University Colleges: Seats of Learning, Myth or Model?

John HirstSenior Teaching Fellow, DUBS

Our Guild Heritage• The university ‘is the second-oldest institution in the western world with an

unbroken history’ (Iyanga, 2000: 7)

• Universities are some of the oldest and most enduring institutions humans have created. The first European Universities were integrated into the Guild System which ordered European society for over 6 centuries. The first “studium generale” was Bologna (1088), then Oxford (1167) where three of the first four colleges (aula) were founded from Durham (University; Baliol; Durham – later Trinity). They were “specialised guild organs” whose function was to satisfy the “higher-order learning needs” of the Guild System (particularly skills required for commerce) which other guilds were incapable of delivering.

• Of all the institutions established in the western world by 1520, 85 still exist and 70 of these are universities (Kerr, 2001).

The Guild System• A nested interlocking set of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities,

institutions, technologies and evolved psychological mechanisms that worked together to suppress or regulate self-interest and made cooperative societies possible

• Vulnerable to two sets of dangers:– Values that are self-enhancing rather than self-transcendent– Psychology that is individualistic rather than relational

Magistrorum or Scholarium?• There were originally 2 models corresponding to the “direction” of the guild promise:

– In Southern Europe (Bologna) where the promise went from Master to Apprentice, the University was founded on the scholarium

– In Northern Europe where the promise went from Apprentice to Master, the was founded on the magistrorum

• By the 14th century the federation of European universities (studium generales) had all adopted the magisterial model (universitas magistrorum et scholarium abbreviated to “Universitas”) teaching the common MA curriculum; scholars were encouraged to travel between them (and were provided with protected passage by edict of the Holy Roman Emperor) to complete various “modules” of their degree.

Twin-track ApproachSchools: Learning Technique (Regent Masters)

• Grammar• Logic• Rhetoric• Arithmetic• Geometry• Astronomy• Music

Colleges: Learning for Insight (Aula Masters)

• Private study• Mentoring• Debate• Public disputation• Systematic reflection• Development of goods internal

to practices (through participation in collegial roles and responsibilities)

Model for Learning: Technique & Insight

Source: Beech & Macintosh (2012:150)

Social zone where, models and theories are sourced & tested

Personal zone of reflection and sense-making

Dialogical zone where “reflective thinking

meets practical doing”

Social zone where the technique need is contextualised

Dialogical zone where the technique is developed through questioning and experimentation

Personal zone where the technique is internalised and integrated with existing skills

Epistemic Learning for Insight• Collegiality arises from a complex, highly non-linear dynamic,

created by a social network involving multiple feedback loops through which values, beliefs and rules of conduct are continually communicated, modified and sustained;

• These values and beliefs affect the collegiate body of knowledge – they are the lens through which we see the world and construct our perception of reality. They help us to integrate our experiences and to decide what kind of knowledge is meaningful;

• They also become embedded in ways of life that co-create our identity and inculcate a sense of belonging to something beyond ourselves.

Enlightenment Rationality• The central Humboldtian principle is that teaching, research and

learning are inseparable but should only be concerned with the disinterested objective rationalistic search for truth.

• Humboldt supported the classical view of the university as a 'community of scholars and students' engaged in a common task, but oriented this towards utilitarian rather than Aristotelian conceptions of the good, replacing subjective wisdom with rational scientific calculus.

(Anderson, 2010).

Post-EnlightenmentOxbridge colleges evolved into self-governing

bodies of students and staff who lived and socialised within them, forming self-contained communities engaged in common pursuits, combining teaching, research and learning with personal development, particularly espousing liberal democratic values (care, autonomy and fairness), but also embodying values associated with authority, loyalty and spirituality.

New UniversitiesEvolution of civic universities of the industrial north,

e.g. Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield - reverted to teaching technique, i.e. practical knowledge and training the workforce for their local industries, e.g. applied sciences and engineering.

(Reisz, 2008)

Demise of Collegiality• Collegiality legitimised a plurality of different views and priorities and ensured they were taken

into account when making decisions (Hardy, 1991). But it was slow, looked inefficient and embodied values that conflicted with those of economic and bureaucratic rationality. It was resistant to change imposed by linear techniques, e.g. Lewin’s (1947) “freeze-thaw” model (a more appropriate relational model is Hosking’s (2002) “whirlpool” model).

