SOUL OF ACADEMIA IN HIGHER EDUCATION

(AEA102)

FACILITATOR:

PROF DR ROSE ALINDA ALIAS

AZMAN HASHIM INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

COURSE CONTENTS

0900-1030

• Course Synopsis

• Essence of Soul of Academia (Lecture 1)

• Ice-Breaking: Why Academia? (Group Sharing Activity 1)

1030-1200

• Nurturing Soul in New Academia (Lecture 2)

• Case Studies (Group Activity 2)

110-1200

• Soul of Higher Education (Lecture 3)

• Quo Vadis ? (Group Activity 3)

COURSE

SYNOPSIS

TOPIC 1

3

COURSE SYNOPSIS

BAHASA MALAYSIA

Bertujuan memupuk jiwa akademia yang

lebih holistik, selari dengan peranan institusi

pengajian tinggi (IPT).

Menerangkan tentang falsafah, tujuan, dan

peranan IPT dalam konteks Akademia

Baharu.

Membincangkan pembinaan dan

pembudayaan DNA Institusi.

Membincangkan beberapa kajian kes akan

dalam meningkatkan lagi kefahaman

berkaitan dengan pendekatan untuk

menyuburkan jiwa akademia.

Di akhir modul ini, adalah diharapkan peserta

berupaya untuk menerapkan jiwa akademia

dalam kerjaya sebagai seorang ahli

akademik.

ENGLISH

Nurturing a more holistic soul of

academia, in line with the roles of

institutions of higher learning (IHLs).

Explains the philosophy, purposes and

roles of IHL in the context of New

Academia.

Discusses the development and

acculturation of an Institutional DNA.

Discusses several case studies to

increase understanding about

approaches to revitalise the soul of

academia.

At the end of this module, it is hoped

participants would be able to inculcate the

soul of academia in their career in

academia.

4

LEARNING

OUTCOMES

1. Understands the essence of Soul of

Academia (SofAc)

2. Understands how to nurture a Holistic Soul of

Academia (SofAc).

3. Understands how to acculturate soul of

academia into institutional DNA.

ICE-BREAKING:

THE FACILITATOR

6

WHY ACADEMIA?

INTRODUCTION: ICE BREAKING

7

HOW DID YOU GET

INTO ACADEMIA?

HOW DID I GET INTO

ACADEMIA?

SAPURATECHNOLOGY

INDUSTRY (LOCAL APPLE DISTRIBUTOR)

RIMA COLLEGE

PRIVATE EDUCATIONAL

INSTITUTION

JABATAN TELEKOM MALAYSIA

GOVERNMENT TELECOMMUNICATION

AGENCY

HOW DID I GET INTO

ACADEMIA? BY CHOICE

10

INDUSTRY ACADEMIA

A TRIP DOWN

RAA ACADEMIA

MEMORY LANE

PHASE 1:

THE FIRST DECADE

(EARLY CAREER)

(1987 – 1996)

11

PHASE 1:

EARLY CAREER

(1987-1996)

Feb ‘87

Jul’87

Aug ‘89

Jan ’93 – Jun ‘96

12

A TRIP DOWN

RAA ACADEMIA

MEMORY LANE

PHASE 2:

THE NEXT TWO DECADES

(MID CAREER)

1996 - 2016

13

PHASE 2:

ACADEMIC

ADMINISTRATOR

1998

2005

2007

2009

2012

2017

MyDEGS

Chair

JKTNCRA

Chair

14

COMING BACK.

ON THE GROUND.

A FULL CIRCLE.

PHASE 3:

THE NEXT DECADE

(PRE-RETIREMENT)

2017 - 2022

15

16

PHASE 3:

PRE-RETIREMENT

AcademicActivities

Fulfilled Scholar

BlissFeb

2017

SEPT

2022

QALB & SOUL

LECTURE 1: WHAT IS SOUL?

17

THE REALITY OF MAN

Ruh

Semangat

Nafs

Jiwa

Qalb

Aqal

THE REALITY OF MAN

THE REALITY OF MAN

❖ Heart / Hati

❖ Reversal, Conversion,

Transformation,

Alteration, Transposition

❖ Divine subtlety attached

to the heart

❖ Originator of all our

feelings, emotions,

appetites and desires.

