Academic Life and Labour in the New University

Hope and Other Choices

Ruth Barcan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781409436218
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317185949
• Topic: Economía
• Subtopic: Economía laboral

What does it mean to be an academic today? What kinds of experiences do students have, and how are they affected by what they learn? Why do so many students and their teachers feel like frauds? Can we learn to teach and research in ways that foster hope and deflate pretension? Academic Life and Labour in the New University: Hope and Other Choices addresses these big questions, discussing the challenges of teaching and researching in the contemporary university, the purpose of research and its fundamental value, and the role of the academy against the background of major changes to nature of the university itself. Drawing on a range of international media sources, political discourse and many years' professional experience, this volume explores approaches to teaching and research, with special emphasis on the importance of collegiality, intellectual honesty and courage. With attention to the intersection of large-scale institutional changes and intellectual shifts such as the rise of transdisciplinarity and the development of a pluralist curriculum, this book proposes the pursuit of more ethical, compassionate and critical forms of teaching and research. As such, it will be of interest not only to scholars of cultural studies and education, but to all those who care about the fate of the university as an institution, including young scholars seeking to join the academy.

CHAPTER 1
The Big Shifts: Massification, Marketization and their Consequences

Introduction

When I began an Arts degree in an Australian university at the age of 17 – fresh-faced, earnest and naïve (indeed, if photos are to be believed, even a wearer of pigtails) – my tutorials were held in groups of eight in the lecturer’s office. After a class, it was not uncommon for my friends and me to go for a cup of coffee with the lecturer. Academic staff formed part of my social and even friendship network, since many of them were actively involved in student life, joining us in trips to the theatre, wine and cheese nights, classical toga banquets, weekend pétanque tournaments and many of the other pleasures of student life in the Arts.

Perhaps I was just lucky, and my experiences at a university in a large town may not have matched those of my peers who studied in bigger cities or in different disciplines.1 Be that as it may, this picture of coffees and conversation, of plays and picnics, bears no resemblance to my own current life as a Humanities academic. Today, it is as much as my colleagues and I can do to schedule an annual departmental lunch, and I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of cups of coffee I have had away from the office with colleagues, let alone students, in the last five years. Conversations with students are not casual strolls to the university union after a class, but carefully scheduled appointments, often squeezed in before a lecture for maximum efficiency for both the student and me.

Efficiency and productivity have, indeed, become the hallmarks of daily professional life and the drivers of new habits – the subtle bodily register of the creeping but ultimately sweeping changes of the last few decades, which have seen great changes to the number, size, funding conditions, student population and management structure of universities. As one who has lived out this evolution from within the Australian higher education system – as an undergraduate student in a period without tuition fees, a postgraduate in the time of intellectual upheaval in the Humanities, and an employed academic in the era of cutbacks – I know these changes not only intellectually, but also as memories registered in the body, and as changes to the rhythms and habits of everyday life.

Looking back, I am in a position to make some politics out of my fond undergraduate memories, beginning with the realization that many (though by no means all) of the lecturers who joined in with students in such a leisurely fashion were male. The luxurious temporality we enjoyed and the sociality it engendered were, it now seems obvious, underpinned by a set of economic and social realities, including the hegemonic gender arrangements that allowed the predominantly male workforce time to spare. Women were less frequently or more precariously employed, and may have had had less time to spare after hours.2

The pleasures of my undergraduate days were politically laden in other ways. First, the level of social interaction I enjoyed was made possible because universities were much smaller. In 1980 (the year I finished high school), there was a total of 330,000 students enrolled in higher education in Australia (Marks et al. 2000: 1). By 2011, it was 1,221,008 (including international students) (Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education 2011). So my years of growing up in the higher education sector also track its movement from an elite to a mass system, whose student experiences cannot possibly be comparable.

I was, moreover, an undergraduate in the brief interregnum provided by the Whitlam years, when student fees had been abolished.3 While universities had hitherto largely served the middle classes, the fee-free period I experienced meant that there were people from a wider range of backgrounds, along with many more mature-aged students than today. My classes were full of divorced women seeking new lives, middle-aged men seeking more meaningful careers, and elderly people relishing study in the Arts for its own sake. Over thirty years later I still think fondly, for example, of Mildred, a heavy smoking, red wine drinking, septuagenarian who was an active member of my university’s English Society and who came with us on all our bus trips to see plays in Sydney. This to me was one of the deepest joys of university life – a breath of fresh air after high school. The constraints of school-based sociality dropped away like a heavy cloak, and many of my friendships crossed age and ethnic divides.

