The Academic Citizen: The Virtue of Service in University life (Key Issues in Higher Education)

The Academic Citizen

Contemporary universities are very much an integral part of communities. However, while much has been written about teaching and research in universities, the ‘service’ role of the academic has been neglected. In an attempt to address this imbalance, The Academic Citizen looks at how these three roles interrelate and explores the idea of a compact between universities and society. This book argues that in order to achieve a compact, we need to re-evaluate the poorly rewarded aspects of service and leading academics need to set a new standard. Based on in-depth interviews with an international group of academics, it sets out to: • • • • •

outline the interconnecting communities served by university lecturers explore what the notion of ‘service’ means for academic staff develop a moral basis for the ‘service’ role in academic life as both a collegial and civic duty show how service supports teaching and research in a more competitive environment examine the ideal character required to fulfill the functions of academic citizenship.

Drawing on a range of university and service traditions, The Academic Citizen has a strong historical and comparative perspective that should prove stimulating for those interested in the role of the academic in modern society. It has international relevance and will appeal to staff and educational developers in universities and colleges, as well as students of higher education. Bruce Macfarlane is Professor of Education and Head of Educational Development at Thames Valley University, London. His last book was Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice, a suitable companion to The Academic Citizen.

Key Issues in Higher Education Series Series editors: Gill Nicholls and Ron Barnett

Books published in this series include: The Academic Citizen The virtue of service in university life Bruce Macfarlane Citizenship and Higher Education The role of universities in communities and society Edited by James Arthur with Karen Bohlin Defending Higher Education The crisis of confidence in the academy Dennis Hayes Universities and the Good Society Jon Nixon The Challenge to Scholarship Rethinking learning, teaching and research Gill Nicholls Understanding Teaching Excellence in Higher Education Towards a critical approach Alan Skelton

The Academic Citizen The Virtue of Service in University Life Bruce Macfarlane

First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group an informa business © 2007 Bruce Macfarlane

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library “To purchase y our own copy of this or any of Taylor & F collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Macfarlane, Bruce, 1961The academic citizen : the virtue of service in university life / Bruce Macfarlane.-- 1st ed. p. cm. -- (Key issues in higher education) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-35759-4 (hardback) 1. Student service. 2. Community and college. I. Title. II. Series. LC220.5.M33 2006 3781 03--dc22 2006007507 ISBN10: 0–415–35759–4 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–35759–3 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–00344–6 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–00344–2 (ebk)

For Alice

The University is an intellectual collectivity, and not just a collection of stimulating individuals and necessary services provided by the university; it is not just a legal construct and it is not an epiphenomenon. It is a general pattern of attitudes and activities which molds the activities of the individual members of the university. If this pattern is dissipated, it has a debilitating effect on the relation of teachers and students and of colleagues and colleagues. It is a pattern which is sustained by academic citizenship. Shils (1997: 86)

Contents Book summary

viii

Acknowledgements

ix

About the author

x

Foreword

xi

Introduction

1

Part I The retreat from citizenship 1 The disengaged academic 2 The roots of service 3 The new compact

9 11 27 46

Part II Service and citizenship 4 Interpretations of service 5 The call of service 6 Rewarding service 7 The academic citizen

59 61 75 92 112

Part III Recovering academic citizenship 8 Re-valuing student service 9 Leading academic citizens 10 Recovering academic citizenship

129 131 146 160

Bibliography

177

Index

194

Book summary Together with teaching and research, service is one of the historic missions of the university. This civic role is vital for the functioning of academic life and in renewing the ‘compact’ between the university and wider society. However, as this book argues, service is under-conceptualized and poorly rewarded in the performative culture that now pervades contemporary academic life. On the basis of in-depth interviews with an international group of academics, this book outlines five interconnecting communities served by university lecturers: students, colleagues, institutions, the discipline or profession, and the public. The book identifies five virtues of ‘academic citizenship’: engagement, guardianship, loyalty, collegiality and benevolence. They are central to any compact between universities and society. In achieving this goal, it is contended that poorly rewarded elements of service should be re-valued and senior professors set a new standard as leading academic citizens. By drawing on a range of university and service traditions, the book has a strong historical and comparative perspective that should prove stimulating for those interested in the role of the academic in the modern university and society. The analysis of the moral dimension of the academic service role also makes this a companion volume to Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice (RoutledgeFalmer, 2004) by the same author.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank my colleagues in the UK and elsewhere in the world for kindly agreeing to be interviewed or respond to a questionnaire in carrying out research for this publication. Without their contributions it would not have been possible for me to write this book. I would also like to thank Ronald Barnett and Gill Nichols as editors of the series of which this book is a part. Their feedback, support and insights, together, in particular, with that of my colleagues, Laurie Lomas, Rob Norris, Roger Ottewill and Alan Skelton, have helped to improve on the original manuscript. Any errors and omissions however are entirely my responsibility. This book has been a work in progress over the last three years and some chapters include revised, expanded and updated material from previous publications. Chapters 1 and 4 respectively are informed by the following paper and book chapter: Macfarlane, B. (2005) ‘The Disengaged Academic: The retreat from citizenship’, Higher Education Quartlerly, 59(4): 296–312. Macfarlane, B. (2005) ‘Placing Service in Academic Life’, in R. Barnett (ed.) Reshaping the University: New Relationships Between Research, Scholarship and Teaching. Buckingham: SRHE/Open University Press, pp. 165–177. Finally, this book is dedicated to my wife, Alice. Quite aside from her patience and support whilst I have been writing this book, she is one of many people who have dedicated their professional lives to public service. As a midwife for over twenty years, Alice is representative of an ethos of service which this book is designed to celebrate.

About the author Bruce Macfarlane is Professor of Education and Head of Educational Development at Thames Valley University, London. He was formerly Reader in Higher Education at City University, London, and previously held positions as a lecturer in business and management studies. His previous book was Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice (RoutledgeFalmer, 2004).

Foreword In this book, Bruce Macfarlane has done us all a great service. He has helped to rehabilitate the concept of service in higher education debate. This is a great achievement; and a most valuable one. Actually, even this accolade undervalues Bruce’s achievement here. For to talk of rehabilitation – of the concept of service – suggests that we had it at one time. From the evidence of this volume, the USA has never lost it – but, in the UK, we have surely to go back at least one hundred years to find universities playing a deliberate role in serving society. In those days, before the universities were assured of regular state funding, higher education institutions had to reach out to wider society but they did so in a spirit of serving its needs (Gordon and White, 1979). Later, as a supply of students became predictable and as research became systematized, so the universities turned inwards. ‘Academic community’ became a term denoting an inwardlooking group that was greatly exercised by the minutiae of its own affairs. We are into a new order of academic life. Universities are now re-engaging with wider society. It is not just that the state can no longer afford to underwrite the entire expenditure of universities. It is more that the ‘knowledge society’ – which is also a ‘learning society’ – affords almost infinite opportunities for universities to establish links with external interests. The question is: On what terms are these new links to be established? At the moment, they are being written largely in the language of entrepreneurialism, and an economically oriented version of entrepreneurialism at that. What Bruce Macfarlane has shown us is that the terms of the new engagement of the university with society may be drawn much wider, and in the language of ‘service’. But Bruce Macfarlane has gone even further. For in the process of rehabilitating the term ‘service’ into our higher education vocabulary, he has also re-drawn the idea of service itself. He has shown that even the more internal activities of the academy can be re-cast as service, whether as service to