❖ Whole power behind the

human being, both the

self and the spirit.

QALB

The principle of life, feeling,

thought, and action in

humans, regarded as a

distinct entity separate

from the body, and

commonly held to be

separable in existence

from the body;

The spiritual part of humans

as distinct from the

physical part.

The emotional part of

human nature; the seat of

the feelings or

sentiments.

SOUL

COMPARING..

SOUL

Who you are; you

thoughts, will, desires,

emotions, and the

ability to reason.

Heart of the body, and

does not die.

Immortal tart of a

person transcending

death, onto a higher

plane.

SPIRIT

The principle of

conscious life; the vital

principle in humans,

animating the body or

mediating between

body and soul.

The incorporeal part of

humans: present in

spirit though absent in

body.

Conscious, incorporeal

being, as opposed to

matter: the world of

spirit. 23

The Philosophy of Qalb (Heart)-Guided Leadership

Adapted from: “Al-Ghazali on Disciplining the Soul, Kitab Ridayat al-Nafs, Books XXII and XXIII of the Revival of the Religious

Sciences”, translated by T.J. Winter (1995), The Islamic Text Book Society, Cambridge

24

COMPARISON OF….

TRAIT

Impossible to change

A distinguishing

characteristic or

quality, especially of

one’s nature

May be physical (color

or shape)

May be behaviourial

(introvert, extrovert)

Result from a single

or combination of

genes

BEHAVIOUR

Can be changed

The manner of

conducting oneself

Involves action and

response to

stimulation

25

EXHIBIT 15 A AND B

GROUP ACTIVITY

#1

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO ACADEMIA?

27

GROUP SHARING

ACTIVITY #1Group yourselves into By

CHANCE or By CHOICE

1 person volunteer as Leader

for each Group. Your role is

to facilitate and

cluster/identify factors that

brought the members to

academia.

1 person volunteer as

Rapporteur for each group

and to assist the leader in

clustering and identifying

factors that brought the

members to academia.

OTHERS: REFLECT

Introduce yourself and

share the main factor

that brought you to

academia (between 1-2

minutes each).

Analyse each one’s

individual reflections

and discuss the key

factors.

28

REFLECT & SHARE IN

GROUP – BY CHOICE

(1-2 MINS each)..

❖ How did you choose academia?

❖ What were the other options?

❖ What were the opportunity costs?

❖ Why did you choose academia?

❖ Were you driven by Internal or External Factors?

❖ What were your goals ?

❖ When did you aspire to be in academia ?

❖ Were there any role models?

29

❖ How did you end up in academia?

❖ What brought you to academia?

❖ What were your apprehensions when you joined

academia?

❖ What was the greatest challenge for you in academia?

❖ What are the internal demons that you battle with as you

continue your journey in academia?

REFLECTION

BY CHANCE (1-2 MINS)..

30

DIAGRAM OF SEEDS OF

SOUL OF ACADEMIA

Answer the question of:

“What were the seeds of Soul of Academia that brought

you to academia?”

Draw a Rich Picture

(any diagram/cartoons/illustrations) to show the answer to

the question.

31

NURTURING THE

SOUL IN NEW

ACADEMIA

LECTURE 2: WHAT IS NEW ACADEMIA?

32

ACADEMIATHE ENVIRONMENT OR

COMMUNITY

CONCERNED WITH THE

PURSUIT OF

RESEARCH,

EDUCATION, AND

SCHOLARSHIP

33

NEW

ACADEMIA

34

NEW ACADEMIA

✔ UTM’s Global Plan strategic thrust in 2011

✔ A new organizational DNA.

✔ A new pedagogical framework

✔ Not bound by an “academic discipline” framework which

is too specialized, dimming the beauty and downing the

meaning of knowledge.

✔ Allow students to learn a particular discipline in a more

comprehensive manner and not bound by over-

specialization approaches which would remove the

underlying meaning and wisdom in any discipline.

✔ Advancing knowledge in a unified, beneficial, and more

dynamic manner, which is not too confined to the

conventional academic paradigm.

35

NEW ACADEMIA

⮚ Focus is on bringing fresh dimensions to the knowledge

culture, and not merely viewing knowledge as a

“commodity” or “method” to achieve short term goals,

particularly through a certification process.