This was also a time when student grants, while not extravagant, were in better ratio to housing rents than they are today. As a result of this, and also of the class base of the student body, students engaged in far less part-time work than they do today when Sydney, for example, has the worst housing affordability in the English-speaking world, second only to Hong Kong (Cox and Pavletich 2011: 2). In such circumstances, campus life could flourish. Today, fees, rents and the temptations of a greatly expanded consumer culture encourage or force students to undertake paid work to a much greater extent than in my days. My long days spent almost entirely on campus – when breaks between classes were opportunities to read or chat or lie on the grass rather than infuriating obstacles to paid employment – must seem a scarcely imaginable luxury or a strange waste of time to today’s Australian students, around two-thirds of whom undertake paid work off campus (Coates 2011: 3) and whose schedules are structured to allow university and work to be compressed into efficient blocks of time.4

How did so much change so quickly? To gesture towards the changes that underlie and motivate the essays that follow, this chapter will give an overview of this big picture, focusing on two core changes: massification and marketization. A detailed study of internationalization/globalization could of course have been included as a third major force for change, but space does not permit. Instead, I will thread a discussion of globalization through the chapters to come. (For an excellent detailed study of the impact of internationalization on higher education see Sidhu 2006). Under the rubric of massification, I consider the significant growth in the higher education sector in the twentieth century; under that of marketization, I explore how the idea of the university as an inevitably marketized player has become increasingly commonsensical, despite a widespread perception that this might conflict with the university’s fundamentally social mission, with the ideal of disinterested knowledge and with the idea of social good. The big picture I survey in this chapter is the social, institutional and educational ground on which all the dilemmas explored in this book repose.

Massification

Massification is the somewhat inelegant but commonly used term to describe the significant expansion of the higher education system of many countries in the aftermath of World War Two. In most countries in Europe, North America, Latin America and Australasia, the development of the modern university system has been a tale of increasing participation and democratization. In many countries this expansion is the almost inevitable consequence of an expansion first of primary and then of secondary schooling (Committee on Higher Education 1963: 11). Such changes have inevitably entailed a questioning and shifting of universities’ mission, their funding, and their standards.

In Britain, expansion really took off towards the close of World War Two. Malcolm Tight’s (2009) history of the UK higher education sector notes three sources of expansion at this time. The first was government recognition that there would be a growing need for teachers and for science and technology graduates. This recognition helped fuel the development of technical colleges and university colleges (Tight 2009: 58–9). Immediately after the war, there was a second expansionary pressure, caused by a ‘backlog’ (60) of ex-servicemen and women entering universities and teacher training, assisted by targeted government assistance schemes (60). A third, more general, pressure was a substantial increase in student numbers resulting from ‘the enhanced expectations of a growing population’ (60).

Up till the early 1950s, there had been a slow and steady increase in student numbers. In the late 1950s and early 1960s there was a sudden boom – a ‘massive institutional expansion’ (Tight 2009: 61), commonly described as an ‘explosion’ (e.g. Kingsbury 1974: 7, Simon 1991: 225). In nine years, the number of universities doubled to 47 (Tight 2009: 65). This was not just a question of meeting existing needs, but of a deliberate, principled opening up of higher education to a greater number of people for reasons of social equity and national benefit. The so-called Robbins principle, named after the chair of the Committee on Higher Education (1961–63), whose influential report was published in 1963, is one core articulation of the newly democratic conception of the university: ‘that courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so’ (Committee on Higher Education 1963: 6). This ‘axiom’ (1963: 8) also represented an overturning of what had till then been a hegemonic idea: that of a ‘strictly limited “pool of ability”’ (Simon 1991: 225). The call for expansion made in the Robbins Report was repeated later that year in a Labour Party report, which echoed the sentiment that higher education should be ‘a right for all able young men and women, regardless of their families’ class, income or position’ (qtd. in Simon 1991: 229). Acceptance of this principle necessitated ‘a rapid and continuing expansion of higher education, on a scale never before contemplated’ (qtd. in Simon 1991: 229).