xii Foreword

students or as service to the academic community itself. In the contemporary age, this is a radical thesis. It directly challenges the market ethos that – amid the ‘neo-liberal’ revolution – is now capturing not just the rhetoric but the value structure of the academy. Academics may increasingly make tacit – and not so tacit – calculations about the use of their time for different purposes: Will this activity secure my research advancement? Will it generate an economic return? Activities – such as the close support of students or the management and leadership of a university department – that appear not to produce positive answers to such questions are seen as uninviting. A plea for academic life itself to be understood as service – as we are offered here – opens a space for seeing beyond these contemporary orientations. This book, therefore, is particularly timely. It is published at a moment in which many universities are thinking through precisely the possibilities for their engagements with the wider society. It also comes at a point in which many universities, too, are reviewing what it is that they value among their staff and what it is – in their reward structures – that they want to show that they value. ‘The academic citizen’, as depicted here by Bruce Macfarlane, looks both inwards and outwards, a fully signed-up citizen of his or her university and also of the wider community. The virtues of such a rich notion of service are several – as we see in this book. But perhaps, most of all, this service helps to open a space for a new conception of the university for the twenty-first century. It is a conception of the university for the ‘other’ – whether in the form of other individuals or of communities, internal or beyond the academy. It is the gifting of oneself, without obvious reward. It is a revealing of the university as a place of giving, of gifting, of care and of support; a university that is engaged in others-in-themselves and in their possibilities. This is, as I say, a radical conception of the university but, as we see, in the many practical examples that Bruce brings forward, it is a realizable conception. This book, therefore, offers a challenge to all who wish to help the university forward and it deserves to be taken seriously. Ronald Barnett

Reference Gordon, P. and White, J. (1979) Philosophers and Educational Reformers, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Introduction

Teaching, research and service? One could be forgiven for thinking that universities were created for just two purposes: research and teaching. Debate for many years has centered around the proper balance between these two functions and their relationship to each other. Can a university call itself a university unless faculty are carrying out research? Is it necessary to be an active researcher in order to be a good teacher? How can teaching be ‘research-led’? While there is an ever expanding literature on these and other questions, the ‘service’ role of universities and the corresponding obligations of academic staff as citizens of overlapping communities is more rarely discussed or, indeed, written about. This book represents an attempt to redress this imbalance. Contemporary universities are very much involved in serving and being an integral part of communities. They do this via a whole range of activities such as through university hospitals, educating students to enter the professions and public service occupations, working with schools and business organizations, community renewal projects and in providing continuing education opportunities for adults. However, this book is not principally focused on service as an element of the policy and mission of higher education institutions. What it is interested in is what the notion of ‘service’ means for academic staff working in a wide range of subject areas and higher education contexts. The book asks how the service role interrelates with the teaching and research functions, whether it is adequately recognized and rewarded by institutions, how it relates to scholarship and what motivates faculty to fulfill such roles.

2 The academic citizen

Meanings and traditions There are a number of unanswered questions that will form the focus for this book. First, it is clear that confusion surrounds what the term ‘service’ means to academic staff working in contemporary universities. While it is firmly established as the third dimension of the academic job description in some national contexts, interpretations vary widely. It is not a simple or singular concept. As such, it is rooted in more than one tradition of higher education or type of institution. There is a strong North American tradition that defines service as ‘outreach’ work to the community or what might also be termed ‘public service’. But clearly, service is closely connected to other interests and communities. There is a collegial ethic of mutual support for fellow professionals within the university setting. Students are also provided with academic and pastoral support for both their scholarly and personal development. Further, academics are in the business of using their scholarly expertise in response to the needs of society. Hence, it is important to re-define, and to some extent re-claim, what is meant by ‘service’ in the modern university based on a coming together of different traditions. Moreover, in the modern lexicon of higher education, the word ‘service’ has become associated with the analogy of the student as ‘customer’. It is a word closely associated with relations between business organizations and their customers and tends to be used in connection with building business relationships on the basis of ‘quality’ and efficiency. In higher education it is now not uncommon to hear terms such as ‘service quality’, ‘service delivery’ and ‘service management’. There are even ‘service level agreements’ for university chaplains (Robinson, 2005)! As a term assimilated from the language of business and management, ‘service’ is no longer as closely associated with the concept of the university as a public service institution. While this trend has negative implications, it is also indicative of a closer understanding of the needs of different client groups such as overseas students or adult learners (Altbach, 1995; Cummings, 1998a). Service is also more than a set of functions or activities such as serving on a university committee, mentoring a colleague, reviewing a journal article or advising a local charity. It is about a commitment to a set of values and beliefs in the same way that teaching is about more than acquiring a ‘toolkit’ of skills and techniques. This is about values such as dedication to

Introduction 3

one’s discipline, a love of one’s students, a desire to communicate and a willingness to continue to learn. In similar terms, the importance of service cannot be understood simply as a collection of actions or activities. As I will argue, commitment to service is about being an ‘academic citizen’. This is someone prepared to contribute positively as a member of a series of overlapping communities both within and outside the university, to take responsibility for the welfare and development of students, colleagues and fellow professionals and to contribute to the life of the institution through decision-making processes. There are thus key responsibilities connected with being an academic citizen and not just rights to enjoy academic freedom in teaching and research. This is what I mean by academic citizenship. However, the notion of academic citizenship has become impoverished in modern university life. The forces that threaten to undermine commitment to the activities and values of academic citizenship are growing. These include the withering of academic self-governance, the sub-contracting of pastoral responsibilities to others with specialist learner support roles, reward based on an increasingly individualized and competitive research culture, and a lack of recognition for linking university learning with professional practice. Such trends endanger the historic ‘compact’ (NCIHE, 1997) between universities and the wider society they serve. This demands that universities do not lose sight of their obligations to further civic well-being in both economic and social terms. In many respects, service activities have never been so important to the health of higher education worldwide. They are expanding rather than contracting. There are now fresh demands for academics to support the development of a larger and more diverse student population. Academic colleagues need more encouragement to satisfy increasing expectations for improved teaching standards emanating from students acting as ‘customers’ and an interventionist state. The fragmentation of disciplines has increased the demands on academics to support and mentor colleagues in ever more specialized and fractured sub-fields of knowledge. Finally, institutions need staff committed to bridging theory and practice as a result of the incorporation of an increasingly diverse range of practice-based subjects in the university curriculum. Service activities such as personal tutoring, mentoring, peer reviewing and leadership are not principally about ‘research’ or ‘teaching’. They are about supporting a complex collegial infrastructure that depends for its continued success on the goodwill of members of the

4 The academic citizen

academic community, often acting out of a sense of community responsibility rather than regard for personal advancement.

