The End of the University

On 8 January, at the 375th birthday (Dies Natalis) of the University of Amsterdam, University Professor Louise Fresco gave the annual anniversary speech (Dies rede) to the university community. Unfortunately, the address is only available in Dutch. With the risk of totally mutilating and distorting Fresco's brilliant style of writing, I want to share a few (translated) passages of her magnificent speech.

In her address, Louise Fresco reported about research that was done by Dr. Hakim Sarastro of the University of Oeloemia. Part of Dr. Sarastro's research on European higher education was conducted in Amsterdam(*). Fresco cites frequently from the letters that Sarastro sent to his colleagues in Oeloemia.

In his first letter(**), Sarastro starts on a positive and hopeful note:

"Dear Friends, finally I am in Europe, birthplace of western science! I feel like a traveler whose thirst will finally be quenched. Where better than in this continent, where the university was invented, can we test whether we are heading in the right direction at home in Oeloemia."

After doing field work at the University of Amsterdam, Sarastro continues in a more disillusioned tone in his second letter:

"In Oeloemia we know that the young student is like a new flower that needs to be treated carefully and has to be given the utmost care and attention. Only the freshest water and the purest nutrients will lead to knowledge and understanding. (...) But here, education takes place in grubbily underground rooms with bright fluorescent tubes, heaps of crushed plastic cups and scratched tables, by overworked teachers that do not have the time for the massive number of students that they are supposed to take care of. Under the guise of self-directed learning, many classes have been abolished; ...and that while the art of listening is the first step in the maturation of the young soul."

Dr. Sarastro was also astonished about the incestuous nature of academia in this small country, as he wrote in his fourth letter:

"... And then I noticed something that is utterly perplexing. In this affluent country there are no distant, isolated areas without books, where to one could be expelled. From east to west, from north to south, everywhere people live in equal comfort, but still no one seems to be willing to move. What in other places would be called intellectual incest - please forgive me the use of such a shocking term - has here become normal practice: one becomes professor at the university where one obtained the PhD, or where one graduated. Maybe that is why they are so found of the miniscule differences between the universities and research groups. Here, they are worse than the strictest religious scholars in Oeloemia: the ones that come from a particular school will be rejected in other schools, as a renegade. Even though they call themselves international, here in this country they see themselves and their models as unique, and that's why they prefer to avoid speaking amongst each other."

Accountability and performance have led to a system of peer review in the evaluation of research and the assessment of universities. This system is discussed in his fifth letter.

"This beautiful system however, is far less objective than its supporters think. The editors of the top journals are not afraid to use political resources to preserve their power. The editorial boards are inclined to create barriers and only accept papers that come from likeminded schools, so that rival groups can publish less of their work. Researchers themselves will slice their studies into more and more separate pieces, lest they can publish more. It is as if they try to squeeze as many drops out of an orange as possible instead of trying to squeeze one drop of valuable perfume out of the orange blossom."

And about university evaluations:

"Believe me, I sincerely made an attempt to read the assessment reports, but I don't have the faintest idea about which conclusions can be drawn on the basis of these reports, except that everything is going well and that they are very satisfied about themselves. Of course they will include foreign peers in the assessment teams. But here it is the case that they invite friends from likeminded schools, and that they return the favor at their schools. So, almost without exception, they get a grade of the highest level, and only rarely will a program be abolished. Considering all this, one would conclude that all inhabitants of this university were prophets."

"And I'll tell you something else I didn't expect, my friends. Their work is now so tightly coordinated and arranged, that there is no time left anymore for unanticipated ideas. But if we aim for the development of knowledge, don't we then need the freedom to go where our research leads us? The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain."

In his sixth letter he writes about his experiences within the faculties.

"It is truly a relief to see that the long European tradition is kept alive: here at the University of Amsterdam there are still the identifiable, classical faculties like the medical sciences, the physical sciences and the humanities. But I discovered that within these faculties programs are established of which I can not understand the content. These programs are about issues like doing business and communication. (...) Friends, it cannot be the case that a scientific, academic education has no higher objective then helping young people to understand the news on TV and to write their CVs!"

(...)

"They stand with their backs against each other, looking over the river, full of distrust and only longing for participation in the 'League of Top Universities and Top Faculties' on the other side of the seas. Politicians here claim that knowledge is the cornerstone of progress, but they distrust every call for more university resources. Can this small country, that in many respects is already 'big' relative to its population and its area, excel in all areas? Like the wise men say: the mountain that wants to reach to the skies, needs to spread its slopes widely over the plains, and the elite is positioned on the shoulders of large families."

