Newman's idea of the meaning of universities must remain central to their future, writes Marie Murray.
With the "Word" our world began. Words shape our world. From the first tentative human sound to our final faltering utterance, words surround, circumscribe, delineate and describe our world and our place within it. In this Wittgensteinian way, the limits of our language limit our world. We enter and exit a world of language and meaning; the sense we make of the world and the sense that others make of us being significantly mediated by words.
With words birth is announced, by obituary death confirmed. Words name the child, aspirations are articulated and the process of learning a language and languaging a life begins. Words carry cultural meaning and worth, encircle prejudices or enlarge understanding. Life stages are marked by the words that are spoken, the vows that are made, the promises inferred, and the words conferred. Secular ceremonies and religious rites require words with which to bestow status, recognise new stages or renew obligations.
In the wider world of words, war does not "occur" it is "declared". The art of diplomacy is dedication to the delicacy of words. Words may acclaim or defame, may incite or excite, may soothe or smooth over the edges of life. Words once local are global and just as in times past oral traditions were threatened by print, print in turn is now threatened by image.
Meanwhile, our universities, past warders of words, are waging a war of words about the site, sanctity, security, survival and structure of knowledge in the 21st century, as the "idea" of a university is altered by the need for diversification in the face of new technologies for information access and knowledge commodification.
Into this great debate about what is a university, what is education, for whom and to what purpose, come many words exercising theorists and thinkers too numerous to cite. The issues are many, polarities prolific; between tradition and competition, public and private, privileged or deprived, between fee and free, elitism and inclusion, autonomy and accountability, aristocracy and meritocracy, virtue and viability, internal and external governance and between classical scholarship and commercial realities.
But more than this is the tension between utopia and utility, aesthetics and pragmatics, the "idea" of university versus the universality of ideas, idealisation of the past versus demise in the present, regression versus relevance and survival.
When we speak about university with what words do we speak, what worth have our words, about whom do we speak and of what do we speak? Is university the seat of learning or the site of social exclusion? Does it promote an elitist ethos, "consensualism", "credentialism" and essentialism or does it provide an edifice within which there is sufficient mental space, chronological time and ideological aspirations to challenge marginalising discourses, corrupt constructs, unethical practices and the commercialism of creativity?
Is it the place that replaces the anaesthetic of the culturally rude, callous and crude with the aesthetic of cultural courtesy, compassion and conscience?
Or is it an edifice whose ethos was always out of date with the realities of a changing world, whose era is over in its present form, whose access has been unjustly limited and which requires "reinvestment", "reinvention", "renewal", and new relationships between universities and their stakeholders?
Words from the past provide perspective on the present and inform the future. When institutions find themselves in times of change, they most often return to the words of their founders for encouragement and enlightenment. This is when, in the words of UCD founder John Henry Newman, "cor ad cor loquitur", heart speaks to heart. This is when, it is hoped, that whatever the future, Newman's "kindly light" shines upon us so that, as we enlarge our educational edifices, we also embrace enlargement of mind; so that the virtual university does not exclude the virtue of knowledge for knowledge sake; so imagination and mysticism do not get lost in materialism, so that competition does not mean the commercialisation of creativity.
Newman's legacy, whatever it may be, whatever he "willed" us and thereby willed us to be, has left us with memorable words, words to inspire, words to create the "lit fire" of desire for knowledge in the 21st century. He has given us words of "wisdom and innocence", transformative words, words that will persist and assist us "till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over".
Newman more than anyone respected the reality of change, the courage required to change, the struggle of conscience change requires, and the purpose of change in the pursuit of perfection. He might therefore remind us of his own words that "to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often".
Marie Murray is Director of Psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview, Dublin
mmurray@irish-times.ie.
The issue of University and Society: From Newman to the Market, a Conference on shaping the future of University Education begins tomorrow in the O'Reilly Hall, UCD, Belfield. It is open to the public free of charge.