An outline of the book The first section of the book will set out what I have called the retreat from citizenship. This will argue that academics have become disengaged from many of their responsibilities as citizens of university communities. This has manifested itself in the decline of academic self-governance, and a disengagement from disesteemed roles such as student advising and departmental leadership. It will also contend that the concept of service needs to be understood in terms of three distinct university traditions. The civic tradition represents a view of service as meeting the needs of local, regional and national communities through an applied curriculum and the opening-up of access to historically under-represented or excluded groups. The civic tradition of many US universities means that American academics commonly identify service as part of a trio of professional responsibilities which is also composed of research and teaching (e.g. Cummings, 1998b; Karabell, 1998). Academics in the UK are more likely to define their roles in terms of research, teaching and administration as opposed to service (e.g. Kogan et al., 1994; Court, 1999). By contrast, the Oxbridge tradition, which is rooted in service to a common religious culture, is associated with a consequent focus on student moral development through a liberal curriculum. This is a tradition that was re-asserted by influential nineteenth-century figures such as Thomas Arnold and John Henry Newman. Finally, the autonomous tradition derives from the German ideal of a university, as expressed by Von Humboldt, where the primary responsibility of the academic is seen as service to science and the advancement of knowledge in the discipline through research. In this tradition, academic autonomy provides the state with an independent ‘think tank’. These three traditions still significantly shape how we view what ‘service’ means today. This opening section will end by examining the relationship between scholarship and service. Here it will be argued that well-meaning attempts by Boyer (1990) and others to extend the definition of scholarship to incorporate elements of ‘scholarly service’ pose risks for the status of service activities

Introduction 5

not directly related to disciplinary or professional expertise. Strengthening and expanding the link between scholarship and service, though, is a vital means of renewing the compact between universities and society. The second section of the book will draw on questionnaire and interview responses with a range of academics from different national contexts asked to comment on their understanding of the meaning and importance of the concepts of ‘service’ and ‘academic citizenship’. It will identify different ways in which these concepts are interpreted and present a pyramid classifying the relative status of different service activities. This section of the book will consider the crucial matter as to how service work is rewarded and recognized. Prestige and kudos in academic life has long rested on personal achievements in research. This culture has been reinforced by research audit exercises in countries such as the UK and Australia since the 1980s. To some extent, this bias has been tackled in recent years by attempts in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere to honor the achievements of staff who excel as teachers through institutional and national award schemes. But where, it must be asked, does this leave service? Are academics who commit to service likely to be rewarded in their achievements by university and college employers? Are professors who carry out more service than research merely treated as unappreciated ‘work horses’? Do women, junior staff and minorities face the heaviest demands to carry out service work? Despite the frequent absence, or operational deficiencies, of reward and recognition systems, I will go on to consider what motivates academic staff to carry out service roles. If there are few tangible career benefits connected with service work, what makes service work worthwhile? Is there, as Coles (1993) suggests, a ‘call of service’? What are our goals and ambitions with respect to service contributions in academic life? Motivations are complex and while self-interest plays a part there are many academics committed to serving community interests or bringing about more radical, transformational change. This section will conclude by introducing readers to a series of virtues (or excellences of character) which represent what I believe it means to be a modern ‘academic citizen’. The virtues identified – engagement, guardianship, loyalty, collegiality and benevolence – are accompanied by associated ‘vices’ (or defects of character). Here it is argued that moral character is central to the commitment to service. While modeling all the virtues may be beyond any one of us, we can, at least, aspire to be this kind of academic citizen.

6 The academic citizen

The final section of the book will consider how the concept of academic citizenship can be re-drawn. Here, it will be contended that student service, the most disesteemed element of service, needs to be re-valued both as a moral imperative and as a pragmatic measure to combat the increasing alienation of students in mass systems of modern higher education. Another part of recovering academic citizenship lies in the importance of good examples. In this regard, senior members of the academic profession have a responsibility to role model the behaviours by which younger and less experienced academic staff will take their cue. This requires resistance to pressures for individual performance over a collective collegial effort to sustain excellence in teaching and research. Stemming from the need to re-define the meaning of service, it is important to determine how the demands of research and teaching impact on service activities, both negatively and positively. One should not automatically assume that the demands of research and teaching leave no space for service. As hinted at above, service may well be integrated into research and teaching through a range of applied and community-linked activities. This final key issue brings us to the moral dimension of service work. A prime concern of this book will be to explore the notion of service as an ethical dimension of professional life rather than one principally related to rational self-interest and career advancement. Thus, we need to consider the extent to which, if at all, academics see service as an ethical duty. The rise of individualism and the decline of communitarian values in society might suggest that service is no longer a priority for the ‘professoriate’. According to many prominent writers and analysts, individualism in Western society has made the pursuit of self-interest the moral creed of the age (e.g. Tam, 1998; Beck, 2001). Service work, almost by definition, demands a commitment to meeting the needs of others rather than oneself. There is thus an apparent contradiction between the values of modern society and the service ethic. We also live in a more culturally diverse society and universities are a reflection of this. The growth of mass higher education means that the academic community is itself larger and more diverse (Altbach, 1995). As a result of this, and the growth of the mass media, universities are no longer the main conduit for the transmission of a ‘common culture’ (NCIHE, 1997). Do academics still share common values about the importance of service to society? This is an important question, but a crucial one to ask.

Introduction 7

Looking to the future Finally, the book will consider whether the centrality of service in academic life can be re-established. There are many system-wide pressures that suggest that service may have a bleak future. One of these is the stress on research audit and consequent publication output by academic staff in institutions seeking to take on the mantle of the ‘research university’. There is evidence that the UK research assessment exercise has had a seriously negative impact on ‘voluntary academic work’ (Talib, 2001). Another pressure is the changing profile of academic staff and the increasing division of labor into separate teaching and research roles. The casualization of the academic profession is of further significance. It is estimated that 60 percent of undergraduate teaching in the US and 40 percent in the UK is not undertaken by full-time tenured staff (Knight, 2002). Many vital pro bono activities, associated with supporting students, academic peers and communities beyond the campus, may wither as a result of this trend toward specialized and part-time employment of academic staff. There is, though, a more positive agenda for the future than these trends may indicate. As referred to earlier, service activities have never been more important to university life and in re-establishing the relationship of higher education with wider society. In terms of public service, this demands that modern hyper-specialized academics need to find new ways to engage as knowledge brokers, consultants and entrepreneurs. However, the growth of vocational subjects within the university curriculum means that many modern academics have a dual identity both as a professional practitioner and as a member of university faculty (Peel, 2005). This makes academics better placed to serve the needs of modern society. Within the discipline or profession the burgeoning demands on academics to research and publish necessitates ‘critical companionship’ (Walker, 2001): a co-operative ethic that heightens the need for academics to act as selfless mentors, reviewers, observers and ‘critical friends’ to their colleagues. At another level, academics need to serve their universities as active citizens taking an interest and a part in decision-making processes and helping their institutions to survive rapidly changing trends that demand constant curriculum innovation. Finally, the needs of students must not be overlooked. Here, the problem of retention and increasing cultural diversity among learners makes student service a vital activity for which all academics need to share responsibility. The trend toward ‘sub-contracting’ such work

8 The academic citizen

to a growing cadre of support personnel does not suggest this is happening in practice.

Summary In summary, this book is aimed at developing an understanding of service as an essential element of being an academic citizen. The approach taken in exploring this concept is one based on virtue ethics examining the ideal character required to fulfill the functions of an academic citizen. This method means that the book reflects on the moral identity of academic citizenship rather than the rights and privileges of academic life. In adopting this approach, the book seeks to redress what I, and others (e.g. Kennedy, 1997), perceive as an imbalance in writing about higher education. This literature is rich in books and articles on the rights of academic staff with respect to freedom of thought and expression but comparatively lacking in analysis of reciprocal moral dimensions. Through breathing fresh life into the notion of service in this way, it is hoped that this book will contribute to a renewal of interest and understanding of its pivotal role in securing a new compact between universities and society.

