Campus Review Vol 29. Issue 7 July 2019 | Page 22

VC’s corner campusreview.com.au Professor Jim Nyland. Photo: ACU UNIVERSITIES FOR STUDENTS OR CITIZENS? What is a civic university? It’s time to reappraise the civic role of the modern university. By Professor Jim Nyland T here exists a long and renowned history of ‘civic universities’ in the Anglosphere, and they are often compared and contrasted with the ‘ancient’ universities, sometimes seen as the repositories of tradition with their rituals, old buildings and formal codes of dress and behaviour. These are unique cultures, very different from modern corporations, let alone globalised digital businesses. The ancient universities looked inwards, both in their fortress-like medieval college buildings and in general with regard to the intellectual realm inside the walls. Such universities evoke a picture of timelessness, tradition and age-old customs for faculty members as well as the general public, which contrasts markedly with the leading role they often play in world university rankings and in research right across the academic spectrum. The civic universities were by contrast founded ‘for the people’ and with the belief that local industries and trade would benefit along with local and regional life and culture. Since the founding era of such universities at the turn of the 20th century, universities have changed enormously. Many are in fact now mega corporations, and some are truly global institutions in terms of research and teaching. Increasingly they are regulated and funded by government, and over recent times they have been increasingly monetised, subject to financial pressures to generate income and funds. 20 This has changed how universities behave and how they view themselves, and it forces consideration of just how the origins and defining purposes of such universities, alongside the many variants of ‘modern’ universities, are relevant to modern conditions. In the modern era, the civic role of the university is not separable from the wider questions of engagement, since the notion of the ‘civic’ has itself transmogrified partially into the difficult-to-define notion of ‘the community’. That there was a wide belief in the original community-relevant purposes of the university cannot be denied, but the content and meaning of both universities and communities have shifted considerably. How can we define this relationship today? Furthermore, how can we define and develop a curriculum which will be directly relevant to the great and demanding questions and challenges of the day which are existentially central to our future existence, such as climate change, global poverty and exclusion? These are pressing issues, especially since the universities have largely given up the task of delivering adult liberal education and extramural studies. There persists, however, a fundamental human need for knowledge and a social and communal need for intellectual life, for which universities are still uniquely equipped to respond. Professional scholarship must in these conditions look beyond the academy to an engagement which is truly modern. It must address the crucial issues and simultaneously educate the learners to be able to confront the difficult questions, rather than (potentially) turning them into ‘snowflakes’ who are incapable of facing a threat to their unchallenged selves and ideas. In many ways, and for many universities, it seems certain that the civic role is alive and well. In her recent keynote address to the Universities Australia conference held earlier this year Professor Mary Stuart, vice- chancellor of Lincoln University in the UK, reported that “many universities were able to articulate activities that clearly had an impact on the local area and people”, highlighting her 21st Century Lab, which was created in her university city, as but one example. People are often rightly proud of their local university, and this is a worldwide phenomenon. On the other hand, there undoubtedly exists a well of ignorance about universities locally and otherwise and many people do not know what higher education does for local life and the community. Quite how a university should benefit society and the community is a problem that has yet to be satisfactorily resolved. While it is difficult to establish categoric functions and activities for universities apropos their civic roles and responsibilities, it is clear that public funding and subsidies carry certain obligations and expectations. What is more clear is that few universities have a strategic approach to the needs and population in their area regarding civic activity. Far from being a strategic ‘third’ activity complementing teaching and research, the civic purpose of universities is unclear and often of only secondary importance in the hierarchy of functions headed by research and teaching fee-generating students. There is a further yet related difficulty with the notion of civic purpose. What exactly does this mean? Whose purposes are legitimately acknowledged when a publicly funded and endowed, yet private, independent and autonomous institution declares its primary tasks as international excellence in research, scholarship and entrepreneurial development of its business studies faculty? Given the charitable status and civic origins of most universities, are we not entitled to ask for more to be achieved in the civic realm? Could there be greater support for government signalling the central significance of higher education for all in many communities which are literally dispossessed and poverty stricken, some of which are within a stone’s throw of the often grand civic university campuses? Could there be local representation on university governing bodies and committees, and could a shared and collaborative model