Dr. Sarastro also expresses his concern about the financial situation and the bureaucracy in the universities:

"Every time, more and more pages need to be written to obtain the same amount of money. Most peculiar of this university is that so few hours are spent on thinking. Instead of thinking they write reports, instead of waiting patiently for that creative spark, they are in meetings."

Why not compare the Sciences with the Arts, proposes Dr. Sarastro:

"The development, protection and transfer of knowledge don't differ fundamentally from the promotion of the Arts, which flourishes so well over here. Does it? Sponsoring is what this peculiar transaction is called, not only free of interest, but also free of influence: one buys or hires ten dancers, fifty violinists or three paintings, without being able to determine what is played or displayed. It might be amazing that the rich are involved in such activities, but over here it is regarded as very respectable for the rich to support museums and concerts.

Doesn't our knowledge - that helps us to understand how the world works, what our position is and who we are - deserve to be nourished just like the Arts? Nevertheless, the rich and the companies remain absent, unless they can determine what the research will be about? "

Dr. Sarastro also finds that there is a feeling of distance and indifference between city and university, except where it concerns making money through spin-off companies. He thinks that that should be different:

"I haven't spoken to anyone in the city that was truly proud of the University of Amsterdam. A city without university is like a human without thoughts, like a plain without a horizon! They cannot exist without each other. The city needs free thinkers because creativity and authenticity represent a city. The application of knowledge in new companies occurs spontaneously in an environment that attracts creative people. There is no need for official committees to stimulate this."

By the time Hakim Sarastro gets to his eighth letter, there seem to appear more and more signs of desperation:

"Friends! In Oeloemia, the university is a place where students in small groups and together with their teachers, learn what science is, where research demands the highest personal dedication and where only the best professors - by rotation - as deans take comprehensible decisions about the academic directions."

(...)

"The confusion and dissatisfaction here, prove that systems of equity representation and participation do not lead to courageous decisions. National politicians refuse to put the money where their mouth is, the management of universities is paralyzed by internal struggles and lack of resources, and the professors... ah, they'll go their own way. There is no Universitas here, no desire to jointly shape a university."

(...)

"This is, my friends, the sad ending of a grand tradition that, from Bologna, via Coimbra, Paris, Heidelberg and Cambridge led to the nice European promises of Lisbon. Does this mean the end of the university? Will she implode because of the increasing bureaucratic pressures from within and from outside, and the centrifugal forces of market oriented research that is destroying the classical faculties? Will the university go to pieces because of a lack in leadership or because of the increasing student numbers? However things may be in Amsterdam, my dearest friends, we in Oeloemia need to go forward! Because he who saves one university, saves them all!"

Dr. Sarastro ends his last letter with the following passage:

"Oh friends, how my heart longs for the gardens of Oeloemia, for the jasmine shrubs that are touched by the quiet drops of the fountain - like by the finger tips of a lover - , for the honorable calmness of our inner courts where one only reads and whispers. There should be as many universities as there are plants flourishing in our gardens. Too long have I found myself in this grey mist, between empty trees and the smell of fried potatoes, in this country where the moon appears to be slower and paler than elsewhere. I have told you in detail about my visit, since I could only survive by telling you my story"

_________
(*) Sarastro, H. Letters from My Travels Searching for Universal Serendipity, the case of the University of Amsterdam (English summary). University of Oeloemia, Sunpower Press, Oeloemia, 2006. Circulation restricted.

(**) In an end note to the speech, Louise Fresco reveals her real source of inspiration: Lettres persanes by Montesquieu (Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brede et de Montesquieu), anonymously published in Amsterdam in 1721. Montesquieu is such an inspiring character because he was interested in - and experienced in - all sciences, from philosophy to physics. The name Sarastro does not come from the Lettres persanes, but of course refers to the keeper of the Temple of Wisdom in Mozart's Zauberflote. Fresco has named him Hakim ('the wise man'). Oeloemia is a name made up by Fresco, coming from 'Uluum', the Arabic word for Sciences.