Part I

The retreat from citizenship

Chapter 1

The disengaged academic

There are worrying levels of apathy, ignorance and cynicism about public life. Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA, 1998: 8)

The civic crisis What does it mean to be a ‘good citizen’? This is a question that seems a logical starting point for a book about ‘academic citizenship’. In the classical Greek city states citizenship was the privilege enjoyed by the free rather than the right of all. Citizenship brought with it the right to have say and to vote about matters affecting the city. Today, the right to vote is no longer considered a privilege in a representative democracy. It is widely taken for granted even though the extension of the franchise to women was not completed in Britain until 1928 and considerably later than this in some other western democracies. Exercising the right to vote, hard won by our forebears, might seem a basic requirement for being a ‘good citizen’ in a modern democratic society. However, we are said to live in an age of civic disengagement evidenced by the decline of voter participation and community volunteering, in old and new democracies alike. Less than 60 percent of the population voted in the UK general election held in June, 2001. This was the lowest figure recorded since the end of World War I. Despite a slightly improved turn-out at the

12 The retreat from citizenship

general election of May 2005, a pattern of longer-term decline appears to be now firmly established. Similar trends can be seen elsewhere. In the US too there has been a long-term decline in voter turn-out during the twentieth century. There have been many analyses of why voter turn-out is falling. Studies often indicate declining levels of trust in politicians or rising levels of apathy about the political process itself (e.g. Baston and Ritchie, 2004). Of course, being a ‘good citizen’ means much more than just turning up to vote every four or five years. It is also about an ongoing commitment to participate and engage with others in society. Falling levels of civic engagement in community and in charitable and religious organizations are symptomatic of a decline in ‘civic’ society. While the numbers of nonprofit-making organizations may have grown substantially over the past few decades, people increasingly engage with them by donating money rather than participating in meetings and other activities. In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam (2000) shows that Americans today are less engaged in virtually all aspects of social and community life than they were in 1960. There are many other popular explanations offered for civic disengagement. These include the breakdown of the nuclear family, the mobility of labor, fear of crime, the pressures of modern working practices, the growth of technology resulting in a 24-hour consumer society and the mass media providing people with many alternative ways of spending their leisure time. Others put the blame on the free market politics of the 1980s and 1990s ‘designed to root out the culture of service and citizenship which had become part of the social fabric’ (Marquand, 2004: 2). This, according to Marquand, promoted a more selfish and consumer-oriented society that destroyed the historic balance between the public and the private created during Victorian times. Others, writing from a different side of the political spectrum, agree that there has been a ‘devaluation’ of public service (Deedes, 2004). This means that public servants, such as politicians, are no longer held in such high regard. It also needs to be acknowledged, though, that what it means to be a ‘good citizen’ is a dynamic and shifting rather than static concept. In a book entitled Good Citizenship published at the close of the nineteenth century, a range of obligations are explored both familiar and unfamiliar to the modern reader (Hand, 1899). Familiar themes include the need to obey the civil law and the importance of seeking progress on a range of social issues. Other duties of citizenship identified in the volume are

The disengaged academic 13

very much of their time. One such example is the duty of Britain to its empire based on a perception that imperialism had rightly triumphed and brought benefits for both colonists and indigenous races (Reeves, 1899). The sacrifices made by colonial subjects of the British Empire were witnessed in both World War I and II. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, citizenship was strongly associated with displays of individual and collective patriotism to the nation state (Vink, 2004). Despite the slaughter in the trenches of World War I, conscription to the British armed forces was not introduced until March, 1916. Helping to pay for the war was a further expression of patriotic duty for those unable to serve. For example, it is estimated that Stanley Baldwin, who later became British Prime Minister, donated 20 percent of his total private wealth toward the repayment of the war loan (Deedes, 2004). During the 1939–1945 conflict, the purchase of government (or war) bonds was seen primarily, on both sides of the Atlantic, as an obligation of any good citizen rather than a financial investment (Coles, 1993). After World War II, through until the early 1960s, young British men continued to be ‘called up’ for a two-year stint of ‘national service’. In a time of transition, it is still perhaps too early to say whether notions of European citizenship are largely symbolic or genuinely ‘postnational’ (Vink, 2004). In this contemporary context, citizenship is still associated with displays of individual and collective patriotism, but it has also been re-constructed under the influence of powerful social movements such as environmentalism and feminism (Walters and Watters, 2001). This means that citizenship is connected closely with a range of other acts and activities such as voting in elections, recycling household waste and working for local and charitable groups. While many might welcome a weakening connection between citizenship and military service, it is important to consider what has happened to our sense of communal obligation.

Citizenship education The perception of civic disengagement has provoked a ‘moral panic’ (Cohen, 1972) inasmuch that politicians and the mass media have focused, in particular, on falling turn-out among young voters as a public expression of youth alienation (Maitles, 2000). Many conferences, committees and national commissions charged with explaining and offering potential

14 The retreat from citizenship

solutions to this phenomenon have followed in the wake of this attention. The US Pew National Commission on Civic Renewal and the Council on Civil Society, co-sponsored by the University of Chicago and the Institute of American Values, reported their concerns at the end of the 1990s. In the UK, despite the recommendation of the Public Administration Select Commission following the poor voter turn-out at the 2001 general election, a proposed ‘Rewarding Democracy Commission’ failed to gain sufficient support in the House of Commons. The introduction of citizenship education in English schools is a reaction, at least in part, to concerns raised about youth alienation from democratic processes. This has stemmed, again in part, from angst about the low levels of voter participation by young citizens in the 18–24 age bracket, in particular. In 2002, following the recommendations of an Advisory Group under the Chairmanship of Sir Bernard Crick, citizenship education became a statutory element of the UK national school curriculum. In defining the elements of a citizenship education, the Crick report drew on a rich literature and tradition. In the ancient Greek and Roman city states citizenship meant ‘involvement in public affairs by those that had the rights of citizens: to take part in public debate and, directly or indirectly, in shaping the laws and decisions of a state’ (QCA, 1998: 9). While early Greek and Roman societies provide a model of citizenship, in many respects it is one ill-suited to the inclusive ideals of modern democratic society. Today, citizenship is a more inclusive concept rather than excluding members of society such as women and slaves as it did in ancient Greek society. The Crick report further cites T. H. Marshall’s work on citizenship (Marshall and Bottomore, 1992). Marshall identified three elements of citizenship as the civil, the political and the social, a model influential on the Crick Advisory Group. It determined that political literacy, community involvement and social and moral responsibility should form the core of the citizenship curriculum designed to help secondary school pupils become ‘active, informed, critical and responsible citizens’ (QCA, 1998: 9). English school pupils from the age of 5 through to 11 would also learn about citizenship in combination with personal, social and health education. Calls for university students to become more ‘active’ citizens have also grown in the wake of the introduction of citizenship education in English schools. Kempner and Taylor (1998: 301) are representative of a number of academics arguing that universities should re-focus their attentions:

The disengaged academic 15 We propose higher education, and community colleges in particular, be evaluated not solely on their functional merits, but on their value in promoting what Dewey (1966) called, an ‘active citizenry’.

The rise of citizenship education in response to the perceived crisis in civic engagement has begun to generate a good deal of academic attention. There are now journals, conferences, research centers and societies devoted to the furtherance of work in the area. However, it is ironic that while academics, such as Kempner and Taylor (1998), have called for students to be encouraged to participate more fully as members of a democratic society, the citizenship responsibilities of the academic community have tended to be overlooked. Attention has been focused on the education of children and young adults rather than those doing the educating.