• The collegial decision-making process was described by Garvin (1993) as a “garbage can” process - although complex and slow, surprisingly sound decisions did emerge.

• Like the guilds, collegiality became the victim of Left Hemisphere power and domination,

dismissing higher-order values in favour of lower-order values – it either reduces everything to its utility value or summarily rejects it (McGilchrist, 2010)

Scheler’s Pyramid of ValuesSacred:

connectedness of all things

Wisdom: justice, beauty, truth,

learning Virtue: courage, loyalty,

humility, prudence, compassion

Utility: usefulness for satisfying basic needs & wants

Right Hemisphere: builds on lower-order values to embrace higher-order values, all of which require affective or moral engagement with the world

Left Hemisphere: dismisses higher-order values in favour of lower-order values – it either reduces everything to its utility value or rejects it.

How we think determines what we value: Scheler’s Pyramid of Values (in McGilchrist, p160)

The Resource-based ViewThe Jarrett Report’s (1985) guiding assumption was that universities should be treated as private-sector

enterprises which compete against each other for resources and in which students are the customers (Alderman, 2009 & 2010).

It recommended • stronger central top-down leadership; • centralised resource allocation; • clearer accountability; • more formal, long-term planning; • systematic and quantitative performance indicators; • systematic gathering of information; • better monitoring and evaluation systems; • more selective cutback decisions

(Hardy, 1991).

New ManagerialismUniversities went from one extreme to another - almost

total involvement in decision-making under the old collegial system, to almost no involvement under the new managerialist approach.

However, as research shows, excluding staff leads to poor decision-making, slow and unsuccessful change, and demotivated staff (Burnes, 2009; Macfarlane, 2005; Oreg et al, 2011).

OTT Command-and-Control“Of course tax-payers, students, funding bodies and government

agencies need assurance about Quality. But the Review Group is appalled by the sector’s apparent acceptance of creeping intervention and by its capacity to respond to red tape in spades. In other words, to gold-plate its response to bureaucracy and centralisation.”

Patricia Hodgson (Chair HE Regulation Review Group)

“The pursuit of ever more perfect accountability provides more information, more comparisons, more complaints systems; but it also builds a culture of suspicion and low morale.”

Oonagh O’Neill (BBC Reith Lectures, 2002)

Decentralisation

The notion of the centralised, command-and-control type organisation, driven by top-down decision-making, is giving way to less bureaucratic, flatter and more flexible structures which seek to involve and empower staff (Burnes, 2009; Kanter, 2008; Mintzberg, 2001; Yukl, 2010).

Some universities are beginning to look at introducing less hierarchical and less centralised structures (Bryman, 2007; CHEPS, 2008; Sonka & Chicoine, 2004; Wend, 2011).

Triumph of Utility over IntegrityThe Robbins Report (1963): one of the four main

purposes of universities was ‘… the promotion of the general powers of the mind so as to produce not mere specialists but rather cultivated men and women’.

Now, the emphasis is on wealth creation and establishing ‘… long-term, sustainable relationships with employers to stimulate and meet their demands for highly competent and skilled employees’ (HEFCE, 2011).

Degree FactoriesUniversity is now just a financial transaction: £27,000 cost set

against a future profit of a graduate salary premium.

Reducing education to the implicit but increasingly flawed “learn to earn” contract is having an effect: this year’s national student survey reported that gaining employability skills has become one of the highest priorities for students.

(Black, 2011: 6)

Where We Are NowThe trend is for universities to see themselves more as

businesses, preparing students for employment, and students as customers.

However, this does not inevitably mean that the centralisation of power in universities must continue and that collegial forms of influence and involvement are a thing of the past.

Source: Burnes et al (2013)

Colleges as “Living Networks” (Capra, 2003)

Living networks are self-generating: each communication creates thoughts and meaning, which give rise to further communications. In this way, the entire network generates itself, producing a common context of meaning, shared knowledge, rules of conduct, a boundary, and a collective identity for its members, based on a sense of belonging.

