of the curriculum
• Everything is a matter of choice (the module)
• Discourse of excellence (de-referentialized and
  does not need to be underpinned by scholarship)

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Neoliberalism as Ideology

• Denial of society
• Principle of the market and individualization
• Efficiency as legitimation
• Accountability (or accounting)
• The McUniversity
• Quality, relevance and efficiency

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Third Wayism

• Reflexibility as flexibility
• Inclusion
• Reflexivity (people can shape their life projects
  by drawing upon knowledge)
• Mix of neo-liberalism and postmodernism)
• Deferentialized terms (beyond right and left,
  between, excellence)

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The Old Cultural Contradictions of HE

• Freedom and solitude
• Cosmopolitanism and nationalism
• Universalism and particularism
• Innovation/critique and affirmation
• Producer v reproducer

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The New Cultural Contradictions of HE

• Teaching and research
• Efficiency and scholarship
• Massification and democratization
• Management and leadership
• Opinion and knowledge
• Science and technology
• De-regulation v hierarchy/centralization

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Triple Crisis of the University

• The crisis of the state (from provider to
  regulatory state, globalization (global elites
  don't need HE - B. Gates), Mode 2
  knowledge/techno-science)
• The universalization of the market (academic
  capitalism)
• Cultural change (contestability of knowledge,
  unreliability of knowledge, the knowledge society
  is a fragile society)

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Four Debates on the End of the University

• The liberal critique
• The postmodern critique
• Mode 2 Knowledge
• Globalization

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The Liberal Critique

• Intellectual crisis
• Politization of the curriculum
• End of high culture
• Decline of the intellectual and rise of the expert

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The postmodern critique

• End of knowledge
• End of the curriculum
• Impossibility of universal education
• End of the nation-state
• Technocratic discourse of excellence

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Mode 2 Knowledge

• From Mode 1 to Mode 2 Knowledge
• The marginalization of the university

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The Globalization Thesis

• Partnerships between university and industry
• Academic capitalism
• Corporate governance and the retreat of the state
• The rise of the virtual university

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The Post-University?

• Global mega universities
• Virtual universities
• Globalization and the university
• Universities in China and India

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The Market

• Has the market undermined HE?
• How bad is the market?
• Some myths about the market

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The State

• The state has not disappeared
• European v American trends
• Europeanization and universities

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Europe and Higher Education

• The Bologna process
• The role of HE in shaping Europeanization and a
  European identity
• The rise of cultural policy and the emergence of
  a European public culture
• Notion of a unity in diversity
• Communicative rationality

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Re-Imagining the University

• The university as a zone of mediation between
  knowledge as science and knowledge as praxis
• Communicative conception of the university is
  what is needed today
• The idea of interconnectivity
• University as the site where culture, knowledge
  and society interact

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Cosmopolitanism and the University

• Cosmopolitanism and immanent transcendence
• Cosmopolitan citizenship
• The cultural and social dimensions of citizenship
• Technological citizenship
• Universities and human development
• Universities and democratization

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Universities and Human Development

• In central and eastern Europe universities have
  played a leading role in shaping societies
• In Latin America universities were important in
  for opening up opportunities for women
• Universities have been important in cultivating
  democratic values
• Universities and economic development
• Social and cultural citizenship

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Some Conclusions

• The resilience of the University
• Huge variety of Universities
• The academic profession in comparison
• The university and citizenship
• Globalization and pluralization
• Cosmopolitan challenges for the university

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Sources 1

• Delanty, G. 2001. Challenging Knowledge The
• University in the Knowledge Society Buckingham
• Open University Press.
• Delanty, G. 2002. The University and Modernity
  A
• History of the Present. In The Virtual
• University? Information, Markets and Management
• edited by K. Robins and F. Webster. Oxford
• University Press.

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Sources 2

• Delanty, G. 2004 Does the University have
• a Future? Pp. 241-4. In P. Manicas (ed.)
• Globalization and Higher Education.
• University of Hawaii Press.
• Delanty, G. 2005 The Sociology of the University
  
• and Higher Education The Consequences of
• Globalization Pp. 530-45. In C. Calhoun, C.
  Rojek
• and B. Turner (eds) Handbook of International
• Sociology. London Sage.

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New Book

• The Cosmopolitan Imagination the renewal
• of critical social theory (in press, Cambridge
• University Press)
• Email g.delanty_at_sussex.ac.uk