2000 and beyond...the university of the future

Vice - Chancellor's Inaugural Address
4 September 1996

Chancellor, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Thank you all for coming.

In this talk, I will tackle the questions:

• Does the University exist?
• Why has the modern university failed?
• What is the future for Australia and the University of Sydney?

Does the University exist? There is no question of the historical permanence of institutions called universities. Indeed, many like to follow Clark Kerr in noting that, alongside the Roman Catholic Church and the parliaments of Iceland and the Isle of Man, nothing is quite so persistent and unchanging as the university. That notion is amusing but misleading. I shall argue that it is only by constant re-appraisal and re-invention that universities can survive to flourish. Moreover, we are driving a vintage model largely designed in late 19th century Germany, with some modifications incorporating the Arcadian vision of Cardinal Newman and more recent body-styling and trim adapted to a down-market reinterpretation of the words 'research' and 'culture'.

Every university in Australia has a mission statement including two core activities the advancement of knowledge by research and its dissemination to students. In itself, that may be relatively innocuous, the real problem is the implicit assumption, often made, that this represents canonical stability anchored by centuries of tradition. Keynes once remarked that there are two kinds of dangerous conservatives - those who know only the past and those who know only the present.

As it happens, Shakespeare was hazy about university history. King Claudius said to Hamlet,

"For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg
It is most retrograde to our desire"

This was a funky trip on the spiral arrow of time for Wittenberg was founded in 1502, centuries after Hamlet's move to Yoricksville.

Let's go back a little further. We all harbour romantic notions of the medieval universities, Paris, Bologna, Oxford and, not too far behind, my alma mater, St Andrews. Warm rosy thoughts were reinforced by Victorian intellectuals like Matthew Arnold, who described their main purpose as twofold, the pursuit of conduct and the pursuit of beauty. By "conduct" he meant something like "morally-inspired good works".

In this century, Ortega praised the medieval institutions for making their core activity transmission of the canon of civilised intellectual knowledge, that basic complex of cultural history and awareness of the nature of things which should ideally be our preparation for life. All of that is true but we need remember, too, that the medieval universities were also trade protection rackets and that teaching the canon included suppressing the unorthodox. Unlicensed operators were driven from the market place. Apothecaries could mix potions but a medical degree was a prerequisite for administering them, the master-pupil relationship controlled entry to various church positions and books were burned on the advice of the masters of theology. Umberto Eco's blind librarian is also a symbol of the medieval university.

By the 18th century, Oxford had become an eccentric gentleman's club. Degrees were awarded on the basis of a single two hour session with three MA's of the student's choice. The temptations and outcomes are obvious. A reform statute of 1800 improved syllabus and examinations but teaching quality remained low. When Mark Pattison entered in 1832, he observed that no one attended university lectures and that college tutors were so incompetent that the hiring of private tutors was a commonplace.

I am describing all this to emphasise that our current notion of 'university' is not some Euclidean axiom. Indeed, one of the successful reformers, Jowett, who helped rejuvenate Oxford, also expostulated, "Research! a mere excuse for idleness, it has never achieved and will never achieve any results of the slightest value".

Around this time, the research imperative was developing in Germany, and English observers, such as Arnold, felt that students attended lectures with enthusiasm and staff were committed to the active acquisition of knowledge. Not everything was for the best in this best of all education worlds. Academics were severely underpaid and subject to dismissal at the whim of the State. The Elector of Hanover noted that there were two classes of persons who could always be had for payments Huren und Professoren, whores and professors. Alexander von Humboldt replied that he deferred to his majesty's superior knowledge of the former but that the glory of his life was to have been a half-professor.

So much for my first question. The University does not exist as a timeless concept, rather it is shaped and evolves in response to its environment. You will have detected, however, some analogies of modern environmental pressures in all these historical snapshots!

That brings me to the second question: how has the modern university failed? If you want to challenge the basic assumption and argue for its total success, don't write to me write to Amanda Vanstone. Seriously, though, I am referring to a phenomenon which is true of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, and its chief characteristic is a deafening silence.

The days of the public intellectual seem almost over and the universities have failed to present a compelling vision for higher education to the people at large and to government in particular.

The reticence of academics is well known. Our natural home is the subtle footnote rather than the pithy headline or even today the 20 second television grab. William Butler Yeats, when he took a break from counting beans on Innisfree, captured the dynamism of professors in these lines:

All shuffle there; all cough in ink
All wear the carpet with their shoes
All think what other people think;
All know the man their neighbour knows.
Lord, what would they say
Did their Catullus walk that way?

Carl Sandford created another image the nuclear physicist with death and destruction contingent on his musings, bumbling across campus, bumping into a tree and apologising, "I'm sorry, I thought you were a tree".