The academic citizen? The role of university academic staff, particularly in a UK context, is rarely expressed in terms of their citizenship or ‘service’ role. It is more usually understood in terms of the dual claims of teaching and research. Academics, it is said, are employed for their knowledge of their discipline or profession, their ability to further that knowledge through research and to help students learn through their teaching activities. Anything they do apart from this is sometimes referred to as ‘administration’ and carries negative connotations (Staniforth and Harland, 1999). Such activities are often perceived as ‘non-core’ (McInnes, 1996) and are regarded as an unwelcome and dysfunctional distraction from research and teaching. According to a major twenty-year study, interest in administration and committee work declined sharply between 1977 and 1997 among both academic leaders, such as deans and heads of department, and front-line academic staff (Hanson, 2003). However, ‘service’ consists of much more than administrative and committee work. It also refers to activities like counseling students, mentoring junior or less experienced colleagues, developing links with employers or community groups, interacting with professional groups or contributing to a university committee or working party. Service activities are essential in keeping academic communities and the universities they work in going and connected to the world around them (Burgan, 1998). They directly support teaching and research activities through service work such as teaching

16 The retreat from citizenship

observation, mentoring, reviewing of academic papers and the organization of conferences (see Chapter 4). Yet, in the conceptualization of academic life the role of service has been, by in large, overlooked or trivialized as little more than ‘administration’ rather than essential to the preservation of community life. There are those who argue that academic staff should exercise citizenship responsibilities in relation to their own academic community and the wider world which universities serve (Kennedy, 1997; Shils, 1997; Ward, 2003). However, there has been little attention paid to the direct link between the concept of citizenship and the responsibilities of academic staff. Mapping the ways in which the principles of citizenship apply to academics would seem especially pertinent, given that many within the higher education community are involved, either directly or indirectly, in inculcating students with a respect for elements of our ‘common culture’ (NCIHE, 1997). A preparedness to tolerate and respect the views of others is one of these elements (Barnett, 1990). In exploring the concept of ‘academic citizenship’ there are important implications arising from the application of the Crick committee’s three components of citizenship to university life (Table 1.1). Political literacy implies active participation in decision-making processes within the immediate organizational setting be that a center, unit or department and as a member of a broader higher education institution. Social and moral responsibility demands that academics recognize the need to serve overlapping Table 1.1 Elements of academic citizenship Elements of citizenship

Implications for academic life

Political literacy

Understanding of decision-making processes at all levels within the university.

Social and moral responsibility

Appreciation of responsibilities towards students, colleagues, the university, professional bodies, local communities, and wider society.

Community involvement

Skills in nurturing students, supporting academic and professional colleagues, developing and applying knowledge, communicating with the public.

The disengaged academic 17

communities within and outside the university and fulfill social and moral obligations in relation to these communities. Community involvement points up the importance of putting this commitment into practice through activities such as nurturing students, supporting colleagues, developing the discipline or profession, and communicating with the wider public. These components of academic citizenship require that faculty are knowledgeable (political literacy), possess key values (connected with social and moral responsibility) and are skilled to carry out this commitment (through community involvement).1 Still, it is important to consider the extent to which this ideal reflects the reality of contemporary academic life. Does the ‘civic disengagement’ thesis in regard to wider society equally apply within the academic community? Are university lecturers less prepared or interested in being good ‘academic citizens’? If so, why has this occurred? The evidence does suggest that, to some extent, the obligations of academic citizenship have been ‘hollowed out’ (Massy et al., 1994) by a range of forces affecting university faculty in parallel with the civic disengagement of wider society. The reasons for this, together with a more detailed explanation of how the elements of citizenship translate to academic life, will form the basis for the subsequent analysis contained in this chapter.

Political literacy Service in academic life is fundamentally about citizenship inasmuch that it demands participation as a member of a community of scholars rather than simply the individualized (and perhaps, sometimes selfish) pursuit of research and teaching interests. While devotion to individual scholarly agendas is a common collective interest of academic communities, there is an ancient tradition of self-governance. At root, to be an academic citizen demands active interest in decision-making processes as a member of a university. Here, decision-making takes place at different levels: the department, faculty (or school), and university level. At the university level, the role of academic staff in decision-making processes has a long tradition in UK universities. At Oxford and Cambridge, founded in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respectively, most academic

1 I am grateful to Roger Ottewill for this insight.

18 The retreat from citizenship

staff are members of the governing body of the institution known as ‘Congregation’ at Oxford and ‘the Regent House’ at Cambridge. Sovereignty at the college level also lies with academic staff, known as Fellows (Palfreyman, 2001). Most modern UK universities, though, are far removed from being a genuinely self-governing ‘community of scholars’ (Goodman, 1962; Evans, 1999). Academic democracy is more weakly established at the UK universities founded by Acts of Parliament and Royal Charters from the nineteenth century through to the 1960s even though these instruments provided for a substantial proportion of academic staff to be represented on university Councils or Senates. The position of academic staff in the post-1992 universities (or former polytechnics) is less favorable still. These institutions were transformed into universities in 1992 but as Corporations, with Boards of Governors of between 12 and 24 members. Up to 13 of its membership are required to be ‘independent’ with experience of industry, employment or a profession. This ‘stakeholder model’ of university governance largely excludes academic staff, just 2 members from which may join the Board of Governors. Thus, in most UK universities, the vast majority of academic staff have little or no practical role in the governance of the institution. A similar picture emerges on an international basis, although, formally, the percentage of academic staff represented on university senates is stronger in some national contexts, such as Canada (Jones et al., 2004). Even where faculty are well represented on such forums evidence suggests that senates are increasingly seen as disconnected from the exercise of real power in universities. In a research study of academic staff in 14 countries during the 1990s, it was reported that just 5 percent of staff felt they had any influence in shaping policy at institutional level and over 60 percent considered they had no impact whatsoever (Lewis and Altbach, 1995). In the intervening years it is unlikely that this feeling of political disenfranchisement has reversed. In a UK context, the decline in self-governing processes has been exacerbated by the fact that two-thirds of universities have been formed since 1960 (Scott, 1995). Much of the expansion that has occurred to satisfy rising student numbers has been met by the post-1992 sector where academic democracy is at its weakest. This, though, does not necessarily imply that academic staff in older, and often more research-intense, universities fully appreciate their comparatively privileged position. In parallel to the disengagement with political processes of citizens in mature Western

The disengaged academic 19

democracies, Braxton and Bayer (1999) found that staff in US research universities had a weaker commitment to self-governance than their counterparts in less prestigious institutions. An important shift has taken place in the balance between hierarchy and collegiality within most modern universities. While hierarchical authority has always been present in universities, collegiality no longer plays such a strong balancing role. Hierarchy is about vesting decision-making authority in designated leadership roles, as might be commonly found in many business organizations. By contrast, collegiality works on the basis of members having an equal authority in decision-making processes, the results of which must be respected by all (Becher and Kogan, 1992). At the department and school or faculty level, academic democracy has also been in decline. In this regard, ‘collegiality’ is a word closely associated with the concept of academic self-governance and co-operation in joint and consensual decisionmaking processes (McNay, 1995; Knight and Trowler, 2001; Tapper and Palfreyman, 2002). Here, the emphasis is on inclusiveness, developing communal consent for change. In its purest form, ‘collegiality’ implies the full participation of academics in a federal structure of colleges balancing the power of the university at the center (Tapper and Palfreyman, 2002). The weakened position of most academic staff in modern governance structures is symbolic of the shift away from a collegial to a more bureaucratic and managerial culture. Such concerns are by no means new, though, and apply to university systems in the US as well as the UK (Goodman, 1962). The ‘gentleman amateur’ model of academic leadership has been replaced by an increasingly professional one. Senior decision-making positions in the management of university life such as Pro Vice Chancellor, Dean and Head of Department have traditionally been filled through the rotation of senior staff (Middlehurst, 1993). Professorial authority to fulfill such duties has been based on academic reputation and influence on decision-making bodies such as Senate (Middlehurst, 1993). The ‘leadership’ of departmental colleagues is now increasingly undertaken on a permanent rather than ‘rotational’ basis by academics who have chosen ‘management’ as a career route or professional managers from non-academic backgrounds in business and public service industries. Careers are now made in ‘management’ particularly in the post-1992 UK universities as much as through scholarly activity (Middlehurst, 2004) (see Chapter 9). Decline of collegial governance has taken place within most universities at all levels. This includes the Oxbridge colleges, the ancient bastions

