Symposium: The Idea of a University in the 21st Century
Long Room Hub
Trinity College Dublin
10 February 2012
Provost's Address 'Universities in the public service'
Ladies and Gentlemen, esteemed colleagues
The title of my talk today is 'Universities in the public service' which means my intention is twofold: I'm going to talk about universities' commitment to serving the public good; and I'm going to question what role universities have within the Public Service - that is, as institutions working within a regulatory and funding framework created by governments.
So, yes, I'm permitting myself this pun on 'public service'. But it's not an idle pun. The question I'm posing - and which I hope we can start answering, among other important questions during this symposium - is: 'To what extent does a university serving the public good need to operate within the Public Service?'
This question touches of course on the way universities are funded, but it's not only a matter of money, and funding is not my priority here. I'm interested in how universities operate, and how they are perceived by the public to operate, and what this means in terms of academic freedom and delivering on our core academic mission of education and research. Is it always the job of government to define the public good, or should a democratic society have other actors in this task?
Many of us believe in the provision of public services by government. And in particular that services such as education and health should be provided to all. We expect governments to be guarantors of this. But do governments still have the power to guarantee this? And if they don't, or won't, then what happens?
At this critical juncture in Ireland's economic history, we need to have this conversation about how universities operate. And about how universities, as Public Sector bodies, serve the public good.
The absolute importance of this issue was brought home to me just last week when I read the Sunday Independent newspaper on the Minister for Education's remarks to University of Limerick students. He said, as you may recall, that his department and the Higher Education Authority hadn't a clue if lecturers and tutors were doing their jobs or not.
I'm delighted that he came out so strongly to say that it wasn't government's business to evaluate the performance of academics. But I think the fact that this issue of ministerial accountability for lecturers was even raised suggests that there's confusion surrounding the public understanding of the way that universities operate, or should operate. It suggests that people are unclear about the role of universities within the public sphere, and unclear about who universities are accountable to, and what they're accountable for.
The discourse around the role of higher education has become murky. And because of this, people aren't asking the right questions. And we all know that you only get the right answers by asking the right questions. So this speech is my attempt to clarify the public discourse. I'm most grateful to Professor Darryl Jones for giving me the opportunity to do so at this important symposium
Universities and the Public Good
In order to get clarity, the first question to ask is probably the old legal one: cui bono est? To whom is it an advantage? Higher education is clearly an advantage to the graduate, who leaves college furnished with the skills to pursue an interesting career and lead a fulfilling life. A university degree is in the individual's self-interest.
But higher education also benefits society at large in terms of educating doctors, teachers, lawyers, writers, scientists, engineers, historians, entrepreneurs and others who provide essential services and drive the economy.
This has always been the case, since long before the phrase 'knowledge economy' was ever invented, but the value of higher education to society at large has now intensified. A society that lives by its wits, so to speak, and not through low labour rates or the exploitation of natural resources, needs to have people educated to the highest international levels if it is to create employment in a global economy.
I believe working towards such a society is the right aspiration for this country, although I know certain economists disagree and believe that we should be taking another route towards a low labour rate economy for instance. Well I hope they are here for the rest of my talk.
There's another less obvious, but equally important way, in which universities serve the public good and that is by educating citizens to participate in democracy. Our President, Michael D. Higgins, centralised universities' crucial role in safeguarding democracy and reforming society in his recent address to the National University of Ireland. He asked:
'Are the universities to be allowed, and will they seek the space, the capacity, the community of scholarship, and the quiet moments of reflection necessary to challenge paradigms of the connection between economy and society, ethics and morality, democratic discourse and authoritarian impositions that have failed?'
Higher education is both a private and a public good. This duality is important. It helps us understand our role as educators and informs our view of how higher education should be funded.
Because universities provide an excellent economic and social return to society at large, there is general consensus that they are an investment in the future, and a good use of public funds.
But unfortunately the consensus ends there. There isn't consensus about how universities should be using these funds. There isn't consensus about what kind of education universities should be delivering. There isn't consensus about who universities should be accountable to. And there isn't consensus on who defines the public good in terms of higher education.