At a time when higher education reviews are in the air, I had occasion to revisit the writings of Lord Robbins who conducted the last major review of British higher education in the early 60's. Shortly after his report was released, he was invited to present evidence to the Commission on Oxford University. The following exchange is concerned with that University's participation in the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals - the English equivalent of the AVCC, the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee.

Lord Robbins: The attitude which you attribute to the Vice-Chancellors of this University is only, so to speak, an intensification of attitude which apparently is adopted by all the Vice-Chancellors who arrive there. They seem to take it as an implicit major premise of everything they say, that they are not entitled to say it.

The Chairman: I gather that after these suitable preliminaries have been observed they are then not condemned to silence.

Lord Robbins: No, apparently not.

The Chairman: I was thinking that there must be certain contexts in which, if it were desirable, the views of Oxford as a whole could be made known, and I was wondering whether, for example, on this particular committee or in a wider sphere of discourse you would think it would be wise of this University to take the opportunity from time to time to make these views known, if it felt it had something to say.

There is some natural diffidence in universities but we have to look behind that to understand the lack of colour and self-assertion of recent years. What are some of the external influences?

Sheer size has an influence. As an undergraduate I was one of just over 2,000 students. Today the University of Sydney has more than 30,000 students. With increasing experience and greater demands on the public purse a more or less informal body of self-governing scholars has to make way for a business operation. At the same time society has progressively codified its procedures, for occupational health and safety, for industrial relations, for equal opportunity and equity. Criteria for promotion, for job selection, are set out in objective terms and formal processes have been instituted. Don't get me wrong! I am displaying no 'nostalgie de la boue'. The simple old times led to breathtaking abuses and current practice, properly employed, produces better, not only fairer, outcomes.

All of this, however, has produced a culture shift from a cosy intimate college to a corporate business entity. There are some analogies with cricket's passage from flannelled fools to pyjama'd professionals.

At around the same time as universities were being nudged towards a corporate model other societal pressures pushed for a democracy of youth. The hidden hierarchies of the collegial system were exposed and professors, sometimes literally, were toppled from their chairs. As if this crisis of academic leadership were not enough, there came also intellectual challenge to the sacred canons. Science was no longer gee-whiz discovery delivering teflon linings en route to the moon, and scientists were dared to own the social consequences of their research and even to engage in epistemological debate on the validity of what they imagined was knowledge. Humanists behaved like baited badgers as they found themselves and their ideas deconstructed by fun-loving French intellectuals. Pranksters whom I find utterly charming charming just as I find a four year old in an airport lounge who blows a raspberry in my face before running to hide behind his mother's legs.

Unfortunately, this shock and schlock was having its initial destabilising effects around the time many of today's politicians were university students. Few seem to have developed an enduring respect for the robustness of the university institution. Eric Forth, Britain's education minister told me that universities needed help to tighten their act and the more he cut, the more quality seemed to improve. He believes he has yet to cross the axis and hit negative returns. In this country two reforming ministers, John Dawkins and Amanda Vanstone both reached universities by a slightly circuitous route. I strongly suspect that both entered starry-eyed and were somewhat disappointed by what they found.

Why didn't the Vice-Chancellors lick these businesses into shape? For a start, academics are not well-adapted to singing company songs. Donald Kennedy, ex-President of Stanford, likened academic management to herding cats, for the instinctive loyalty of most lecturers is to their world-wide discipline colleagues rather than to their local institution, and theirs is an individualistic calling. Those who abjure some worldly benefits for the pursuit of ideas do not readily measure their own worth by performance management, output indices or productivity evaluators.

By tradition, Vice-Chancellors were ecclesiastical figure-heads speaking for and from the college. Now we are also chief executives of massive public bureaucracies with multi-million dollar turnovers. We have become transformed into two-headed snakes.

Is it any wonder that there are cries for better management in universities? Niels Bohr, the great Danish theoretical physicist, philosophised along the following lines. There are two kinds of ideas in our universe and they are represented by two kinds of statements: those which are obviously true and those which are obviously false. The first form the basis of most publications and are intrinsically unimportant. The second can point to deep truth and must be cherished.

Here is another kind of statement: "It is imperative that our universities concentrate on improving their management". That statement is both obviously true and profoundly false. Of course we must work to develop strategic planning, to better our financial management and to mobilise our resources more effectively. But management, in itself, is relatively easy the real need is leadership. This country needs leadership of its universities and leadership by its universities. That brings me to the future.

Sandie Lindsay of Balliol once began a speech in the United States by stating, "I am a conservative, a liberal and a socialist". I agree with him. The two-headed snake has three hearts!

