Notes on: Cribb,
A and Gewirtz, S. (2013) 'The hollowed out
university? A critical analysis of changing
institutional and academic norms in UK higher
education'. Discourse: Studies in the
Cultural Politics of Education, 34 (3):
338-50. Doi: 10.1080/01596306.2012.717188
Dave Harris
A hollowed out institution is one 'with no
distinctive social role and no ethical raison
d'être'(338). Trends in UK higher
education are analyzed through articles appearing
in the Times Higher Educational Supplement
(THES) , from 1979 to 2010. [Reported in an
earlier article as in salami slicing]. The
focus is on 'institutional norms and academic
values'. The work proceeds through examining
May on professionalism, then considers the growth
of impression management, with its attention on
'surface considerations rather than considerations
of academic substance' (339).
The period in question started with protests and
marches against government cuts, and there were
more in 2010, although they were different, both
in terms of agendas and in terms of who was
actually involved in protest. In 1979 there
was much more unity of purpose between senior
staff lecturers and students, but in 2010,
students found themselves opposing university
managers. The themes discussed in THES
turned on management change in the face of
retrenchment, new faces and emphases, and gloss
and spin. Obviously this is a partial
summary, and it risks relying on a mythical past.
The first theme addressed reductions in
student intake numbers and in subsidies for
overseas students, in the context of a general
policy turn against public spending. Cuts
were met with substantial opposition them protest,
teach ins, marches to parliament. Apparently
20 university VCs were present at one demo, and
their committee [CVCP - Committee of Vice
Chancellors and Principals] also sent
support. The UGC [a quango advising the
government on university funding, originally seen
as a semi independent, but increasingly as an
agent of the state] intervened to help
universities cope with cuts, but by reviewing
strengths and weaknesses of individual university
departments, which opened the door to government
assessment in the form of the RAE [quinquennial
research assessment exercise, now the REF - funds
are awarded according to assessment of research
output]. The trend was to undermine
university autonomy, by introducing new managerial
technologies, which are now routine - research
assessment and appraisal. These were
borrowed from the private sector and they did
change the culture of universities by emphasizing
productivity. The Jarratt Report suggested
further changes in the direction of making
universities corporations, and vice chancellors
into chief executives rather than leading
scholars. There was some privatisation
including the outsourcing of campus
services. Management and finance consultancy
in HE grew considerably.
New faces and emphases followed from
different mixes of 'staff, students, and
organizational partners'(340). There had
already been a shift of funding to favour science
and engineering and business at the expense of
social sciences and humanities, concealed to some
extent by a considerable expansion in the
university sector, including making the old
polytechnics into the new universities.
Nevertheless the 'humanities cultures' were
diminished. The dominance of science and
technology was apparent in the new notions of
research and development, continued in the current
emphases of the 'need to demonstrate social and
economic impact'(341) for all research, and an
emphasis on skills. This model has replaced
the idea of the single scholar producing a major
monograph sometimes over many years -this, 'in RAE
terms, is equivalent to being non productive for
long periods'. Massification also took place with
the rise of student numbers and the 'proliferation
of programmes'. Student demand increased
including from women mature and part time
students. For a while, this is revived the
notion of HE as a National Investment, and there
was some genuine widened access and some attention
to social exclusion. At the same time, there
was an expansion of links with business, in the
form of sponsored research, new funding schemes,
talk about economic exploitation of research, and
business representatives on university governing
boards. There is also a new professional
group to advise on research policy and quality
assurance, as well as 'business relations common
knowledge exchange, fundraising and development'
Gloss and spin has been managed by new PR
experts, another push towards corporate identity
and a concern with reputation. Universities
now have to compete, and so they have become far
more conscious of their image, and keen to develop
'slick marketing approaches and practices'
(342). There had been a number of stories
about how this has affected traditional university
values, 'for example the reconfiguring of
graduation day as a " marketing machine"'.
Universities UK, the replacement for CVCP, has
shown itself interested only in minimizing
negative publicity after a hike in student fees,
because it might affect student recruitment.
Overall, these changes represent a policy of
making large cuts in teaching grants, a move to a
marketized system, and a new climate for HE
[including Bologna, although this is not mentioned
- this is an EU report suggesting that non
vocational courses not be funded at all]. It
fragmented protest, by separating university
managers doubt as a stratum, and reducing '"mere"
academic concerns' as a priority.
