2005 Media Releases
Friday, 2 December 2005
Valuing the Humanities and Social Sciences
The following speech was delivered by La Trobe University Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Michael Osborne, at the Beijing Forum recently.
A key theme of the Forum was the value of Humanities and Social Sciences in a globalized environment dominated by advances in technology. Professor Osborne says: ‘never has an affirmation of their significance been more urgently needed than now, as a tide of economic rationalism threatens to engulf universities.'
Conducted under the auspices of the Beijing Municipal Government, the Beijing Forum is co-sponsored by Peking University and the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies, and has been hosted by Peking University annually since 2004.
The Forum promotes the study of the humanities and social sciences in the Asia-Pacific region. It also endeavours to promote academic development and social progress in the Asia-Pacific region and the world in order to contribute to the development and prosperity of humankind.
BEIJING FORUM
PRESIDENTS’ FORUM
Presenter: Professor Michael J Osborne
Vice-Chancellor and President
La Trobe University,
Melbourne, AustraliaVALUING THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
A key theme of this Forum is the value of Humanities and Social Sciences in a globalized environment dominated by advances in technology, and never has an affirmation of their significance been more urgently needed than now, as a tide of economic rationalism threatens to engulf universities.
The overall title of the Beijing Forum is “The Harmony of Civilizations and Prosperity for All”, and I venture to suggest at the very outset that the promotion of prosperity, albeit for some rather than for all, has already superseded any quest for a harmonious society in many universities and in the eyes of many observers and critics of academia. For in the sixteen years that I have served as a University President in Australia I have witnessed a distinct change in the public perception of universities from one which regards them as slightly remote places predominantly devoted to learning to one that sees them as essentially functional enterprises, expected to make money and to train their inmates to do so too. This view has gained strength and credibility as the result of an increasing disposition to link university education directly to employment and to the needs of the workforce – in other words, to envisage universities essentially as passport offices for jobs. Such a view is, I believe, quite widely, if sometimes tacitly or uncritically, embraced and its growing popularity is not in the slightest diminished by the occasional, demulcent protestations of interest in the Humanities and Social Sciences on the part of government officials or other luminaries. Such protestations are in any event only too often falsified immediately by fierce denunciations of this or that university for wasting time and resources on sundry supposedly reprehensible irrelevancies. Thus, for instance, in Australia the Minister has just recently rejected a number of research projects, all reportedly in the Humanities and Social Sciences, despite the endorsement of the expert peer review group established to evaluate them.
The seemingly inescapable implication of adhesion to this functional concept of a university is that Humanities and Social Sciences in general are to be regarded as at best a luxurious irrelevancy, at worst as an excuse for irritating and inconvenient criticism of government policies. Probably most participants in this Forum would regard such a view as abhorrent, even deplorable, but unfortunately silent gnashing of the teeth and lamentations are not potent weapons for effecting a change in public attitudes and it is surely now urgent that the leadership of academia assert persistently and persuasively the indispensable value of Humanities and Social Sciences both intrinsically and in their relevance to and impact upon other fields of endeavour.
In pursuit of such an objective it would, I think, be useful in the current context, where governments far and wide are obsessed with the evaluation of quality, to stress that the quality of a university should not be assessed exclusively in terms of the earning power of the graduates or even in terms of its capacity to attract prestigious Faculty members and research funding (important as these issues are), and certainly not in terms of the seeming soundness of its procedures and processes (an Australian idiosyncrasy). Rather any worthwhile evaluation of quality should encompass the leadership of the institution in preparing graduates for a positive role in society as well as for expert employment. In such a role the significance of humane studies is surely clear and, so far from denigrating Humanities and Social Sciences as useless or irrelevant or both, governments should be supporting universities to maintain such fields of study. It is worth noting in this general regard that many privately funded universities which are ranked amongst the world’s leaders, do afford a high priority to such fields.
At present there is plenty of evidence to indicate that in many western countries with long university traditions (Australia included) respect for higher education and learning per se has reached a low ebb and there is a strong disposition to concentrate funding narrowly towards supposedly relevant fields of study or, more likely, training. Indeed the penchant for the functional has already generated casualties. Thus, for example, the study of literature nowadays is only too often regarded as overly taxing if it necessitates the comprehensive study of an author or authors - that is, actually reading entire books! - and only a day or so ago a (former) professor of English in the UK reportedly was advocating the virtues of text message summaries of authors whose works transcended a few pages – that is the reduction of great works of literature to a few ungrammatical scribblings. This enormity compounds the process of undermining the study and appreciation of great literature which stems from the thesis of parity of esteem for the products of all cultures. Other early casualties have been languages, which are disappearing with increasing rapidity. Patently the demise of each language is the demise of another feature of our cultural heritage but the loss is widely viewed with equanimity , if it is even noticed at all – and supposedly cultured societies stand condemned as having the wealth but not the will to intervene. Such examples, taken individually, may well seem relatively insignificant, but the cumulative blow to the civilizing agents of society is great and, in a context where the world cries out for greater international tolerance and understanding, is surely incomprehensible.