Some of Sarastro's words come directly from Montesquieu. In other instances, Fresco has added some words from Persian poetry (from Thackston, W.M.: A Millennium of Classical Persian Poetry: A Guide to the Reading & Understanding of Persian Poetry from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century, 1994 Ibex Publishers, Bethesda (MD)). The comparison with the barking dog (Letter V) comes from a speech by Adlai Stevenson from the University of Wisconsin (in 1952: 'If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain').
_________

[With thanks to ScienceGuide for pointing me to the speech. The full speech, in Dutch, can be found here]

All in 1 week

In the past week, three remarkable men have passed away. The best writer of all times, one of the most innovative artists of all times and one of the most influential economists of all times.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925-2006) passed away last Sunday (30 April).

For me, his numerous books, short stories and essays are the most remarkable works I have ever read. Both his use of language and his choice of topics make that his books and stories portray a lively picture of Indonesian societies and cultures. Toer brought history to live, from the early Majapahit kingdom to the first stages of colonialism, from the first movements towards independence to the repression of the Suharto regime. I wrote a short post on is work before. Here is my top 5 of his work:

1. Gadis Pantai (The Girl from the Coast, 1962)
2. Buru Quartet: Bumi Manusia (Earth of Mankind, 1980); Anak Semua Bangsa (Child of all Nations, 1980); Jejak Langkah (Footsteps, 1985) and Rumah Kaca (The Glass House, 1988)
3. Korupsi (1954)
4. Keluarga Gerilya (The Guerrilla Family, 1950)
5. Arus Balik (1995)

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Karel Appel (1921-2006) passed away last Wednesday in Zurich.


Appel was probably the best known contemporary Dutch painter. He was one of the founders of the COBRA group, a group of painters from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, allied with abstract expressionism.






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John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) passed away on Saturday 29 April.

From the Economist:

"At six foot eight, he was a giant. Intellectually he was equally towering, a man who spent more than seven decades either on the stage of American public policy - as a bureaucrat in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, a confidante of John Kennedy and adviser to countless other Democrats - or loudly lambasting Washington from offstage left, as a Harvard professor."

And a well known quote:

"There are two classes of forecasters: those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know"

Pak Pram's new book

The IHT has an article on one of the greatest writers of our time: Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Toer (a.k.a. Pak Pram) is probably best known for his Buru Quartet, named after the island Buru where he was imprisoned while he wrote the book. It consists of four books telling the saga of the first stirrings of Indonesian nationalism seen through the eyes of a young Javanese student. The books are This Earth of Mankind (Bumi Manusia), Child of All Nations (Anak Semua Bangsa), Footsteps (Jejak Langkah), and House of Glass (Rumah Kaca). I have read nearly all of his books and my personal favorite is Gadis Pantai, a brilliant portrayal of Javanese culture illustrating a spectrum of Indonesian religion, traditions, gender roles, and socio-economics.

His latest book, Jalan Raya Pos (The Great Post Road) was published in 2005. As far as I know it is only available in Bahasa Indonesia but hopefully there will be a translation soon (otherwise I guess I'll have to repolish my language skills and read it in Indonesian). The book is about a major highway 1,000 kilometers across the north coast of Java by the Dutch governor General Herman Willem Daendels, in the early 19th century.

Although long lost in the mists of history, Pramoedya conservatively estimates that the construction of Daendel's Great Post Road cost the lives of more than 12,000 workers who toiled as forced laborers in indescribable conditions to build a seven-meter-wide road so that the wheels of commerce fueling Dutch wealth could grind more efficiently. Pramoedya follows the Great Post Road as it winds itself across the island of Java, using every town and district along the way as a marker of colonial excess and corruption.

What isn't told in the IHT article is that the book was previously 'published' as a movie in 1996. This 150 minute documentary/road movie tells the story of a writer, a road and the history of a country. Through a long and winding road that symbolizes the long Dutch oppression, through places and conversations that symbolize the oppression of Suharto's New Order, the writer that suffered terribly under both regimes uncovers the history and culture of his country. Here's an excerpt from a review by Vanessa Hearman in Inside Indonesia:

Generous in its coverage of the everyday experiences of Indonesians, it speaks with road gangs, tea pickers, newspaper sellers and a hotel-building entrepreneur who is largely blind to the daily reality going on around him. The narration is sparse, allowing for Pramudya's reading to dominate.

For this film, Pramoedya Ananta Toer wrote an essay which I assume forms the basis for the new book with the same name. I can't wait to read it..

Globalisation: 99 Definitions & Perspectives

While I was looking for a file in my computer I stumbled upon an old document. It's a file with a list of different perspectives and definitions of globalisation that I assembled for my doctoral research some years ago. I thought it might be of useful for students and scholars that are trying to grasp the possible meanings of the term.