⮚ Knowledge must be understood and appreciated as an

integrated and holistic venture, allowing scholars to

achieve hikmah or wisdom.

36

MAIN COMPONENTS OF

NEW ACADEMIA

37

*

New academiaacademia

Action

Faculty members Professors, inventors, entrepreneurs Adjunct staff, fellows

Learning materials

Books, journals, experiences, Internet, internship

Internship, students’ business venture

Philosophy Integration New pedagogy, RA

Funding Grants, fees, VC, endowment, REITs Creative fund raising

Students School leavers, mid-career, businessmen, early-career, life-long

Top UG; PG from corporations, research

Venue Campus, Internet, incubators, brands Wifi, 4G, MTDC, Proton

Learning modes Lectures, tutorials, lab, studios, peer instruction, internship, incubators,

experiential learning, 5 minds

NEW PEDAGOGY: learner-centric, Silicon V-culture, GOP, ethics

Outcomes Degrees, expertise, business models, capital, networks, culture

JOB CREATION; micro-credit, spin-off, projects

UTM New Academia

38

SOUL OF ACADEMIA

❖ Strive and attempt to constantly enhance the levels of

motivation, academic excellence, ability to implement,

technical skills and management skills.

❖ Do not expect too much short term rewards and interests.

The best reward is an eternal one.

❖ Have faith that the best contributions and good deeds are

in the form of Specific good deeds (Tangible KAI) or

General good deeds (Intangible KAI).

❖ Do not blow own trumpet following a success.

❖ Look for ways and opportunities proactively to make

contributions and offer the best services, instead of

making excuses.

40

❖ Use the KAI as an important instrument to steer individual

activities to be in tandem.

❖ KAI should not be misinterpreted or viewed from a

quantitative angle, which led to performing daily tasks in a

quantitative manner, being too calculative, forgetting

spirits of volunteerism, solidarity and sincerity, which

cannot be equated in numerical indicators.

41

SYED NAQUIB AL-

ATTAS’ INTELLECTUAL

FRAMEWORK

⮚ The meaning of education:

⮚ “the process of attaining knowledge”

⮚ “ethical to educate a personconcernng the good and the bad of

any action or deed, and to clarify the responsibilities of life: it is

this that makes the person a man of adab.

⮚ Instilling adab in the soul. Ad”ab is the “right action that springs

from self-discipline founded upon knowledge whose source is

wisdom”.

⮚ “arrival of meaning in the soul and the soul’s arrival at meaning”.

⮚ “meaning is the recognition of the proper place of anything

within a system, which occurs when the relation a thing has with

others in that system is clarified and understood.

42

THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE

FOR THE SAKE OF WHAT?

MATERIAL PROSPERITY OR

SOMETHING ELSE?

⮚ The progress of knowledge should be based rightly on

qualitative indicators such as:

⮚ Characters of the men of knowledge, manifested in a

sound heart, an exceptional mind, a youthful conviction, a

readiness for open dialogue, a productive intellectual life,

sustainable living and other virtues that should be

continually improved and strengthened in the bosom of the

scholarly community.

⮚ The celebration of the culture of knowledge and learning

must be practised by everyone and every level of the

campus community.

43

HOW HAVE YOU

IMPLEMENTED NEW

ACADEMIA IN YOUR

DAILY ROUTINE?

44

UTM with a

Soul

UTM DNA

WCU

TangiblePublications, Research,

PG Programs,

Education, IP, RU

IntangibleTeamwork, Ukhuwah

Knowledge Culture,

Integrity, Passion,

Entrepreneurship,

Taqwa, Amal Salleh

Bara

ka

h

Syn

erg

y

Ja

nn

ah

UTM Key Amal Indicators

THE GLOW IN THE DARK

UTM INSTITUTIONAL

DNA

47

Kerangka

Transformasi Sistem Penyampaian

48

With the right support, talent excellence can be nurtured along differentiated career pathways

Recognising attributes for different

talent excellence

Inspiring

EducatorExperienced

Practitioner

Institutional

Leader

▪ Espouses a clear philosophy

and theory of T&L

▪ Exhibits creativity and

innovation in T&L and

assessment

▪ Introduces innovation that

impacts learning

▪ contribution(s) to leadership

of T&L

▪ Is engaged in scholarly

activities and/or pedagogic

research in their subject area

and/or innovation

▪ Demonstrates excellence in

research and produces

original work which makes

significant impact in the field.

