---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Great Transition Network <[email protected]> Date: Mon, May 30, 2016 at 12:49 AM Subject: A Higher Calling for Higher Education (GTN Discussion) To: [email protected]
From Shirley Walters <[email protected]>
------------------------------------------------------- [Moderator's Note: The last day for comments will be this upcoming Tuesday, the 31st, after which Cristina will have the opportunity to respond.] I echo appreciation of Cristina’s succinct overview of the major issues facing universities. I have been following the contributions with interest and agree substantially with many of the arguments made. Universities need to change in order to give more effective leadership towards ‘another world we want’. I amplify three short/medium term interventions which are shaped by my 40 years of experience in the South African university system, where I have been immersed mainly in an historically black university which played an important role in the liberation struggle and in processes of democratising the country. 1. A critique of African University Rankings The Times Higher Education proposes that an African-specific ranking system be designed for universities in Africa. This is an effort to revise a system designed for institutions in the rich developed world. Critical literature shows that ranking of universities incentivises universities uncritically to support the status quo disconnected from broader society. Rankings are inclined to encourage competition rather than cooperation. In considering the ranking of African universities questions to ask are: what are the roles of universities in societies across Africa and what is the point of introducing a hierarchy of these universities? To the latter question, we might answer that there is none; that we do not want to foster competition when Africa needs collaboration. The creation of uniform indicators across the diversity of contexts can encourage unquestioning consumption of university league tables by the public and universities themselves. However, if we are to rank, what could constitute an alternative measurement practice which takes environmental and social justice, collaboration and feminist politics as starting points? Engaging broadly across many different African contexts through deeply democratic processes around this question could make an important start to alternative ways of thinking about `social responsibility` of universities across local and global contexts. 2. A Transformation Barometer There are processes currently underway in South Africa to create a higher education `transformation barometer`. There is a push for transformation from both government and civil society in the wake of various students’ movements. Transformation includes radical change in the demographics of professoriate; ‘decolonisation’ of curricula and research agendas; embracing intellectual contributions from Africa; elimination of racism and sexism and all other forms of unjust discrimination; improvement in academic success rates amongst black students; expansion of student support; promotion of socially just pedagogies; democratic and non-repressive institutional cultures; and ensuring accountable governance and management efficiencies. Of course, ‘transformation’ is highly contested but despite the slipperiness of the concept, a broad meaning-making frame is emerging that can facilitate the fundamental reconstitution and re-expression of the role of the university in wider society. The idea of the barometer has limitations and so needs to be subjected to perennial questions about ‘transformation’. As such, the idea of a perennially questioned barometer presents a potential starting point for a useful ‘measurement practice’. 3. Glocal citizenship education There are scholar-activists, both students and staff, who against many odds, are constructing alternative ways of living and learning; they are developing new organizational and epistemological models that counter the separation of people and institutions from one another; that counter the separation of feelings from thinking, and which embrace ‘heads, hearts and hands’ - they are striving to build community. Global citizenship education involves, amongst others, a learning of empathy for people and environments and the interconnected realities in which we all exist on one planet. So where is glocal, democratic citizenship learnt? From the experiences in South Africa and elsewhere, one site which is underutilised as an informal / non-formal / formalised learning space for students, academics, managers and workers, are student and staff-led movements. Change will only come through activism of various kinds by members of the university community, therefore, student, worker and scholar-activists, whose individual and collective involvements are contributing to change, need support and affirmation. Integration of activist orientations into a ‘transformation barometer’ offers a possibility to sustain commitments for social, economic and environmental justice, thus encouraging its ‘mainstreaming’ within universities. When thinking of universities and their social responsibilities, I align with the sentiment of Lilla Watson, an aboriginal Australian woman, when she says, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Best wishes Shirley Walters **************************************************** Transition Network [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: April 29, 2016 10:02 AM Higher Calling for Higher Education (GTN Discussion)
From Paul Raskin GTN Colleagues:
If you toil in the groves of academe, the theme of our MAY DISCUSSION – whither the university? – is sure to pique your interest. Cristina Escrigas takes up this question in her new essay “A Higher Calling for Higher Education,” which you can read at www.greattransition.org/publication/a-higher-calling-for-higher-education. Peering through a wide-angle lens, Cristina, the former Executive Director of the Global University for Innovation (GUNi), sees an institution beset by forces of “marketization” and “internationalization,” but still holding the potential to become a transformative agent – if it can transform itself. Will the university remain a dependent variable in the calculus of market-driven globalization? Or can it instead become a “GT University”? I put the question this way in the title of my own modest contribution to a GUNi compendium: “Higher Education in an Unsettled Century: Handmaiden or Pathmaker?” Cristina’s hard-hitting answers deserve your attention – and response. Comments are welcome through MAY 31. Cristina’s essay will be published in June, along with selected comments drawn from the forthcoming discussion. Looking forward, Paul Raskin GTI Director GTI’S PUBLICATION CYCLE: ODD-NUMBERED months are for discussions of new essays for GTN eyes only. EVEN-NUMBERED months are for publication and distribution. You will receive discussion comments by email – or you can access them online at www.greattransition.org/forum/gti-forum, where you will find, as well, an archive of previous discussions. IN PRAISE OF BREVITY: Concise comments, as well as expansive ones, are most welcome. Please do not hesitate to weigh in. ------------------------------------------------------- Hit reply to post a message Or see thread and reply online at http://www.greattransition.org/forum/gti-discussions/174-a-higher-calling-fo... Need help? Email [email protected] -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/