Lina Koleilat interviews Raewyn Connell the author of The Good University: What universities actually do and why it’s time for radical change, (Monash University Publishing, 2019)
LK: Shall we start with your definition of what a University is?
RC: There’s a formal definition: a university is an institution authorised to grant degrees and licenciates. But that doesn’t tell us much about the social reality.
I think it’s important to recognise that a university is a workplace, with many different occupations that have to work together. It’s a place for the production and circulation of organized knowledge – the process we call ‘research’. It’s a centre for the most advanced levels of education, both general and specialised. It’s also an important cultural symbol, standing for science, knowledge, culture and professionalism.
All of those features are currently under threat.
LK: You mention in your book some of the problems that universities today are facing, could you please outline some of these problems briefly?
RC: In Australian universities, the main current problems are:
1. Government policies that redefined universities as competing firms operating on a market, rather than public institutions meeting social needs. That’s consistent with the ideology of neoliberalism. Governments following this agenda have cut the proportion of public funding for higher education, and have forced universities into commercial rivalry, rather than cooperation.
2. There has been a managerial revolution inside universities (supported from outside by the rich and powerful) that has shifted policy-making, executive power and income into the hands of corporate-style managers. An important consequence is the growing casualisation of academic staff, especially in teaching, and the outsourcing of many operations/professional/support roles. Both trends save money in the short term and reduce the universities’ skill base and capacity in the long run.
3. Australian universities have never broken from the monocultural curriculum that sustains our dependence on the global North, and marginalises alternative knowledge frameworks, of which there are many in the world. This sharply reduces the cultural wealth that can be incorporated in our teaching, and in our research. The corporate culture that values knowledge essentially as a means to generate revenue, makes this narrowing worse.
4. Australian universities have always been sites of privilege and social exclusion, on grounds of class, race, gender, and more. This has been challenged, especially by women, but is still a reality. We now see corporate-style universities producing new hierarchies and finding new ways of legitimating social inequality.
5. For all these reasons, Australian universities have been losing the respect once given them as centres of truth-telling. Their corporate advertising constantly bends the truth, conceals uncomfortable realities, and creates a fictional image of the university. Without any serious debate, we are on a slippery downslope of trust.
LK: Towards the end of the book, you discuss what is the ‘good university’ and how we can take action to reach that, could you tell us more about this?
RC: I think it’s really important to go beyond critique and to spell out positive goals for action. I offer five criteria for a good university: it will be democratic, engaged, truthful, creative, and sustainable. Through the book I spell out the meaning of these ideas.
At the same time, I recognise there are limits to what a single university can achieve. So I also offer criteria for a good university system. It will be cooperative (rather than competitive), publicly funded and socially inclusive. It will work with multiple knowledge systems, and will work for inclusion and social justice on a world scale as well as a local one.
As to action, I have always been in favour of do-it-yourself reform: building examples of good practice and cooperative relationships in the classroom, the staffroom, the laboratory and the office. Staff and students of any university can do a lot directly to realise criteria for the good university.
But local changes are vulnerable. Good local initiatives can be wiped out by aggressive managers, by restructures, by hostile national policies, or by being starved of resources. So it’s important also to act on the larger scale. I argue for building coalitions among groups who will gain from a better university system. We need to be arguing and organising at the level of government, and indeed internationally.
LK: In your last chapter you argue that the unions who represent university workers will be central in strategies of change. Being an NTEU life member, how do you see the role of the unions in contributing to meaningful change in the University?
RC: The union’s bread-and-butter work has two sides. One is negotiating wages-and-conditions deals, currently in the ‘enterprise agreement’ framework. The other is doing lots of case-by-case work for members of staff facing managerial bullying, unfair treatment, forced redundancy, irrational re-structuring, or other workplace problems.
On the basis of that grassroots experience, unions also act as policy advocates in public arenas. This goes farther than just lobbying for more funds. The union can also play an important role in defining purposes for higher education and research, talking about the realities of the sector rather than the glossy images, and circulating ideas for change. The NTEU has been doing more of this in recent years, and to my mind has become the main forum for serious, critical discussion of higher education in Australia.
RC: In an article in Overland, Rowan Cahill says that your book should be a mandatory read for Australia’s Vice-Chancellors. If you could talk directly to Australia’s Vice Chancellors, what would be your message?
1. Sell the Mercedes! Universities don’t need glossy facades or status symbols.
2. Cut your salary. Shrink the income inequality within universities, which has grown to an anti-social level.
3. Tell the Ramsay Centre to crawl back into its cave. Insist that your university’s curriculum is not for sale, and make a public point of it.
4. Face your responsibility for sustaining the university and its workforce in the long run. In the short run, that means ending the casualisation and outsourcing of work. You can do this! It will require skill and commitment as a manager of change: but that’s what you are there for, isn’t it?
5. Spend at least half your working week face-to-face with your rank-and-file workers. Every week. Find out how your university really works.
LK: What is your message to students and early career academics navigating The University today?
RC: To students: universities ought to be places of excitement, passion and discovery. Every student who makes a commitment to university study deserves that experience. It will require hard labour: a university is a workplace, not a holiday camp (despite the advertising!). Universities have been changing for the worse, and very often students’ experience is one of boredom and disengagement. But there are still a lot of committed, interested and interesting staff – both academic and general staff – who want your experience to be good.
Search for these possibilities. It will take time, since universities are large organisations, much more complex than schools. One of your main resources is the other students. It’s normally worth putting effort into meeting new people, joining clubs and societies, forming reading and discussion groups. You are likely to have some bad experiences along the way, which may include rigid bureaucracy, unavailable academics, loneliness, racism or sexual harassment. Don’t put up with any of these. If you are badly treated, there are usually pathways to get redress, and ways to work for something better. You can be part of the re-making of universities.
To early career academics: some of you will have a great experience from the start, others will have a rough time. Whatever happens, don’t keep it to yourself: share knowledge and know-how with your colleagues. Generally, universities have become tougher for young academics: most of the teaching is done in insecure employment, and it is significantly harder to establish a career path than it used to be. Put in a decent effort, but don’t harm yourself with overwork, that’s not smart: academic work too has to be sustainable. Remember that the problems you face are often intractable for individuals, but not for joint action. Join the union! And better still, since unions aren’t perfect, be active in the union and make it more effective.
To new members of the non-academic staff (professional, general, operations staff): remember that you are just as important to the working of the university, to its teaching and research, as the academic staff are. Your experience and ideas matter, so speak up and be heard. Some of you will be in insecure positions, vulnerable to outsourcing, and all university staff now are vulnerable to restructures. There’s often little you can do about this individually, but much can be done collectively. Join the union! Despite the commercialisation, universities still do teaching and research that matters for our whole society. If all the workforce take pride in that side of the work, there is a better chance of good universities for the future.