It is a list of 99 (give or take a few) views from different disciplines and different sectors. Most are from academics, ranging from anthropologists to economists and from philosophers to business gurus. It includes statements from people as diverse as Bill Gates, Karl Marx and Vandana Shiva and organisations ranging from Greenpeace to the World Bank.

I converted the list into a website that can be found here (pdf also available). If you think any perspectives should be added, let me know..

Anyone but the King

Thailand is one of the countries in Southeast Asia that has shown rapid development. Economically it has done very well. It recovered relatively easily from the financial crisis in 1997 and is showing good progress in recovering from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. It has liberalised in terms of trade, but it has also become more open politically.But of course there is one thing that you cannot do, and that is to criticise King Bhumibol. The Chronicle reports:

The government of Thailand has blocked access in that country to the Web site of Yale University Press. The move is in response to the site's publicity material for The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, a book in which the author criticizes the king of Thailand.The government will also ban importation of the biography, which Yale is to publish in July. At various times after an initial blockage of the Web site earlier this month, parts of it were viewable within Thailand. Now access is fully censored, with a notice that reads: This Web site has been blocked by Cyber Inspector, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.

Languages of the Internet

Yesterday, UNESCO published a report on languages and the Internet (Click here for a PDF version for the whole report). The report is primarily on measurement and methodology, but also shows some results of these measurements. Here are some of my quick observations:

• English language speakers are still the largest language group on the internet with around 300 million users. The English language domination however is far less than in 2001, mainly due to the growth of Chinese and Japanese speaking/writing internet users (see graph).

• While in 1998, web pages were still dominantly in English, also this has decreased. In 1998, 75% of all web pages were in English, in 2003 this was around 45%. The ‘other’ in the graph must be mainly Chinese.

A simple search for “internet” (for specific languages) gives the following results:

2,160,000,000      English pages for "internet"
61,300,000           French pages for "internet"
53,900,000           German pages for "internet"
36,500,000           Spanish pages for "internet"
14,400,000           Dutch pages for "internet"
11,700,000           Portuguese pages for "internet"

What's the right atmosphere?

The International Herald Tribune yesterday reported about China’s investments in their universities.

China is focusing on science and technology, areas that reflect the country's development needs, but also reflect the preferences of an authoritarian system that restricts free speech. The liberal arts often involve critical thinking about politics, economics and history. The government has placed relatively little emphasis on achieving world-class status in these subjects. Yet, many Chinese say - most often indirectly - that the limits on academic debate could hamper efforts to create world-class universities

"Right now, I don't think any university in China has an atmosphere comparable to the older Western universities - Harvard or Oxford - in terms of freedom of expression," said Lin Jianhua, the executive vice president of Peking University. "We are trying to give the students a better environment, but in order to do these things we need time. Not 10 years, but maybe one or two generations."

The question is: can China wait for two generations? Artists and academics are already raising their voices.

But the biggest weakness, many Chinese academics indicated, is the lack of academic freedom. Yang, the former president of Fudan, warned that if the right "atmosphere" was not cultivated, great thinkers from overseas might come to China for a year or two only to leave, frustrated. Gong Ke, a vice president of Tsinghua University, said universities had "the duty to guarantee academic freedom. We have professors who teach here, foreigners, who teach very differently from the Chinese government's point of view. Some of them really criticize the economic policy of China."

Li Ao, a well-known Taiwanese writer, called for greater academic freedom and independence from the government in a September speech at Peking University. The next day, after reportedly coming under heavy official pressure, he delivered a far tamer version of the speech at Tsinghua University, where media coverage was tightly controlled. The Chinese government also censors university online bulletin boards and discussion groups, and recently prevented students at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou from conversing freely with visiting elected officials from Hong Kong.

Students here are not encouraged to challenge authority or received wisdom. For some, this helps explain why China has never won a Nobel Prize in any category. What is needed most now, some of China's best scholars say, are bold, original thinkers.

How long can a highly educated population be censored and restricted by government regulation? And can you have sustainable world-class universities without academic freedom?    

More branches

Unlike the University of Warwick, the University of New South Wales will continue to develop its branch campus in Singapore. The University of Warwick decided not to establish a branch campus because of financial reasons and because of Singapore’s regulation that foreign institutions are not allowed to criticise local politics. UNSW and Warwick were the only two foreign universities granted special status by the Singaporean Government to set up fully fledged independent teaching and research institutions offering undergraduate degrees. UNSW expects to open the doors of its UNSW Asia Campus, to up to 15,000 students from early 2007. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, it is also a major financial investment:

“UNSW has already secured a State Government-endorsed bank loan of $113 million for the Singapore campus. But it will also receive about $80 million in capital works funding from the Singapore Government, a figure the university's deputy vice-chancellor (international and development), John Ingleson, has refused to confirm or deny, on the grounds that it is commercial-in-confidence.”