As a conservative, I value what this country owns of university tradition and I value that intellectual inheritance which gives form and substance to our society. Although the University does not exist as an immutable monocultural entity and must constantly be redefined I suppose I am a radical conservative I hold with passion to a higher vision than the mere instrumental. A recent letter on HECS horrified me. The writer compared the impost to the investment required for a taxi licence. If higher education is mere credentialism, a modern trade guild with a touch of vocational training, then we have lost our soul.

As a liberal, I value the independence and autonomy of universities and of student organisations. Sorry Claudius, we're off to Wittenberg and dangerous ideas abound. As well as preserving the knowledge and traditions of society, universities must challenge its assumptions and make it confront its future. I like the figure of the academic as fool or trickster. A really good court jester risks his neck on a daily basis and a really wise monarch pays him well.

As a socialist, I welcome the expansion of higher education so that others, like me, can be the first in their families to experience university. I believe also that our many institutions and professions benefit from, indeed depend upon, having membership from a broad cross-section of our society.

How well are we travelling in Australia? For my taste, too much of the rhetoric is intrinsically selfish. Government holds universities to account for delivering public benefit in the narrow sense training, employment needs, research that fuels economic growth. Students are reminded of private benefit in the narrow sense better job prospects, higher earning capacity and networking privilege. These are all matters of consequence but remember that the true privilege gained by our students is the opportunity to contribute more effectively to our society, both spiritually and materially.

In a similar way, the worth of universities cannot be measured by a league table of grants which they win, overseas fees which they secure or even first destination employment percentages of graduates. We must measure contribution to a civilised society in a more subtle way. I have little truck with the Gradgrinds who claim that if you cannot measure it, it does not exist. I accept, however, that if we cannot articulate our goals in a persuasive way then we fail ourselves and the nation.

It is time for a passage of plainer speaking. Already the desirable increase of access to universities has expanded the system beyond the capacity of the public purse. It is entirely reasonable that there should be a component of user contribution and that universities should be required to demonstrate the efficiency of their operations. Whatever funding mechanisms are used, we cannot sustain three-dozen public universities with identical aspirations. Accordingly, we will see progressive differentiation and stratification within the sector.

On the other hand, less than 5% of operating grants is allocated on the basis of performance, and the levels of HECS are uniform across universities and determined by government fiat. Individual institutions are not permitted to test the market. We are, of course, able to charge fees for overseas students, for Australian postgraduate students and, as proposed in the budget, for a marginal group of Australian undergraduate students.

This is no appropriate occasion for a technical analysis of the Budget. Let me say, however, that the discussion has been fudged by the existence of a massive unfunded salary claim and too much has been moved too soon from the public to the private purse. Moreover the system remains over-regulated and, in practical terms, we have been left precious little scope to institute equity measures from our own resources. I do, however, urge the passage of the revenue-generating measures while we work to lift our game.

That brings me to the University of Sydney conservative, liberal and socialist!

You see around you fine buildings. We hold in trust for the nation magnificent museums and a rich art collection. We treasure rare books. Recently, I was privileged to be shown a first edition of Newton's Principia and we have one of the world's most important collections of science fiction comics. Such obligations are a source of pride and joy. They generate also envy and financial burdens!

Nourished by our traditions we strive for leadership in teaching and research. We showed determination in advance of the budget by committing $21m to additional research initiatives to prepare the way for sustained research excellence into the next century. We will not deviate from that course. Some of this commitment is bait Our resources are being deployed to encourage industry collaborators to join us in our ventures.

Already we have received external accolades for our novel teaching developments, but we will continue to invest in fresh initiatives and a further program of enhancement is the final stage of preparation. 16,000 parents and students visited here last rainy Saturday and thousands more visited our other campuses. We are committed to making places available to outstanding students independent of their background, and that includes special entry schemes and scholarships.

The University must be managed well and it should be a learning organization in the full sense of these words. That means that students learn alongside staff who are themselves engaged in creative scholarship and learning. It means that general and academic staff should work together in achieving our core objectives. Everyone should have space to make their individual contribution and to sense how they form part of a shared and purposeful enterprise.

We cannot achieve our institutional goals through selfish action and we are part of an international community of scholarship. Existing overseas links will be intensified, giving more opportunities for our own students and staff, and bringing to Sydney, students and academics from a full range of countries and cultures.

At home, we look to increased cooperation. Although I envisage a much more differentiated system of universities, the differences will be those of mission and goals, not of esteem. In particular, I believe that many kinds of strategic alliance should be forged between Australian universities. Two immediate practical considerations are mobility of students and sharing of infrastructural resources. While I speak of leadership, I abhor the notion of standing aloof.

I firmly believe that all this must be energised by our own commitment and I am invigorated by the enthusiasm and sense of purpose of the staff I have met. We will make the commitment but we will require the strength and support of our friends. That is why I am so delighted that you have joined us this evening.

Thank you, again, for being with us.