▪ Make significant

contribution(s) to the body of

knowledge through research

of international standing

▪ Is able to attract major

research grants

▪ Research has impact on

community and society at

large

▪ Demonstrates excellence in

institutional leadership

▪ Leads and empowers

institution to serve the

community and the nation to

achieve national agenda

▪ Demonstrates good

leadership attributes

▪ Demonstrates leadership in

sustaining best practices, and

in leading change where

necessary

▪ Is a recognised figure at

national and international

level

▪ Demonstrates overall

understanding of key aspects

of management, as well as

rules and regulations

▪ Is visionary and has a

strategic mindset

Accomplished

Researcher

▪ Demonstrates excellence in

professional practice

▪ Is an authority in the field of

specialisation and

contributes to the field of

practice at both national

and international level

▪ Makes major contributions

and innovations in the

development of their

respective professions

▪ Shows evidence of national

and international

recognition of excellence

through consultancy

activities

▪ Where applicable, has

obtained certification by

relevant bodies

49

Profession

al Practice

Entry Point

50

Baseline

Competencie

s

DS45/DS51/DS

52

Path towards

differentiatio

n begins here

DS53/DS54/VK

7

Apex

VK7/VK6/VK5

Institutional

Leadership

Pathway

Teaching

Pathway

Professional

Practice

Pathway

Teaching + Research + Services +

Administrative

Research

Pathway

Leadership in

Teaching – 55%

R- 25% L - 10%

Industry

Leader

Mid-career

Practition

er

UTM DIFFERENTIATED CAREER PATHWAY FRAMEWORK

Institutional

Leader – 60%

R – 20% T – 10%

P – 10%

Leadership in

Research – 60%

T – 20% L – 10%

Leadership in Field of

Practice – 60%

T – 10%R –

20%

Practice – 60%

T – 10%R –

20%L -10%

Current Position

R – Research/Publication/Supervision P - Professional Practice T – Teaching L- Leadership

L - 10%

Research – 60%

T – 20% L – 10%

Teaching – 55%

R - 25% L - 10%

P – 10%

P – 10%P – 10%

P – 10%

50

GROUP ACTIVITY

#2

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO ACADEMIA?

51

CASE STUDIES

Divide yourselves into 3 groups for each of the case

studies:

1. Case Study 1: Dilema Dekan Baharu

2. Case Study 2: Whose Way Should be Respected?

3. Case Study 3: Guys, Let’s Do This!

Provide the Diversity Analytics for your group (gender,

discipline, birth state, graduating institution etc.)

Discuss the answers to the case study that you’re

assigned to.

Present the answers: Oral supplemented with Rich

Pictures.

52

SOUL OF HIGHER

EDUCATION

LECTURE 3: WHAT ARE HIGHER EDUCATION

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES AND CONCERNS?

53

54

"The great universities are respected and certainly prized in America, but the public regards with increasing skepticism the values they represent and their failure sometimes to represent any values at all. As their cost zooms towards $50,000 per year and their intellectual content becomes more estranged from anything comprehensible to ordinary citizens, they will be regarded as sources of economic security for their graduates but not of intellectual or personal inspiration.”

Lewis is a professor of computer science at Harvard College and has been on the Harvard faculty for 32 years. He was Dean of Harvard College between 1995 and 2003 and chaired the College's student disciplinary and athletic policy committees.

MEANING & VALUE OF

HIGHER LEARNING

HOW DID UNIVERSITIES USED

TO INSTALL VALUES THAT THEY

NO LONGER ARE DOING?

⮚ Universities used to find it more natural to talk about civic

responsibility, and about the moral obligations democracy

imposes on its citizens.

⮚ At a less grandiose level, it used to be easier than it now is to

tell students when they had done something wrong and to

punish them for it.

⮚ Now we tend to operate within quasi-legal disciplinary

systems, with narrowly prescribed rules of conduct for students

and procedure for the disciplinary system, and there is less

freedom on the part of administrators to make judgments.

DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THIS CHARACTERISTIC IN

COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES IS A REFLECTION OF

OUR SOCIETY'S APPARENT PREFERENCE FOR

SUCCESS OVER ALL ELSE? WHAT IS THERE IN

OUR SOCIETY THAT PRIZES "SOUL" OR ETHICS?