I have been posting about this topic before. It is not that I am against the establishments of foreign branch campuses and neither are these posts meant to criticise Singapore’s desire to attract foreign universities. However I do think there needs to be some more transparency (especially in the case of public universities) and more balance between financial interests and public or academic interests. The UNSW is a good and well respected university, but I would expect some better arguments for their decisions. Here are a few of them:

• Professor Ingleson said he had been assured by the Government there that students and academics would enjoy complete academic freedom on campus. He dismissed concerns raised by the Warwick pull-out, arguing that UNSW had "a more nuanced view of how Singapore and its society worked".


• "There is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech in any country … in that sense, our staff and our students will be subject … off-campus to the laws of Singapore like anyone else".


• Professor Ingleson believed Warwick's decision was based on financial risk rather than concern about academic freedom. He said UNSW was not exposed to the same risk as Warwick because the Australian university had closer ties with the region and a more firmly established brand name.

……..

Snapped branches

Warwick’s decision not to set up a branch campus has become final. Today the Warwick website announced that on the 18th of October the council voted against the Singapore plans. Their press release however remains vary vague about the exact reasons compared to the article in the Financial Times and Warwick’s student paper Boar (see my previous post). The university will however keep on cooperating with Singapore:

The Council further resolved that the University should continue discussions within the academic community and with the EDB with a view to bringing forward an alternative plan for academic development in Singapore which could command the support of the Senate and the Council.

I think continuing the cooperation is a good decision. Hopefully the real reasons for the no-vote will remain an item in these cooperative ventures.

Newsflashes

In the coming four weeks the posting will probably be a bit slower. I am currently visiting the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies in the Netherlands (a 3-week visit sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia). After this I’ll be co-teaching a course in an Erasmus Mundus programme at the University of Aveiro in Portugal for one week (a course jointly offered by the University of Oslo, the University of Aveiro and the University of Tampere (Finland) and coordinated by HEDDA).

In these weeks I’ll try to keep up with the news in academia and report my views on it. For now, here are two news items of the past days that struck me.

First there are the results of a study commissioned by the British Council. Both the Chronicle and The Australian report on the study that finds that Australia remains a favourite destination of Asian foreign students. The study follows up on a previous survey, conducted in 2000. Then they found that fewer than half of international students in Australia regarded the country as a destination preferred over Britain or the United States. In 2005, however, 81 percent reported that Australia was their first choice among the three recruiting rivals. Only 11 per cent of Asian students in Australia would have preferred to be in the US (in 2000 the figure was 33 per cent) and only 8 per cent in Britain (in 2000, 15 per cent). The results were presented at the Australian International Education Conference. At the same conference, studies were presented about the effect of the growth of foreign students on the quality of education in Australia. Those effects remain a topic of fierce debate.

A second news item was the University of Warwick’s vote on its Singapore plans. The Financial Times reports that senior lecturers at Warwick University have voted against setting up a branch campus in Singapore because of worries about limits on academic freedom in the country. The Economic Development Board of Singapore had invited the University of Warwick and the University of New South Wales (Australia) to set up a branch campus in the country. According to the FT:

The vote is a blow to the city-state's ambitions to become a regional hub for higher education. It comes in the week that the outgoing US ambassador to Singapore warned in a farewell speech that Singapore's limits on expression might cause the government to "pay an increasing price for not allowing full participation of its citizens". Singapore requires international educational institutions operating in the city-state to agree not to conduct activities seen as interference in domestic affairs.

In an interview with the Boar (the student newspaper of the university), Warwick’s Vice-Chancellor argues that: "This is the best opportunity we will ever receive. If we don't go, how will we increase our international credibility?" Aside from wether the decision is the right one or not, it is comforting to see that even this successful university, which is commonly seen as a model for entrepreneurialism and innovation, sticks to its academic principles.
          

One more to go

Robert J. Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling have been awarded The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2005 (a.k.a. the Nobel Prize in Economics) “for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis".

This means we have only one more to go for 2005: the Nobel Prize for Literature. Let’s all hope this time the prize is finally going to Pramoedya Ananta Toer.