20 The retreat from citizenship

of academic self-governance, where academic democracy acts more as a constraint rather than the driver of policy development (Tapper and Palfreyman, 2002). At the highest level, the university vice chancellor is now regarded as a representative of the university’s corporate self-interest rather than that of the academic community. It was not until the early 1990s that the vice chancellor of Cambridge university ceased to serve for a maximum of two consecutive academic years (Johnson, 1994). Similarly, at less senior levels, faculty deans and department heads are now commonly permanent appointees rather than serving on a rotational basis at many universities, particularly post-1992 UK universities. This trend might be attributed to increased demands for the accountability of the university to its modern ‘stakeholders’, the reliance of most institutions, to a greater or lesser extent, on government funding and the equating of a university education with the norms and lexicon of a service industry. The slow and consensual nature of collegial decision-making processes, the excessive power it can give to opponents of change, and individual incompetence it can hide further appear ill-suited to the fast moving demands of a more competitive, global environment for educational services (Tapper and Palfreyman, 2002). Why, it might be asked, should academic staff play a significant role in the governance of university affairs? Are they not simply employees like anyone else? There is both a de jure and a de facto means of responding to this question. Prior to 1987 in the UK, academic staff, unlike any ordinary employee, could gain ‘tenure’ whereby, following a successful probationary period, they would be secure in their positions until retirement, free to express unpopular views and conduct research without fear of dismissal (Russell, 1993). Tenure is an entitlement which academics in a number of other university systems, including the US, continue to enjoy. This places the academic in a position of privilege and immense responsibility to act in a way which does not abuse the trust of tenure. While the legal protection afforded by tenure may have disappeared for UK academics, they are still, in other respects, more than just ‘an employee’. This is attested to by the considerable de facto power and authority which academics continue to possess. They interview and admit students, design the curriculum, create intellectual knowledge through research and publications and, crucially, determine the life chances of learners through their dual role as teachers and examiners. They are not simply ‘service providers’ in the sense of being beholden to the whims of a sovereign customer. The relationship is more complex than a market analogy might suggest.

The disengaged academic 21

There are grounds to suggest, though, that academic staff are now less politically literate. This is to say that they have a reduced understanding and interest in university decision-making processes. This has occurred through the decline of collegial decision-making, the waning influence of academic trade unions, the rise of a management culture in universities and the loss of tenure. There are other factors that have contributed to the disengagement of the academic from decision-making processes at all levels. One of the most significant of these is the casualization and increasing atomization of academic labor. In the UK and the US, there have been growing numbers of part-time and casual staff employed for a number of years (Ainley, 1994; Nelson and Watt, 1999; Benjamin, 2000). The development of electronic (or ‘e’) learning, the inclusion of more professional and practice-based subjects into higher education institutions and the separation of teaching and research functions prompted by government-funding regimes have led to further divisions and sub-divisions of academic labor, often without full academic status. Specialist roles include ‘teaching-only’ and ‘research-only’ staff, lecturer practitioners in the health sciences, instructional designers and web developers. Such categories of staff often play little part in academic governance because they can be employed on a contractual basis that excludes full participatory rights and are disconnected from the mainstream academic community as a result. The pressures that have eroded academic self-governance do not, however, justify a retreat from political literacy and engagement. While academic freedom might be a necessary right this implies certain duties. One of the most prominent of these is the duty to become involved in governance which helps to insure academic freedom is preserved in practice. As Burgan (1998: 16) states, ‘freedom, after all, involves process, as well as principle’.

Social and moral responsibility Political literacy is a rudimentary requirement for academic citizenship. It is not of itself enough or sufficient. An academic citizen also needs to have commitments to beliefs, causes and values. These commitments manifest themselves as different individual conceptions of social and moral responsibility. Differences of emphasis and political perspective are inevitable and healthy. However, there is a common need for academics to

22 The retreat from citizenship

recognize their social and moral responsibility toward others including students, departmental and university peers, colleagues in their wider discipline or profession and members of other communities. This sense of common responsibility requires a cohesive academic culture. It is popular to speak, often glibly, of a ‘community of scholars’ implying that university academics share a sense of common values, purposes and identity. The evidence suggests, though, that any common academic ‘culture’ has withered. Culture is, of course, an easier phenomenon to recognize on the basis of experience than to adequately define. However, McNay (1995) has provided a useful conceptual framework that makes it possible to understand some of the cultural changes that have taken place in university life. He identifies four cultures: the collegium, bureaucracy, corporation and enterprise, all present to some extent in universities. The first of these, the collegium, is based firmly in the tradition of self-governance. This is most closely associated with Oxford and Cambridge universities where there is a strong tradition of academic autonomy based on consensual and informal processes. The other cultures represent the forces of regulation (‘bureaucracy’), executive power (‘corporation’) and the free market (‘enterprise’). The collegium is central to a sense of collective, academic identity. It consists of a culture based on the claims of academic freedom including an assertion of the importance of academic self-governance. It contains a strong belief in consensual decision-making processes within an autonomous community, but the decline of this culture has been marked. McNay (1995) reports a notable shift in the perceptions of staff with regard to the presence of each of these cultures. Over a ten-year period, McNay found the collegium went from being the dominant culture to having the weakest perceived presence. The growth in the number of professional administrator, management and ‘manager-academic’ roles (Deem et al., 2001) attest to the way in which the university has become more of a ‘corporate’ culture. The decline of the collegial culture has been accelerated by a range of forces. One of the most obvious reasons for the decline of the collegium has been the massification of higher education. In the UK, student numbers in higher education grew markedly in both the 1960s and, more recently, between the late 1980s and early 1990s (NCIHE, 1997). The latter period also witnessed a 40 percent expansion of student numbers in Australian universities (Layer, 2002). The participation rate in England currently stands

The disengaged academic 23

at around 43 percent of 18–30-year-olds and is set to rise to 50 percent by 2010 (DfES, 2003). The university has simply got bigger and this growth of student numbers and, to some extent, staff numbers has eroded the sense of community possible in smaller size institutions. The arrival of mass higher education is one of the factors identified by Edward Shils as contributing to the ‘disaggregated university’ (1997: 42). The growth of student numbers, more funds for the appointment of academic staff, increased career mobility and the proliferation of sub-disciplines were other factors cited by Shils as damaging the internal unity of the university. Moreover, Shils’ analysis does not stand in isolation. Drawing on interviews with academic staff at UK universities, Silver reports little sense of ‘a culture that rested on a community of interest, shared norms, assumptions and even values that were clearly associated with the institution itself’ (2003: 162). On this basis, it might appear that the university has become merely a legal entity of disparate individuals rather than the ‘intellectual corporation’ envisaged by Shils (1997). Arguably, though, it is easier to sustain a sense of community and common purpose where a residential collegiate model survives, consisting of both students and resident faculty, as at large contemporary elite universities, such as Oxford, Cambridge or Yale. The benefits of the collegiate model have been recognized since the nineteenth century as an important ingredient in student character development (Barnes, 1996). The collegiate model fits less comfortably though with contemporary economic realities in terms of both the economies of scale connected with running modern organizations and the affordability of the residential college. Students in the UK are increasingly likely to live at home in order to study at their local university, an unsurprisingly pragmatic decision when the value of a contemporary higher education is seen largely in terms of economic benefits rather than character development. In the age of mass higher education, students enter academic studies with pragmatic concerns to obtain a degree leading to a lucrative career rather than enter into the collective life of the university (Thomas and Chickering, 1983). The importance of the collegiate model to student development is often cited, but working in relatively small communities is also of significance to academic staff. Individuals in very large educational establishments encounter ‘redundancy’, not in the literal sense of a termination of employment but in their sense of a loss of involvement (Thomas and Chickering, 1983). This more impersonal environment may have further undermined shared notions of social and moral responsibility.