⮚ I talk a lot about the consumerism and soullessness of higher

education, but you are correct that these merely reflect trends

in society.

⮚ Universities used to be considered among the institutions that

stood for the best in society, not the average. They were

supposed to be inspiring..

⮚ As universities have acted more and more like businesses,

they have lost some of the old spirit that they were dedicated to

the service of society, and should reflect the best of the human

spirit, not whatever happened to be going down at the moment.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES IN BUSINESS FOCUS

VERSUS SERVICE-TO-SOCIETY FOCUS BETWEEN

COLLEGES, MID-TIER UNIVERSITIES, AND THE ELITE

UNIVERSITIES? GIVEN THESE DIFFERENCES, IS IT

POSSIBLE FOR THE ELITE UNIVERSITIES TO RECOVER?

WHAT WILL IT TAKE?

I think it is more a function of leadership, and of tradition. I think a

more materialistic or more humane emphasis is possible in any

kind of institution of higher learning. The problem is that since the

figure of merit on which all colleges and universities are ranked

nowhere take into account the kinds of values I wish they

espoused, the ones that are trying to rise in the rankings have an

incentive to go after dollars and test scores and faculty research

credentials, rather than other things which will actually matter

more to undergraduate education, broadly defined. In that sense

the top research universities, which are already highly ranked,

could most easily demonstrate their commitment to other values.

THE LOST SOUL OF HIGHER EDUCATION:

CORPORATIZATION, THE ASSAULT ON

ACADEMIC FREEDOM, AND THE END OF THE

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

“In reacting to the economic insecurities of the past forty years,

the nation’s colleges and universities have adopted corporate

practices that degrade undergraduate instruction, marginalize

faculty members, and threaten the very mission of the academy

as an institution devoted to the common good.”

Ellen Schrecker

QUOTES TO PONDER

⮚ "the damage that the 'casualization' of the academic labor

force is doing to academic freedom and the quality of

higher education.”

⮚ "the transformation of students into consumers changed

the curriculum," as "students and their parents began to

demand that education lead directly to employment."

⮚ “vocationalization of higher education”

⮚ the book as "a plea to and for the faculty.”

ELLEN SCHRECKER :

❖ the tenured and tenure-track faculty members who traditionally ran

American higher education can no longer do so. They no longer have

the time.

❖ Forced by today’s academic rat race to compete ever more feverishly

for grants and publish ever more books and articles, they must also

carry an administrative load made increasingly onerous by external

demands for accountability and by chores that only they can perform

in departments staffed largely by adjuncts.

❖ At the same time, their institutions are adopting a top-down corporate

model of governance that erodes their traditional power. Thus, even if

they had the time to devote to university governance, faculty

members find themselves sidelined from key decision-making about

such central educational matters as what to teach and who should

teach it.

ELLEN SCHRECKER :

⮚ Faculty members must return to their traditional role at the heart of the

university. They must explain to the public – and to their students and their

administrators as well – why their input is essential if American higher

education is to meet its current challenges.

⮚ This reversal will not be accomplished easily; the nation’s faculties face a

legacy of more than forty years of demonization by the media and

marginalization on their campuses. Collective action – through unions, faculty

senates, and organizations like the American Association of University

Professors – is crucial.

⮚ Fortunately, the situation is not yet hopeless. As many administrators admit,

faculty members still have considerable clout within their institutions, even if

they do not always exercise it.

⮚ At the same time, as the failure of David Horowitz’s recent campaign against

academic freedom revealed, once politicians and the general public understand

the real issues involved, they do support the intellectual openness and faculty

autonomy that American higher education requires. And, who knows, they

might even pay for it.

WHAT IS THE SOUL OF

HIGHER EDUCATION

AND HOW DID IT GET

LOST?

❖ Schrecker argues that a fully developed higher education

system cannot exist without academic freedom.

❖ Soul of the Academy: Academic Freedom

❖ Academic freedom means the right to educate students by

challenging prevailing beliefs through the free inquiry and

open communication of ideas.

