If corporate management techniques win control of our universities, the academic spirit will disappear and we will all be the losers, writes John Kelly.
The "community of scholars" ethos of our universities, so beautifully described by John Henry Newman in his The Idea of a University back in 1854, appears to be in terminal and irreversible decline.
The centuries-old philosophy that the university is a place of academic freedom, of learning for its own sake rather than for the national economy, seems now to be finally buried in the headlong stampede to bring top-down corporate governance into Irish universities.
The rising obsession with quantification and precision in educational values, the frenzy of meaningless university rankings, and the replacement of education with research as the prime function of the university, are clear signals that the world of academe has changed utterly.
The philosophies and associated structures of the community of scholars are profoundly different from the corporate-style management ones, and the university campuses they generate are likewise profoundly different.
Effective governance in any enterprise, corporate or academic, is that which empowers persons at all levels in the enterprise to develop their personality and, through it, their contribution to the success of the enterprise to their fullest capability. In the business world, this is an established model that is most often achieved by a line-and-staff management structure, where all know their place in the management hierarchy, to whom they report and who reports to them.
Most business persons have little understanding of academic management and tend to regard it as chaotic, speaking disparagingly and jocosely of the "herding of cats" analogy to describe the management of academics. Indeed, it's an accurate analogy, and that's the way it should be in a properly-run university.
In the traditional academic world as compared to the business world, the hierarchy is much less pronounced, whereby junior lecturers, and student scholars, do not regard "the professor" or "the dean" as "the boss". In that world, academic leadership comes from inspiration and achievement, and not from titles.
To be sure, the professors and deans, selected by their peers, most often are responsible for the administrative backdrop to the academic world, looking after such matters as student admissions, lectures and examinations schedules, but they are not the managers as generally understood in the business world.
The ethos which this creates provides for the emergence of the natural leaders in the academic domains of teaching and research. Very often it is the younger emerging scholars at graduate student or junior lecturer levels who turn out to be the international leaders in their disciplines and the most exciting of teachers.
In the fast emerging corporate ethos in our universities, where there are now executive vice-presidents, executive deans, with the professors and directors of research institutes all appointed from the top, this community of scholars ambience is surely doomed. Thus it is that whilst everything from a business management viewpoint may look neater and more understandable to the outside business world, it is in danger of doing great damage to the academic spirit within the university.
In the university world of yesteryear in Ireland, there was never any hesitation from academics, young or old, in criticising, constructively or otherwise, proposals for change, or indeed the lack of them. It has always been a volatile and challenging world, with academic staff associations continually engaged in profound debates on all aspects of "The University Question", whatever it was on the day.
The reversal by concerted academic opposition to the Government's decision to merge UCD and Trinity in 1967 is an outstanding example, but there have been many more since those heady days. It is an exciting experience for newly-appointed lecturers to discover that at the department or faculty meetings, or at staff association meetings, their voice and opinions were taken seriously along with the senior professors. They had an equal vote too for the dean of their faculty, and their view was solicited for a new professor of their department.
In such an ambience, they had great freedoms and encouragement to develop their scholarship to the fullest extent and to institute change in their academic structures to suit student demands. Most of the academic developments in our universities in past years have come from the bottom up and not top down, were conceived at departments levels, debated and maybe modified at faculty levels, and getting the final imprimatur, or maybe rejection, after a lively debate at the Academic Council. Is that process all gone now with the major shift of power to the top?
Maybe not, but with the introduction of non-academic corporate management appointments with big salaries, it is a real fear with many academics. And with the message coming down from on top that the achievement of international ranking in research is the prime mission of the university, it is no wonder that the ambitious young academics are greatly tempted to keep the head down and away from debate outside their laboratories, do their research, write the papers and books, go to international conferences and do as little as possible with teaching and students, for which there is little or just token recognition. Why indeed in this new ethos should anyone bother their barney with students and teaching?
Many academics believe the current changes in a number of Irish university structures are largely changes for change sake, and will greatly damage the academic vitality in their institution, but they seem to be powerless to cry stop.
Our universities are indeed excellent institutions, with in general academic standards of the highest international levels, with graduates second to none in the international marketplace. Accordingly, they should have no inferiority complex in comparison with other universities in Europe or beyond. Of course things could be improved, but the main product from our universities is our graduates and they are simply very good, both at home in, among other things, generating and maintaining the Celtic Tiger, and abroad where they are to be found at the top levels in many great companies, universities and organisations.
We must be doing something right and so, please, let us stop crying out that our universities are inferior and urgently in need of drastic reform. We can surely hold our own with universities anywhere in the world. All that is needed is inspirational and courageous academic leadership at the top.
John Kelly is a professor emeritus and former registrar of UCD