24 The retreat from citizenship

Community involvement While political literacy and social and moral responsibility provide the basis for a knowledgeable and committed academic citizen, there is still one element missing. This is the skill to work effectively for the benefit of communities both internal and external to the university. Academics work as part of society, a higher education system, a disciplinary or professional network, a university, a department, a teaching or research team and together with groups of students. Academics identify with a series of overlapping communities, rather than just one. The university is ‘onion like’ (Middlehurst, 1993) with multiple layers. There is a danger, though, that academics are becoming more skilled in serving specialized communities or sub-communities in relation to their discipline or profession rather than making a more balanced contribution to community life (see Chapter 3). The first point of identity for most academics is commonly acknowledged as their disciplinary community or ‘tribe’ (Becher and Trowler, 2001). Here, there is a shared set of values, interests and norms of behaviour. The discipline community is a major source of identity for academics and, in some cases, ‘their life’ (Squires, 1987: 177). The ‘discipline’ is symbolic of an exclusive, somewhat unworldly academic retreat as opposed to the commodification of knowledge represented by the use of the word ‘subject’ (Parker, 2002). Epistemological fragmentation has resulted in a rapid expansion of sub-disciplines in many disciplinary fields. Within the study of education, for example, there is a growing fragmentation, reflected by the range of special interest groups, journals, scholarly societies and published book titles, that has resulted in the emergence of a number of specialized communities which have become separated, like grain silos, from each other. These ‘silos’, reflecting the interests of sub-communities within a field of intellectual enquiry, exist in all disciplinary territories to a greater or lesser extent. However, as Becher (1989) has shown, some academic tribes are more ‘convergent’ or ‘tightly knit’ (p. 5) than others. Educational studies, by contrast, is, in Becher’s terms, a more ‘divergent and loosely knit’ (p. 6) area, an intellectual territory where its members lack cohesion or a common sense of identity. Nixon has characterized education studies as ‘strangely rootless’ in this sense (2002: 5). Educationists have tended to tunnel into sector-specific areas (such as early years education, primary schooling, secondary schooling, post-16 education, adult education, continuing education and distance education) or aspect-specific areas (such as curriculum

The disengaged academic 25

studies, special and inclusive education, assessment, policy studies or gender studies). To forge a career within educational studies, academics have to identify with, and find a space within, one or other of these areas, each with its own journals, networks, conferences, and gatekeepers. A similar picture emerges in the fragmented nature of academic identity in other disciplines. In the age of the audit, government funding for university research in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere in the world is contingent on outcome and ‘impact’ measures such as refereed papers. In this competitive context, the career-minded academic is probably best advised to specialize in one sub-disciplinary niche than question how the ‘whole’ fits together. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in the UK has added new impetus to epistemological fragmentation. There is evidence that these processes, associated with heightened demands for individual performance through publication, have damaged intellectual collegiality. While collegiality in terms of decision-making processes is connected with the political literacy of academic staff, intellectual collegiality ‘stimulates academics of different ranks and interests to pursue in common very difficult intellectual goals’ (Tapper and Palfreyman, 2002: 49). Research audit exercises tend to privilege and reward the intellectual achievement of individuals working in highly specialized, rather than inter-disciplinary, academic fields. Burgan (1998) asserts that the emphasis on research has led to the ‘outsourcing’ of service activities to a growing army of middle managers. There is also evidence to suggest that this trend has damaged commitment to student advising and other more informal aspects of the academic service role (Brown, 2002) (see Chapter 8). Finally, in addressing community involvement it is important not to lose sight of the relationship between academics and civic society. It has long been recognized that universities should contribute to the development of the societies of which they are a part. The UK Victorian civic universities and the US land-grant universities were most closely associated with this tradition during the expansion of higher education in the mid- to late nineteenth century. Both the Robbins (1963) and Dearing reports (NCIHE, 1997) on UK higher education recognize the central role of universities and colleges in reflecting and shaping the common cultural values of a democratic society. However, the growth of state funding for higher education since World War II and the decline of ‘donnish dominion’ (Halsey, 1992) have led to a subtle shift in this relationship as the economic role of the university has taken center stage. The nature of a common culture has also become more

26 The retreat from citizenship

diffuse due to the increasing ethnic diversity of the UK and the increasing importance of the mass media as an alternative means of ‘transmission’ (NCIHE, 1997). This has led to a retreat from the broader civic role of the university redefining, in the process, the relationship between academics and the wider society they serve. This is now perceived in hard-edged economic terms such as ‘knowledge transfer’ rather than more broadly based contributions to civic society (Annette, 2005). While institutional mission statements speak of the ‘community’ and service to ‘society’ at large, the basis upon which this rhetoric translates into the working practice of academic staff is less clear (Boland et al., 2004).

Conclusion This opening chapter has sketched a largely unpromising picture of the state of academic citizenship. The elements of citizenship identified by the Crick report (QCA, 1998) have been ‘hollowed out’ (Massy et al., 1994) in relation to university life. In common with the disengagement thesis more generally within society, academic citizenship appears to be in a similar state of crisis and retreat. The evidence suggests that the collegiality of faculty life has been replaced by a less communal and more isolated existence. Institutional communities are strained by the growth in the size of universities, disciplinebased communities are ever more fractured and specialized and academic relations with students have become increasingly impersonal in the wake of massification. It follows that if someone does not feel part of a community, they are unlikely to commit to the social and moral obligations of kinship. The challenges of this crisis are multiple and relate to questions of academic and professional identity as well as institutional processes and structural change across higher education at large. In recovering the idea of academic citizenship, there is a need initially for academics, and the universities they work for, to appreciate the rich tradition of service that has long been part of the role of higher education institutions. The next chapter will consider the roots of ‘academic citizenship’ drawing on alternative traditions of Western universities.

Chapter 2

The roots of service

The chief duty of the university is to produce good citizens Moberley (1949: 33)

Introduction This chapter will focus on how the university has defined its ‘service’ role and how conceptions have shifted over time. While this book is principally focused on capturing and recovering the idea of service at the level of the individual academic, it is important to start by understanding the origins of different interpretations of this term. It will be argued that there is a need to understand the contribution of different traditions of the university in shaping our understanding of service today. There is no singular ‘service’ tradition but a number of them that reflect the concerns and priorities of different periods in history. There is service to God, to the state, to the moral development of citizens and to knowledge and intellectual truth. Service in the civic, Oxbridge and the autonomous traditions are all identified and explored in this chapter. The modern university derives its understanding of service from all these traditions. All would claim to produce ‘good citizens’ but with differences of emphasis as to what a good citizen should be: someone with the right skills for the modern economy, with intellectual independence and self-confidence; and with the character, attitudes and values to contribute positively to society.