REVIEW OF "THE LOST SOUL OF HIGHER

EDUCATION: CORPORATIZATION, THE ASSAULT

ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM, AND THE END OF THE

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY"

MADELEINE HARDIN….1/2

❖ A complete restructuring of the academy

❖ Increasing marketization has meant the public good is

being replaced by academic research funded by the

highest corporate bidder and cost effectiveness is

replacing teaching effectiveness.

❖ An increase in managerialism in higher education to

handle cost-cutting, assessment, and fundraising.

❖ To maintain programs or to grow in the face of funding

cutbacks and shrinking allocations, the academy has

increasingly become a brand that seeks external private

funding or cost savings through the use of contingent

faculty labour.

❖ The competition to raise capital has had a profound effect

on faculty; it influences their concept of labour and of

each other, and how faculty interact with students and the

community.

❖ Contingent faculty are increasingly teaching a higher

percentage of courses because they are seen as a flexible

labour force that can expand or shrink according to

funding availability. In other words, they are seen as

convenient and disposable.

❖ The threat to academic freedom, the increasing

marketization of the academy, the resultant, almost

revolutionary change in how students and the

professoriate are now perceived, have all undermined the

“soul” of the academy.

REVIEW OF "THE LOST SOUL OF HIGHER

EDUCATION: CORPORATIZATION, THE ASSAULT

ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM, AND THE END OF THE

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY"

MADELEINE HARDIN….2/2

IN THE COMPANY OF

SCHOLARS

"I began this book to articulate my sense of disappointment and alienation from the status I

had fought so hard to achieve". A remarkable admission from an alumnus of Harvard Law

School who has held tenured professorships in the law schools of Yale and Stanford and has

taught in the law schools of Harvard and Chicago. In this personal reflection on the status of

higher education, Julius Getman probes the tensions between status and meaning, elitism and

egalitarianism, that challenge the academy and academics today. He shows how higher

education creates a shared intellectual community among people of varied classes and races -

while simultaneously dividing people on the basis of education and status. In the course of his

explorations, Getman touches on many of the most current issues in higher education today,

including the conflict between teaching and research, challenges to academic freedom, the

struggle over multiculturalism, and the impact of minority and feminist activism. Getman

presents these issues through relevant, often humorous anecdotes, using his own and others'

experiences in coping with the constantly changing academic landscape. Written from a liberal

perspective, the book offers another side of the story told in such recent works as Allan

Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and Roger Kimball's Tenured Radicals. It will be

important reading for everyone concerned with the future of higher education, as well as for

anyone considering an academic career.

Julius Getmen, 1992

CAN A UNIVERSITY

HAVE A SOUL?

❖ John Henry Newman rightly insists in his classic work on the subject

that narrow specialisations produce narrow minds.

❖ Newman was arguing that the primary role of the university was to

give students a "perfection of the intellect … the clear, calm, accurate

vision and comprehension of all things" that allows the individual to

make good judgements. He wrote of this: "It is almost prophetic from

its knowledge of history; it is almost heart-searching from its

knowledge of human nature; it has almost supernatural charity from

its freedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the repose of

faith, because nothing can startle it; it has almost the beauty and

harmony of heavenly contemplation".

❖ a possible definition of the soul of the university – nothing

geographically or temporally fixed, but the mark left on the alumnus's

mind, which stays with them all their lives. In reminding us that the

university has a greater role than just doling out qualifications – that of

shaping the whole individual

OUTSOURCING THE SOUL

OF THE

UNIVERSITY….DAVID KIRP

❖ RCM: outsourcing and revenue-centered (or

responsibility-centered) management.

❖ Each academic unit is expected to carry its own weight

financially: expenses, including salaries, space, and such,

cannot exceed income, whether raised through tuition,

grants, or gifts.

❖ RCM are signs of the triumph of market values over the

vision of the university as an intellectual commons where

money isn’t the principal metric of worth.

❖ The Cult of Efficiency

CASE STUDY 1:

RCM @ UNIVERSITY OF

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

⮚ Within reason, schools were entitled to keep the revenue they

generated. By far and away, tuition is the major source of income

for most USC units, so the schools did the obvious—that is, they

did whatever it took to boost enrollment.

⮚ Given that the number of undergraduates was fixed, they

engaged in a zero-sum game, wherein gains in one school could

come only at the expense of another.

⮚ Academically questionable behavior quickly ensued.

