Is This Really The Best Way To Do Things?

The past few posts on the nature and role of the university may cause people to ask if this is really the best way to do things. The answer, I believe, is yes! If universities were any more efficient they would be dangerous. In order to explain that outrageous claim, allow me to digress for a moment.

Machiavelli, the author of late Medieval book of real politic called The Prince, provided sage advice for keeping a Prince in power. However, what few people know is that he had second thoughts later in life about the advice that he had given. When you think about it, a monarchy is really the most effective form of government as long as two conditions occur. First, the monarch must understand what it good for the people he or she is governing. And, second, the monarch must be competent enough to achieve what is good for the people. If the monarch is corrupt (or at least does not make the needs of people primary) or if he or she is incompetent, then monarchy is not such a good idea. And therein lies the problem. Given what we know about people and human nature, it is unlikely that these conditions will be met. Hence we need a form of government that does not rely so much on a single person.

In steps democracy. It isn't that democracy is the most effective form of government. It isn't. It is slow, ineffective and often contrary. However, given our understanding of human nature, it is the most likely to be the most effective over time. It is not the most efficient. It is the most risk free. A monarch can use his or her power to very efficiently take a nation in a very wrong direction. If a democracy goes in a wrong direction it does so very slowly with much debate and discussion and many opportunities for correction.

Universities are similar to democracy in that they are slow, inefficient, and often contrary. However, as the guardians of reality, that is exactly what we want. We do not want to go tooling off in the wrong direction with great efficiency. We want to make sure that if we go in a wrong direction we do so slowly with much debate and many opportunities for correction.

Indeed, if you look at the history of universities, this is exactly what happens. It is exactly what we want to have happen. And therefore it is the best way to do things over the long term.

Guardians of Reality

Our perception of reality is in a constant state of flux. I use the phrase "Our perception of" to avoid philosophical arguments although the statement is equally as true without it. What appeared to be real to an ancient Egyptian was very different from what appeared real to an ancient Greek. Different again for a Medieval noble, and different again for scholar during the enlightenment. Our modern view and postmodern views are, again, very different. We can loosely define reality as our perceptions of the physical world, our social structures and values, and our spiritual expressions. It is what we think, believe, feel, experience and so on. And it is constantly changing. The comedian Lily Tomlin once said "What is reality, anyway? Just a collective hunch" And that is about as serviceable as any philosophical attempt to nail it down any further.

Reality changes because we are changing. We try new things. We learn new things. We reject old idea and accept new idea. We have new experiences and new concepts. If our perception of reality were static, they would, over time, fail to meet our needs. And, at the same time, if they changed too fast we would have a hard time keeping up with it all. So, in order to maintain the stability of reality we need a social institution that is on one hand tasked with advancing reality, and, at the same time responsible for maintaining its stability. And that social institution is the university. A couple easy examples will clearly illustrate this.

First consider the role of the university in education. On one hand the university indoctrinates students into the corpus of existing knowledge. This is a reality maintenance function. On the other hand, university classes encourage students to think for themselves. This is the advancement function. How can you tell students on one hand to learn what you are teaching them and one the other hand to think for themselves? Well, it is just part of the role of the university in maintaining and advancng reality.

Second consider the role of the university in research. On one hand the university generates new ideas. H.L. Mencken once said "There is no idea so stupid that you can't find a professor who believes it". One of the responsibilities of the faculty is to put forth and entertain new ideas. There is no tenet of our worldview that didn't start out as a stupid idea at some point. And yet, there are processes in place to keep stupid ideas from escaping out into the world of real people. There are tenure committees, peer reviews, commentary, viscous fights between differing schools of thought and so on. So the university allows reality to advance by adding new ideas, while keeping that advancement from happening too rapidly.

So when we complain about the vagaries of the university - the teachers who no longer want to teach, the researchers who no longer wish to pursue research, the administrators who came to the university to avoid administration only find them selves in administrative roles - you have ask: is the guardianship of reality important and can you think of any better way to do it?