Living networks liberate people’s energies, stimulate creativity, and set processes of change and transformation in motion.

Social Capital• Bridging social capital = cooperative relations between

people based on respect, trust and goodwill - the foundation of citizenship amongst heterogeneous individuals

• Bonding social capital = mutual relations between like-

minded people which forge links of solidarity and mutuality within a homogenous group which often becomes self-transcendent such that collective consciousness predominates

The “Hive Switch” (Haidt, 2012)

• When we transcend self-interest and lose ourselves in something larger than ourselves – our “hive switch” gets flipped

• The hive switch is an adaptation for making groups more cohesive – through collective (and reflective) consciousness – bonding social capital

• Group rituals can generate “collective effervescence” accompanied by profound feelings of belonging, wellbeing, passion and ecstasy

• This triggers intuitions by which the deepest truths can only be known and which reason is blind to – it opens people to new possibilities, values and directions in life – i.e. epistemic learning for insight, intuitive thinking, etc.

• This has enormous implications for how we should search for meaning

The Value of CollegesIf the purpose of a University is to advance human understanding, then colleges are of the utmost value, because, at their best, they:

•teach us that we are part of a fabric woven from other lives as well as our own•are environments where people meet, mix and form attachments that cut across barriers of class and ethnicity•are places where we rehearse the virtues needed to build a better world •cultivate the habits of cooperation which form the basis of trust on which the economics and politics of a free society depend•value us for who we are and what we do rather than treating us as replaceable parts of an economic system•remind us that value inheres in things like loyalty, mutuality, reciprocity, altruism and friendship – things that are not marketable, that are earned not bought - part of who we are not what we own•are communities that provide us with a “stability zone” helping us to cope with “troublesome knowledge” (Meyer & Land, 2003) and change•are somewhere we can belong to and call home, in which values, traditions, griefs and celebrations are shared and become a part of our identity

Observing the Hive Switch

“Now I know what happens when the hive switch gets flipped...I look at my students differently. I still see them as individuals competing for grades, honours, and romantic partners. But I have a new appreciation for the zeal with which they throw themselves into extracurricular activities. They put on plays, compete in sports, rally for political causes, and volunteer for dozens of projects to help the poor and the sick...I see them searching for a calling, which they can only find as part of a larger group. I now see them striving and searching on two levels simultaneously, for we are all homo duplex”

(Jonathan Haidt, 2012:269-70)

Colleges are Hives of Learning• We evolved to live in groups. Our minds were designed not

only to help us win competition within our group but also to unite us in sustaining and facilitating within-group coordination and cooperation, enabling us to tackle bigger projects, minimise free-riding and resist tyranny/demagogy

• Hiving comes naturally, easily and joyfully to us. Its normal function is to bond us together in communities of trust, cooperation and even love

• Hiving makes us less selfish, smarter, healthier, safer, richer and better able to govern a just and stable democracy

More Hives Needed• We have dismantled most of the hivish structures (Burke’s

‘little platoons’ of society) that enable us to achieve our greatest fulfilment by becoming “simply a part of a whole”

• Liberal democracy has eroded groups, traditions, institutions and moral capital with free markets and economic rationality based on private goods that have displaced our sense of common good resulting in anomie

• Colleges are testimony to the value of hives as the portal to many of life’s most cherished experiences – we are 90% chimp and 10% bee – we need more hives, not less!

Present-day College PracticesBridging Social Capital• Multidisciplinary scholarly activities: lectures, seminars,

workshops – dialogue/debate• Roles & Responsibilities: committees, clubs & societies -

skills & competencies, e.g. team-work, leadership (often without power)

• Mentoring: personal development, career angels, mindfulness, spiritual direction – reflective consciousness

• Intercultural Activities – bridging cultural divides – engaging with value-pluralism

• Alumni & SCR activities – bridging intergenerational divides

Bonding Social Capital• Rituals: freshers week, formals, balls,

college days, open days, parties, etc.• Celebrations: national customs;

anniversaries, sports awards; honours awards, graduation

• Club & society activities that all can share in – performing arts, regattas, open mic/jam sessions, DUCK week, quizzes

• College excursions (trips)

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