⮚ Meanwhile, there was no one at USC to speak out for the

institution, no one with the authority to point out that the

individual schools’ “rational” behavior was creating a tragedy of

the commons. The deans were, effectively, in charge. They

decided how much to tax themselves for what they tellingly

called “peripherals,” including the administration itself, which

had to justify its expenses.

CASE STUDY 2:

RCM @ UNIVERSITY OF

MICHIGAN

❖ Duderstadt firmly believed that a business model was needed to run the

institution, which he likened to “each tub on its own bottom, with

someone controlling the tide.” The provost at the time, Gil Whitaker, was

that “someone.” He moved quickly, and by 1997 a full-fledged version of

RCM was in place at Michigan.

❖ Worse, perhaps, was that the new financial realities became roadblocks

in the path of cross-disciplinary work—long a hallmark at Michigan—as

deans began to fight over how to split the overhead from research

grants.

❖ Today the budget model is called just that: the “budget model.” Although

it retains the best parts of RCM—the budget is public information, not

just the provost’s secret, and the schools have major responsibility for

raising and spending money on their own activities—the campus

administration has reclaimed authority over decisions affecting the wider

community. Commitment to collaboration and the shared life of the

institution—the very things that make the University of Michigan a

special place—have been renewed.

OUTSOURCING

❖ If the institution is to thrive as an academic venture, then

teaching, learning, and research—the core of the institution—

must remain the responsibility of its members. At this point,

however, the educational mission of the university is itself in

danger of being outsourced.

❖ Too frequently, colleges and universities are contracting out

their most basic function: teaching. That’s not how the practice

of hiring part-timers is usually understood, but adjunct

instructors, recruited on a fee-for-service basis to teach a single

course or, at best, to teach fulltime for a few years, are the

academic equivalent of temp agency fill-ins or day laborers. In

the hiring halls of higher education, more than three in five new

full-time academic jobs offer no prospect for tenure. The result is

the sacrifice of loyalty in the name of short-term survival, a

practice that saps the academic culture of the institution.

HUMANITIES THE SOUL

OF THE UNIVERSITY

❖ It is a sign of the academic times where tertiary managers earn more

than academic staff and, in my opinion, students are enrolled,

primarily, on their ability to pay.

❖ And despite government propaganda promoting student loans as a

fix-all for easy access to study, many are now questioning the societal

benefit of substantial academic debt.

❖ Over the years, the tertiary pitch has been life-long learning. But the

arts has become a casualty of changing academic times.

❖ It's a global trend. Humanities student numbers are declining

worldwide. It is also part of the worldwide governmental ideology that

ties any and all tertiary education to employment, with students

defined (incorrectly) as customers.

❖ It's a deeply flawed management mantra that ignores the value of

education on a personal level and the long-term consequences of

defining academia as a profit driven export industry.

LEADER: WHAT PRICE THE SOUL OF

A UNIVERSITY?

❖ The terms of reference for the review by Lord Browne of

Madingley were “to analyse the challenges and opportunities

facing higher education and their implications for student

financing and support”.

❖ Probably the most fundamental and historic shift affects

teaching, with funding switching from the public to the private

sphere, putting “spending power directly in the hands of

students”, Mr Willetts says. There is, of course, nothing wrong

with giving students more say in their education, but as Vernon

Bogdanor, research professor at King’s College London,

argues in our cover story, “student contributions to university

finance should complement public funding, not obviate the

need for it”.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/leader/leader-what-

price-the-soul-of-a-university/414042.article

❖ “spending power directly in the hands of students”,

❖ “student contributions to university finance should complement

public funding, not obviate the need for it”.

❖ The poet John Masefield described the university romantically

as :

❖ “a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to

know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make

others see; where seekers and learners alike, banded

together in the search for knowledge, will honour thought

in all its finer ways…will uphold ever the dignity of thought

and learning and will exact standards in these things.’ It

must continue to be so.”

INDIVIDUAL

ACTIVITY #3

77

REFLECTION

Reflect on the issues raised throughout today’s class.

Write an essay (no limits) on how you plain to soar high in

academia and yet never losing your footing/ground,

firmly anchored on your Soul of Academia.

Write an email to me and a mentor in your personal

journey.

Share as a blog on your people.utm.my/xxx page.

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