Let's follow one possible answer to this question of who defines the public good: universities are publicly funded and under the remit of a government department. Therefore one school of thought might be that it's up to the government, which is after all democratically elected, to define the public good in terms of education, and to tell universities how to deliver.
This could include government identifying skills gaps in the market and directing universities to concentrate resources on those disciplines currently in demand, while cutting off resources to disciplines where there is less immediate need.
It could include telling universities when to step up investment into certain research and when to abandon other research that, in its view, is not sufficiently beneficial to the economy.
That's an extreme statement of dirigisme. It's not the way education is run in this country and I don't think it's something most people would favour.
But - and this is my point - until we decide who does define the public good in higher education, then dirigisme will remain a position and a possibility to be invoked. And there are, let's be honest, some worrying signs of dirigisme in Ireland. I'm thinking of the Employment Control Framework for example.
I think raising the issue of ministerial accountability for lecturers was invoking dirigisme. The Minister dismissed it, I'm happy to say. But I submit that if the parameters of our discourse were clearer, it wouldn't even have been invoked.
So back to this question of who defines the public good in terms of education. Let's look at another possible answer - the answer which the Minister for Education did in fact give when he rejected dirigisme: he said (and I paraphrase) that we operate within a market economy where universities are service-providers and students are end-users. As consumers, it's up to students to decide what's working and what isn't. To quote the Minister, 'The only people who can tell us that the contract between the lecturer and the institution, the department and the university is being delivered on the ground, is the student body'.
This is to state the student-driven model of education, which was first promulgated in the University of Bologna in the 11th century, when law students began hiring and firing professors. It was revived in universities in Europe in 1968 as a corrective to an education model which had become overly professoriate-driven. I know that when the Minister tells today's students that it's up to them to decide what's working and what isn't, he's seeking to empower students - which I think it's important to do.
However - the fact is that generally in Ireland, and in Europe, we do not follow a purely student-driven model of education. I don't know of any university that operates as the universities of Bologna and Salamanca did in the Middle Ages, ceding power to the students over their professors. It seems that Thomas Jefferson attempted a student-driven model for the University of Virginia but soon abandoned it. Around the world today, most universities strive for a balance between the professoriate-driven and the student-driven models.
Speaking for this university, we don't see students as consumers and we don't cede them sole control over what's working and what isn't. These reasons have to do with our perception of the role of universities in serving the whole public good and not just the private interest of the student. And with the kind of research-based education which we offer, which doesn't talk in terms of providers and consumers but of teamwork, and students and staff engaged in a common mission in the pursuit of knowledge.
I will return to these reasons shortly because they're important. For now, I just want to reiterate, at the risk of hammering my point home, that to invoke the student-driven model when that is not generally the model of education we follow in Ireland is, again, to confuse the discourse.
The Five Dichotomies
If not the government or solely students, who does define the public good in education? Who are universities accountable to? How should they be using their resources? What kind of education should they be offering?
To answer these questions, I've set out five frontiers for universities in the public service. Well I've been calling them frontiers, but when I worked them out I realised that they're dichotomies. That wasn't deliberate, but I think it works quite well.
Now because I'm an engineer and I like diagrams, I couldn't resist drawing this pentagram, and I'm going to label the five frontiers - these dichotomies - as I see them, each as an edge on this pentagram.
All universities position themselves around these dichotomies. When you know how a university positions itself you understand more about how it works, what its guiding principles are, and how it differentiates itself from other universities.
I'll briefly run through these dichotomies before focussing on Trinity. I don't, by the way, think that there is only ever one right position to take. Universities will be different. That's to be welcomed. The positioning will depend on the institution and on the circumstances.
- My first dichotomy, I call The Education of Citizens vs the Education of Workers. Universities can take it as their first and foremost purpose to train people to become proficient employees and fill skills gaps in the market, or they can educate people to become active citizens within society.
- My second dichotomy concerns Students as Consumers vs A Community of Scholars. Do universities regard students as consumers of educational products? Or do they regard students as partners in scholarship, engaged with their professors in a common pursuit of knowledge?
- My third dichotomy is Discipline-based study vs Inter-disciplinarity. Universities can produce students highly proficient in their own discipline and well capable of applying the specialised tools that have been passed on to them; or universities can emphasise educating students with little loyalty to a discipline, and ready to move outside it.