We can explain the 'shifting normative terrain' by
referring to May on American HE. The focus
is on how managerialism affects the subjectivities
and careers of academics. May talks about
the difference between the liberal arts college,
the positivist vision, and the 'counter cultural
protest vision' of the university (343). The
first featured the 'cultivation of the well
rounded person', emphasis on central values,
'questioning and discriminating students',
'breadth and aesthetic intelligence… respect
for persons rather than credentials… wisdom
and insight more than specialised
expertise', vocation and the common good
were encouraged, the 'intelligent amateur'[Bourdieu would have a
lot to say about this!]. The positivist
university was more accessible, did large scale
research, but was anonymous, impersonal, and less
interested in values. Instead the emphasis
was on 'technical intelligence, careerism and the
production of marketable skills'. People
built careers through publication, and this began
'what May calls the "miniaturization" of
knowledge' with increasing specialism. Self
display and hustling were no longer frowned
upon. The counter cultural version was
supported by some academics wanting to 'nurture
the critically conscious self', aiming at
emancipation an encouraging activism.
All these might coexist within contemporary
universities, although counterculture seems to
have been particularly submerged, and liberal arts
increasingly threatened. The emphasis on
technical rationality has led to 'various forms of
instrumentalism' (344), and 'what May describes as
"verbal hustling" - all the replacement of
understatement by overstatement'. This has
reduced the distinctive rationality of
universities, which have become another large
scale social organization, 'what we are calling a
hollowed out university', less a community of
learners, more a site for social engineering aimed
at social functions. Marketing, corporate
identity, competition, make the university like
any other corporate institution.
This might be an exaggeration, although it can be
'a useful heuristic'. There is a risk of
underestimating the extent to which gloss and spin
just operate at the corporate level: there are
'powerful relay mechanisms' which transmit them to
every level, including academic identity. It
may be that some academics are playing at being
mere assets, but management increasingly is driven
by a discourse about reputation that leads to the
individual assessment of academics in terms of
their numbers of grants from funders, their
publications or their impact, although we know
that these are only 'indirect indicators of the
value of academic work'. Some academics
might be playing a cynical game, but the discourse
affects real choices, motivations 'and habitual
forms of framing that inform the work' (345)
[needs some empirical stuff here, maybe a revisit
to Deem on the split personalities of academic
managers?].
Again this indicates a convergence with the other
corporations. For Marxists, it is a sign of
commodification, the results of a
'hypercapitalism...in which all transactions
outside the family have become effectively market
transactions', and where the brand becomes the
product itself. Another way of putting this
is to see the university 'as part of the "triumph
of spectacle"'[citing Hedges], similar to
'pornography and professional wrestling', 'the
generation of successful illusions'.
This analysis could be too simple, and reflect
'"golden-ageism"'. Some developments have
indeed been positive including expansion and
diversity, and changes in university life is a
necessary price to pay to overcome elitism.
There is a danger of a mythical sense of loss,
which might tell us more about 'current projects
of identity making' (346) [the professional
ideologies and special pleading of
academics]. The danger of the politics of
nostalgia is that it offers retreat into the past
rather than an attempt to confront present
reality.
Perhaps we should say that the argument is 'at
least partly true' as a guide to further
discussion, including consideration of
alternatives. If hollowing out does proceed,
it could even lead to corruption, as we have seen
in the banking sector and in parliament. In
these cases, financial self interest, and
'performance oriented cultures' have overcome any
'meaningful internal systems of accountability and
effective civic governance'. University
staff still seem to retain some integrity,
although there have been some scandals like the
links between the LSE and the Gaddafi regime -
again this has been analyzed as associated with
the changes in UK HE as a whole, with its
obsessional search for funding.
There also more positive currents, and we have to
beware developing 'a reductionist and totalizing
narrative'. The alternatives are listed
above are still act as 'potential moral
resources'(347), indicating at least a certain
'ethical plurality and contestation' -- but these
risk being drowned out [they have no systematic
institutional power base any more]. We need
to revive more theoretical and philosophical
debates, including a recent defence of 'the
academic virtues of respect, or authenticity,
courage, passion, magnanimity, autonomy and
care'. We should be accompanied with
organizational change that embody these values,
such as 'broader based community organizing' as in
'the American Commonwealth Project'. [see also Cohen on this] A
recent campaign in defence of higher education is
also useful (Campaign for the Public University):
this revives the mission for social justice, and
opposes market based visions. However, it is
debatable whether 'these things can really still
count and be recognised, as virtues in the
hollowed out university' (348). Instead, we
have two sorts of opposed politics, Marxist
inspired counterculture, and liberal pluralism,
but 'managerialism and marketization'threatens to
neutralise both through incorporation - the latter
is indicated by taming and incorporating protest
over widening access into a public corporate
ethos. Gloss and spin are real threats, and
we should use 'the remaining spaces' to promote
then realise academic values - there is no way of
avoiding them and academics should struggle
against them.
[I like the look of Hedges, C. (2009).
Empire of illusion. New York: Nation
Books]
education studies
page
|
|