The trend towards the functional model of universities is, of course, easily explicable, if indefensible. One important factor has been the otherwise laudable improvement in participation rates at universities. An effect of this has been to transform the nature of university education – casting doubts upon its worth intrinsically and linking it closely with employment. Indeed it has become virtually a truism especially in western countries with high participation rates, that the greater the number of students the stronger the link to the workforce. Not so many years ago C P Snow elaborated the thesis of the two cultures – Humanities and Science – and professed himself aghast at the gulf of “mutual incomprehension” between the two. Today we are surely facing a very different type of cultural dissonance – between the professional and vocational on the one hand, and traditional Humanities, Science and Social Sciences on the other hand. The practical demonstration (and effect) of this new split is, of course, starkly revealed, certainly in Australia, as vocational and professional programs are overwhelmed with applicants, whilst traditional areas of study can scarcely fill their quotas, even with recourse to the admission of students whose qualifications are dangerously low.
Another, not unrelated, factor has been a change in governmental attitudes – again notably in western countries where the steeply escalating costs resulting from high levels of participation have dampened the ardour of governments for publicly funded higher education so that more and more now seek to define it not as a public good but as a personal privilege, which must be paid for like any other commodity. But commodities are usually at the whim of the customer and the surreptitious transformation of higher education into a kind of commodity, essentially available at the caprice of a customer, can only encourage the trend towards vocational and professional programs – and a glance at the choice of programs of international students today bears this out only too clearly on the global scene. The claim that the cost of fully funding students from the public purse is prohibitively high is doubtless intelligible, if unpalatable, but to require students to contribute should not be an excuse for the dangerous follies of failing to invest significantly in stock and equipment and of allowing student predilection to marginalize the Humanities and Social Sciences. I should perhaps interpose the comment here that currently this is substantially a western problem and one that is very much linked to countries such as the United Kingdom or Australia, where there is a predominance of “publicly funded” (or perhaps, more accurately, “publicly underfunded”) institutions. It remains to be seen whether those countries in Asia which currently are exciting the envy of western universities by the strength of their investment in higher education will avoid this pitfall.
The efforts of individual universities to stem this drift towards a functional sector are obviously likely to be characterized as puny, but the cumulative effect should not be underestimated, so that it is incumbent upon individuals to be seen to be acting rather than restricting themselves to platitudinous expressions of regret or distaste. In this regard I am pleased to report that my own university, La Trobe University in Australia, has recognized the dangers of a lurch towards the exclusively functional model for a university and has thus enshrined in its public mission statement an explicit commitment to the Humanities and Social Sciences and Science generally. For a university where funding derives in (diminishing) part from government and in (increasing) part from student contributions – both sources with a vested interest in vocationally or professionally oriented programs – this entails the earmarking of funds for the Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences rather than permitting a distribution related to the sources of income. This, naturally, has the capacity to generate resentment – on the part of the dispossessed for that very reason, on the part of the beneficiaries for the niggardliness of the contribution. At a time of declining public funding, escalating costs (some of them due to the increasing imposts of government, others due to rapid developments in Information Technology) and imbalances in staff workloads, which disfavour those in professional and vocational areas, it remains to be seen whether such cross-subsidisation of the humane areas can be maintained and the commitment of the University thereby preserved. A failure to achieve this aspiration, however, will surely represent an impoverishment in particular terms and in general terms a further nail in the coffin of the university as a comprehensive focal point for the discovery and dissemination of knowledge.
Obviously it would not be sensible or desirable for all universities to try to do all things, and there must be a balance between the old and the new, between the pure and the applied – indeed between the two new cultures. Also there needs to be a recognition of the distinction between the acquisition of knowledge and the vehicles for its dissemination! At a minimum governments should surely ensure that the national university sector exhibits appropriate diversity and in the interests of a civilized society, recognize the value of, and afford support to, a strong Humanities and Social Sciences component. This is the modus operandi of many wealthy and prestigious private universities, whose example governments would do well to emulate if they seek similar high standing.
If this aspiration for a strong commitment to the Humanities and Social Sciences is agreed – and the theme of this Forum tended to suggest that it represented common ground – the comity of University Presidents has before it two key tasks. The first is to find a persuasive means of changing the common and growing public perception of the Humanities and Social Sciences as peripheral, if not irrelevant. This is no easy task – for attitudes have been deeply entrenched – but a clear and persuasive exposition is indispensable and one that is seen to represent the view of academia generally, not just the vested interest of the practitioners. Secondly, it is vital to persuade governments, especially those in western countries, that the Humanities and Social Sciences make indispensable contributions to the wellbeing of society, and that knowledge-based societies cannot prosper if they are gratuitously crippled. In other words, and succinctly, the task is to persuade the political leadership that the investment in Humanities and Social Sciences will add value.
A failure to achieve success in theses two aspirations will lead inexorably to more and more functional universities to the impoverishment both of the nation involved and of the students who represent its future.