- My fourth dichotomy is Corporate Governance vs Collegiate Governance. In corporate governance the governing board is directly appointed and has mostly external members. In collegiate governance the board is mainly elected from staff and students and decision-making is predominantly by consensus.
- The fifth and final dichotomy concerns Exchequer public funding vs Non-Exchequer private funding. Most higher education institutions in Ireland are publicly funded, whereas in the US, for example, the private universities are common with income derived mainly from tuition fees and philanthropy. The questions to ask here are: Is the degree to which a university is publicly accountable related to the degree of exchequer funding? Can a university that is privately funded operate fully in the public good?
Trinity and the Five Dichotomies
So these are my five dichotomies. You may be able to think of more - you may think in terms of an octagon!
Universities position themselves differently around these dichotomies - and so they should. Strength lies in diversity. I can only speak for this university so I want to look now, briefly, at how Trinity positions itself.
First, the Education of Citizens vs the Education of Workers. Some universities, in Ireland and elsewhere, see their primary purpose as the training of graduates to find immediate employment. By providing a valuable service to specific graduates and employers, such universities certainly serve the public good.
But as I've said, another important way to serve the public good is in the education of citizens. If you want to do this, you must prioritize critical and independent thinking. Trinity aims to serve this good. Society always needs creators, reformers, and even radicals; our society and economy requires innovators and entrepreneurs who will ultimately create their own opportunities.
Second, Students as Consumers vs a Community of Scholars. By their final years our undergraduates undertake research alongside their professors - whether it be in laboratories, or in the library. This is a core College principle and what it says, I think, is that our first commitment is not to the professors nor to the students per se, but to the pursuit of knowledge and, yes, the love of learning.
Knowledge does drive the economy and improve society. And encouraging students and professors to concentrate on knowledge rather than on their position in a hierarchy or their demands as consumers sends out a powerful message about collective enterprise and shows that we value our role as a university that serves all society, and not just current staff and students.
Third, Discipline-Based vs Inter-Disciplinarity. There is much to be said for a deep knowledge of the discipline, but equally it's dangerous to be constrained by discipline. Trinity has always valued inter-disciplinarity and in today's climate the argument for this is compelling.
Part of the reason why the world is in a mess is because rigid people stuck to the doctrines of their own disciplines, closing off other modes of thought. Garnering the strength and flexibility to move beyond the discipline is another way of saying that the pupil should outgrow the teacher.
Today, important social and economic development is occurring at the interfaces of disciplines - I'm thinking of Trinity's multi-disciplinary research projects into ageing, neuroscience, computational linguistics, or my own area, bioengineering and the medical devices industry.
And if I may refer back to our aspiration to educate inquiring citizens, I would see inter-disciplinarity as important in the formation of citizens who can contribute to debate in a broad sense, and not only through one mindset.
The fourth dichotomy, Corporate Governance vs Collegiate Governance, is an area subject to great global diversity, though perhaps less national diversity. Ivy League universities tend towards corporate governance while Oxbridge has collegiate governance. Both are top-ranking so it shouldn't be a question of preferring one mode over the other. It's important to recognise excellence in diversity.
Trinity, like most Irish universities, is collegiate. Our elected board includes elected student members and an elected chair - me. The collegiate model is sometimes denounced as slow and unwieldy, but the benefit is that it fosters independence, responsibility, and a collective purpose. Who of us here can say it is not right? I think only someone already committed to a doctrine.
Fifth dichotomy, Exchequer Funds vs non-Exchequer. Public funding for universities is an important principle for many European countries, including Ireland. But there is increasing recognition that exchequers are not in a position to fund universities to the extent needed to deliver globally competitive high-quality higher education. Irish universities fall in the global rankings reflects the current funding crisis.
To continue delivering quality education, universities in Europe generally will need to increase the proportion of non-exchequer funds. I'm not going to go into the ways this might be done. The important question, in the context of this speech, is: will accessing non-exchequer private funds impact on a core commitment to the public good?
I do not believe, nor do I think there is evidence to show, that public-funded universities invariably serve the public good better than private ones.