This expansion took place in an unexpected way, however. Though the Robbins principle was accepted by the incoming Labour government of 1964, the new government’s chosen mechanism for enacting it took many by surprise. In 1965 the Secretary of State for Education, Anthony Crosland, decided to reinforce rather than dismantle the distinction between vocational/technical education and university education by creating ‘a whole new higher education sector’ (Tight 2009: 71) in the form of a greatly expanded polytechnic sector. Polytechnics were to be a second ‘pillar’ of post-school education, providing an education equal in prestige to, but different in nature from, that acquired in universities. One of the architects of the scheme, Eric Robinson, described it as ‘a system with two tops’ (Kearney 2006: Ep. 3). This decision, announced at Woolwich Polytechnic, the second-oldest polytechnic in Britain, was the formal instantiation of a binary policy, which was to last until 1992.5

Within this expansionary climate, particular attention was paid to those social groups who had hitherto faced obstacles in accessing higher education. In 1960, the Anderson Report initiated a regulation requiring local education authorities to give a grant to any student who obtained an undergraduate place (Aldrich 1996: 16, Tight 2009: 86–7). The Open University, conceived of in 1963 and opening in 1971 (Simon 1991: 265), was another important contributor, both symbolically and literally, to the process of opening up higher education. Since it allowed people to study at home part-time, it was able to accommodate new constituencies of students. According to Brian Simon, this university has had ‘an astonishingly successful career’ (1991: 265). Throughout the 1970s the so-called ‘access’ movement continued to grow, calling for the inclusion of mature, working-class and non-Anglo constituencies (Tight 2009: 74).

The drive to reduce social inequities has had some measure of success. By 1996, the number of students from ethnic minority communities obtaining a higher education qualification exceeded the national average (Aldrich 1996: 6). But social class remains an impediment. Though the numbers of people from working-class backgrounds increased markedly over the twentieth century, socio-economic status still represents a significant factor in higher education participation (Tight 2009: 266–7).

The 1970s began well, with expansion across all levels of education and teacher morale high (Simon 1991: 405). A Conservative government led by Edward Heath was elected in 1970, and Margaret Thatcher served as Secretary of State for Education and Science. Thatcher’s White Paper of 1972 continued the expansionist agenda, proposing an increase in full-time higher education student numbers of some 7 per cent over a ten year period (Simon 1991: 426). At the same time, it aimed to ‘sharpen, and harden’ the binary divide (426) by expanding the polytechnics. Its ambitions were, however, never realized: expansionary policies soon became impossible to fund in the face of economic difficulties so severe that there were five States of Emergency proclaimed in four years (406). The economic crisis of 1973 ushered in a ‘wholly new perspective’ (427): ‘Educational expansion, on the scale that had now persisted for two decades or more, was to become a memory’ (427). Between 1970 and 1973, university student numbers in fact declined by more than 50 per cent (427). Between 1974 and 1977, university budgets were cut drastically, in what was ‘the worst financial crisis experienced by all universities in peacetime’ (Stewart 1989: 162). For the newly established universities, the timing of these cuts couldn’t have been worse.

The 1980s were dominated by the next Conservative government, elected in 1979 under Margaret Thatcher. Contradictions around the question of expansion continued. Over the nearly two decades that the Conservatives were in power (1979–97) their policy position shifted dramatically. Indeed, Watson and Bowden characterize the Tory era as a tale of two policies: “[t]hey took office with one series of policies and then suddenly and radically reversed field in the mid-1980s’ (1999: 244). ‘Policy A’, as Watson and Bowden term it, was to cut funds drastically, to tie the universities to more pragmatic goals and to promote a more focused sector with fewer institutions (244). ‘Policy B’, which Watson and Bowden characterize as a ‘change of heart’ (245), was initiated by a 1987 White Paper recommending continued growth. Over the next decade the sector, especially postgraduate education, grew, though without overall growth in funding (245). This policy of growth without expenditure increase was achieved via a number of ‘efficiency measures’, including a rise in the student to staff ratio (245) and the dissolution of the binary system in 1992, which enabled the cheaper polytechnics to actively compete with the universities for students (246).