Academic Service

There is a rich assortment of Academic Service roles within the University which I am going to simplify into two categories: voluntary committee work and paid administrative work. Voluntary committees usually involve some sort of policy making while administrative roles generally involve running something. Neither hold up particularly well to scrutiny.

Most academics have some sort of voluntary committee work and the effort required can vary greatly. There are committees that literally never meet and these are considered plum assignments as one can meet their obligations for service without doing anything. Other committees meet frequently and are usually addressing a problem that the committee members feel is important. The two extremes are rare and most committees meet now and then with limited attendance and limited productivity. As far as I can see, committees serve two purposes. First, they engage faculty in the workings of the university and allow faculty to meet other faculty that they might otherwise have no way of knowing. This is a good thing because faculty tend to become rather isolated in their teaching and research. Getting to know other faculty helps develop a sense of community among the faculty. The second is that committees keep faculty engaged in the policies of the university. Again, faculty tend to become rather isolated in their teaching and research. So committees allow them to stay in touch with any changes that may be brewing. People often forget that these are the two primary purposes for committee work and think that committees should be productive; that is, they should get something done. This misses the point and if a committee gets something done, it is a by product of the other two objectives.

Far fewer faculty have paid administrative roles. These roles include running a department, a program, or a school, all the way up to major administrative roles within the university. As I mentioned earlier, most academics prefer life at the university to the administrative life in a corporation. So why do some faculty migrate into these roles. In fairness, I should say that some if not many did it reluctantly. However, may actually pursue these roles. And there are two reasons, as far as I can see why they would do this. First, it needs to be done. That is, somebody has to do it. Faculty are an odd group of people and are reluctant to be led by someone who does not understand what they do. As a practical matter this means another academic. Academia is a culture unto itself. And one of the tenets of that culture is to only accept leaders from within the ranks. The second reason, also touched upon earlier, is that at some point most academics run out of steam for teaching and research. If they wish to remain vital and contributing administrative service roles provide that opportunity.

People looking at the univeristy from the outside often see the inner workings as bizarre, non productive and often neurotic. But, there are good reasons for the university being the way that it is. Universities are the "Guardians of Reality". And that will be the topic for next time.

Service: The Saftey Net of the Dispossessed

One of the great ironies of academic life is that many bright young people pursue academic careers because they find the idea of administrative life in the corporate world to be less than desirable. And, then, they find themselves, after a productive decade or two, in the administrative life of the university. The reason for this is that it is very difficult to sustain your productivity in research over the long term. And it is equally as difficult to sustain your enthusiasm for teaching.

There are three reasons why it is difficult to sustain your productivity in research. First, research requires mental energy. Mental energy declines as one ages and one is unlikely to engage in challenging new research as they get older. Second, research requires enthusiasm. Younger researchers are often driven by a desire to discover and be recognized for that discovery. As you publish paper after paper that few people care about, it is difficult to maintain that idealistic enthusiasm. Finally, the audience for research can be very fickle. What was a hot topic one decade can be a hard sell the next and an impossible sell after that. Since one is unlikely to embark on new avenues of research later in their career, they find that there is simply no audience for what they would like to write papers about.

Similarly, it is difficult to sustain your enthusiasm for teaching. Initially, it is a heady experience standing up in front of an audience of students and telling them things that they want to know or need to know. It is also quite satisfying to adjust over time to their challenges. Further, it is exciting to learn new things and pass them on. However, at some point there are no new challenges in the classroom. You have been asked every conceivable question multiple times. Students fade into one another as you have difficult remembering all the names. And you, some times, dread giving a lecture as you know you may very well bore yourself.

This does not happen to everyone. But it does happen to an overwhelming majority. This is really the point where one should move on to other things. But, if you have been an academic all your life and know nothing else, what can you move on to. The answer, of course is service to the university. There are any number of service roles from voluntary committee work to well paid administrative positions. Next time we will explore the richness of those alternatives.