Speaking for Trinity, I can say that even if public funding were reduced to zero, we would still aim to operate in the public good in the ways I've already outlined. A university's core mission should not be fundamentally altered by the way it is funded.
Much more significant in terms of serving the public good is the quality of the education being delivered. If public funds can't cover the cost of the kind of education we deliver, then our contribution to the public good will begin to suffer. That's why this issue of funding is so crucial.
I'm in favour of a balanced mix of exchequer and non-exchequer funds because, as I've outlined, higher education is both a private and a public good. Once we accept this, then it makes sense to say that universities should be both privately and publicly funded.
A Question of Trust
To recap: universities make choices across at least five frontiers, and probably more. How do they make these choices? How do they decide whether to be collegiate or interdisciplinary or whatever? If they are strong and well-functioning, they will display consistency and cohesion in their decision-making, and will be guided by core values.
In the case of Trinity, which of course is the only university I can speak for, the core value which underpins our choices and which keeps us consistent, is our commitment to the public good. If we were solely interested in keeping our students happy, or feathering our staff's nests, or meeting government agendas, then we would operate along different lines.
I say 'solely' - of course we need to provide good working conditions for staff and to look after students and consult with government. But we understand that our primary role is the pursuit of knowledge through our core mission in education and research. We're secure in this role. Ultimately, it serves the public good.
So to return to our perennial questions of who defines the public good in terms of higher education, and who should universities be accountable to?
This is exactly the question the Minister for Education asked in his speech last week, when he said: 'Who's going to tell us if lecturers are doing their job?'
His answer was the students. My answer is yes, the students, but not solely the students. The whole university is collectively responsible for such an evaluation. That means students, professors, heads of department, and all the way up to the board - ultimately I'm responsible as Provost.
Think about it: is it desirable to have a situation where the president of the university and the heads of department are told that they are not in a position to evaluate their staff's performance? Surely in strong democracies, accountability is built into public institutions as into private enterprises?
Institutions are deemed accountable when the public trusts that they understand their role and are capable of acting in the public good. Who should define the public good in terms of higher education? Universities should - the whole collective body of Board, professors, and students.
Universities will differ from each other about what they believe constitutes the public good. That's fine and it's healthy. There should be an on-going debate about this within the sector. But government and society at large should trust the sector to hold this debate in the public interest.
To come back to the pun in my title, operating in the public service (small p, small s) does not necessarily imply being under the control of the Public Service (large P, large S).
Strong, functioning democracies rejoice in publicly-funded bodies that are trusted to define the public good in their sector, and are encouraged to maintain autonomy, take responsibility for their actions, and be held accountable for their decisions. I'm thinking in particular of the judiciary and the media.
Higher education is such a sector. There should I think be no issue between granting universities public funds, and trusting universities to use those funds to do what they're best qualified to do: pursuit of knowledge through education and research.
I don't actually believe that anyone thinks universities are irresponsible or untrustworthy. No-one is talking in terms of 'toxic universities'. As I've said the Minister went out of his way to reject the dirigiste model for higher education. But I think it's fair to say that the current climate of austerity has bred an atmosphere of control and over-direction.
In this atypical situation, when government is being forced to take over banks and property portfolios, it has perhaps become second nature to seek to gather all public institutions under a government remit.
I believe this kind of thinking has crept up, rather than been actively encouraged.
Which is why I wanted to start asking what I believe are the right questions, and thinking about the right answers, in order to start strategizing from a place of clarity.
In this speech I've focused on universities acting in the public service and what this might mean. I’m aware that when it comes to thinking about the university in the 21st century there are other highly important issues which I have addressed. They include:
- improved access to higher education;
- the use of technology in education as an enabler for greater participation;
- globalisation of education, which will affect the role of the state;
- and the importance of lifelong learning.
I wouldn't want you to think I don't prioritise these issues. I do. But in the space allowed to me I've chosen to concentrate on this issue of who defines the public good in education. Because until we can establish that it's up to universities - to all institutions of higher education - to define this good, then we can't even begin to debate the issues of central importance to how universities will fulfil their missions in the 21st century.
Thank you very much.