A similar picture of growth and diversification characterized post World War Two Australian higher education. One distinction, however, was that the egalitarian concern with access had manifested earlier in Australia. A number of the ‘founding fathers’ of Australian university education, including Henry Parkes, had been concerned about the social exclusiveness of the new university system (Anderson 1990: 120).6 Parkes had argued that the dedication of public money towards Australia’s first university, the University of Sydney, established in 1852, should not be allowed because of the university’s ‘air of aristocratical predilection’ (qtd. in Anderson 1990: 120). Other egalitarian characteristics of the Australian system include the earliness of its forays into distance education (122) and the central place it has always accorded to part-time education, with figures regularly showing up to one-third of undergraduates to be studying part-time (123).

As in the UK, enrolments in universities continued to rise during the early years of World War Two. This changed with the entry of Japan into the war, which made the need for manpower more urgent, and the Federal Government limited university enrolments except in certain ‘restricted’ fields of study (e.g. Medicine, Science and Agriculture), whose students were exempted from compulsory military service and financially supported by fee assistance and living allowances, via the Commonwealth Financial Assistance Scheme, established in 1943 (A. Barcan 1980: 288). This principle of financial assistance for those in need remained after the close of the war and was extended to all faculties (288).

As in the UK, student numbers grew suddenly after the war with the return of servicemen and women, which prompted a boost in government funding for new buildings (288). Alan Barcan sees the post-War period in Australian academia as a social and intellectual boom time:

The years from 1944 to 1951 saw a quickening of student life in Australian universities, an immense growth in the size of universities, and an improvement in academic standards. The availability of Commonwealth government funds, the extra maturity given to student life by the presence of many ex-servicemen and women, and the idealism and enthusiasm of the immediate post-war period helped produce a flourishing academic life. (1980: 288)

Student numbers surged in the mid-1950s (Anderson 1990: 116) and concern about the social inequality in access to university was renewed (124). In 1957, the Murray Report articulated the view that Australian universities should be financed sufficiently to enable them to accept all qualified applicants (Anderson 1990: 117). This egalitarian principle, made six years before the 1963 Robbins principle, was accepted by the Martin Committee in 1964, which made the case for expansion, in part to include people from working-class backgrounds (118).

As student numbers rose, more people from working-class backgrounds entered universities, but, as in the UK, class was still a strong determinant. Moreover, the pressure of higher student numbers led to quotas being applied for popular courses and competition for places became stronger (Anderson 1990: 128). In 1974 the Labor Whitlam government abolished tuition fees in an attempt to make university entrance easier for working-class families. It also replaced competitive academic scholarships with a means-tested living allowances scheme (the Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme). Don Anderson outlines the relative failure of these measures.7 Nonetheless these were at the very least important symbolic and psychological measures, helping to create a sense that working-class people had a right to enter university. I personally know a number of adults who credit Prime Minister Whitlam with having changed their life by allowing them to become the first member of their family to enter university, and who on that ground remain staunch ‘fans’ of Whitlam to this day.

In Australia, the 1960s and 70s were peak decades for equality of access, followed by a sharp reversal in the 1980s (Anderson 1990: 140). But the higher education system continued to expand. In 1988, the Labor Minister for Employment, Education and Training, John Dawkins, introduced sweeping reforms that greatly expanded the number of universities by dismantling the distinction between universities, teaching colleges and Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs). These reforms put in place a ‘Unified National System’ (Commonwealth of Australia 1988), achieved via nation-wide amalgamations of CAEs with universities...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Private Feelings, Public Contexts
• 1 The Big Shifts: Massification, Marketization and their Consequences
• 2 The Wellbeing of Academics in the Palimpsestic University
• 3 Pluralism and its Discontents: Teaching Critical Theory and the Politics of Hope
• 4 The Idleness of Academics: Hopeful Reflections on the Usefulness of Cultural Studies
• 5 Feeling Like a Fraud: Or, the Upside of Knowing You Can Never Be Good Enough
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Appendix
• Index