28 The retreat from citizenship

A fuzzying divide The history of universities is inextricably linked to different conceptions of service. This can be partly explained by shifting ideas as to whom the university should ‘serve’. Despite the popular characterization of the ‘ivory tower’, universities have always reflected the political realities of the age. The medieval universities were closely connected with serving the powerful interests of the church. This began to wane in the nineteenth century, in the wake of the industrial revolution, as local business and community interests gave universities a fresh direction. From the latter half of the twentieth century, universities have worked increasingly in the service of the state and the national economy. A more contemporary analysis might point to the fact that societies are no longer bounded by national borders and that universities serve global interests as a result (Urry, 1998). Determining whom universities should serve gives rise to questions about the balance between private and public interests. Some university traditions are more closely associated with serving public interests, such as the post1992 universities in the UK or the US state universities. However, this does not automatically mean that universities that are substantially funded through benefaction and fee income only serve the private interest. Such institutions often have a strong tradition of public service through charitable work and funding free places for outstanding scholars from any social background. Arguably, though, all universities serve society and the public interest either directly or indirectly. The graduates from a private university may contribute to society directly through choice of a public service occupation, as a healthcare professional for example, or at the very least through paying higher taxes as an above-average income earner. In this regard, the ‘invisible hand’ of Adam Smith’s free market insures that some public good results from the pursuit of private interest. Both state and non-state universities provide society with private and public ‘goods’ (Marginson, 2004a). Moreover, the question of who benefits from the work of universities needs to be extended beyond the confines of national boundaries. Intellectual capital is vital for the global economy, for developing nations as well as the prosperous. There is an established tradition of private higher education playing an important public role. A private, Western university can contribute a great deal to developing countries through relevant research and the education of its future doctors, engineers, politicians, managers

The roots of service 29

and economists. While universities that are globally competitive tend to be less dependent on national state funding, this does not mean they are not producing ‘public goods’ such as enhancing international understanding and tolerance (Marginson, 2004a). As Marquand (2004) asserts, the public domain is more than a sector and its actors incorporate private individuals, charities and companies. It also has a set of values connected with ‘citizenship, equity and service’ (Marquand, 2004: 27). While it is increasingly difficult to sustain the separation of the private from the public, this dichotomy retains popular appeal. The phrase ‘public service’ resonates with many academics working at universities, and other educational establishments, regardless of the extent to which these institutions may rely on state support. It is a phrase often associated with professions and occupations that work within the publicly funded service sector such as teachers, doctors, health workers and members of the armed forces. However, ‘public service’ is a phrase which has a broader meaning. It consists of, inter alia, the production of knowledge, supporting achievement based on meritocratic principles and, in the words of the Robbins Report (1963), activities that help to transmit the values of a common culture to students (Marquand, 2004).

The civic tradition British universities are today, with one exception,1 publicly funded institutions reliant in the main on state support based on students’ numbers and audited research excellence. While some, such as Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial College, rely less on the state for their income than others, nearly all are part of the same publicly funded system of higher education. However, the public service role of British universities predates its increasing reliance on state support that took hold from the early twentieth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were just six British universities. Oxford and Cambridge universities had been founded in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respectively and a further four Scottish universities emerged before the end of the sixteenth century. In the UK, as elsewhere in Europe, the early universities were largely concerned with the vocational preparation of men in theology, law and medicine (Smith, 1999).

1 The University of Buckingham, a private university.

30 The retreat from citizenship

The service role of the medieval university was tied to meeting the needs of the established Church. With the exception of Edinburgh, all the original British universities were church-established (Robinson, 2005). It was not until 1826 that University College was founded in London allowing Nonconformists to access a university education. However, while the power of the established Church was beginning to wane, universities were perhaps more seriously out of step with the emerging industrial spirit of the age. Classics and mathematics were the dominant subjects and there was little room for science, technology or more modern professional fields in a curriculum that had changed little for centuries. Despite Britain’s growing reputation as the workshop of the world, the universities were stuck in a bygone age. Symptomatic of this was Britain’s poor showing in the 1867 Paris Exhibition compared with the earlier Great Exhibition of 1851. A different version of service to society began to emerge for universities established toward the end of the Victorian era. The new English universities founded during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century reflected an opening up of higher education signalling a more meritocratic society. The period witnessed the first real expansion of such provision since the fourteenth century. Prior to this period, the university was an institution which stood aloof from ordinary society and existed mainly for the purpose of training men to enter the Church (Dunbabin, 1999). They developed as a result of rapid economic, social and political change associated with the industrial revolution. Many of the ‘new’ universities founded during the Victorian era, such as Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, were established by philanthropists, local politicians and businessmen. These ‘civic’ universities had a founding commitment to serve the needs of their local communities. Several contained a full range of subjects for the first time including science and engineering disciplines relevant to the industrial heartlands they served (Scott, 1995). While not all Victorian civic universities were designed to provide a more modern, open and practical education, most were modeled on this basis marking a significant break with the Oxbridge model and distinct too from the German Humboldtian idea of the university later emulated in the US and the UK. The colleges from which the civics evolved were founded by a new breed of Victorian: industrialist philanthropists who worked closely with well-connected local politicians to build civic pride using their new wealth from commerce and manufacture.

The roots of service 31

Typical of their number was Sir Josiah Mason.2 The foundation of Mason’s fortune is instructive in understanding the roots of many of the universities during this period. In the early part of the nineteenth century, Mason took over a Birmingham manufacturing business making split rings and within a few short years made his fortune as the world’s leading pen manufacturer. He had worked his way up in the world having had no formal education, starting his working life selling cakes door to door at the age of eight. After a series of jobs, as, among other things, a carpenter, blacksmith and housepainter, he had become a successful carpet weaver. Financially frugal, hard-working and practical, Mason moved to Birmingham from Kidderminster working for and marrying into his uncle’s family. In Birmingham, he met fellow nonconformist Samuel Harrison who, looking to retire, offered to sell Mason his successful split ring business. While Harrison had developed a mechanical process for making beveled, rather then flat, split rings, Josiah Mason saw a further, more far reaching opportunity to innovate. As a Sunday school student, he had spent time trimming goose quills used as writing implements. However, quill pens quickly went soft while the only other alternative, metal nibs, made largely by hand, were very expensive to produce and beyond the pocket of the ordinary man. Mason’s solution was to develop a split nib by a mechanized process. This resulted in a pen which was both flexible enough to write with and much more affordable. Mason lowered the price of the pen nib from two pence a nib to a staggering two pence a gross (i.e. 144). Driven by a desire to provide educational opportunities to others, Josiah Mason went on to become one of the great Victorian benefactors of the nineteenth century. In 1870, he founded a Scientific College, bearing his name, which later became Birmingham University. He made his fortune in steel, the commodity for which the city of Sheffield became a byword. The trust deed of Mason’s Scientific College details his modest background and the philosophy of the new institution. This states that instruction should be devoted specifically to ‘practical, mechanical and artistic requirements of the manufactures and industrial pursuits of the Midlands district’ (Sanderson, 1975: 159). It specifically excluded the teaching of literary and theological education. In this respect, Birmingham was far from typical. Several of the

2 This description of the foundation of Mason’s fortune draws on Ives, E. et al. (2000).

32 The retreat from citizenship

other civic universities, such as Liverpool and Manchester, were focused on offering a traditional curriculum based on arts subjects rather than the applied sciences and engineering. As with University College earlier in the century, opposition to religious tests, rather than a more modern curriculum, played a significant role in the founding of other late Victorian universities. One such example of this trend was Owens College, founded by the wealthy cotton merchant John Owens, which later became the University of Manchester in 1903. In other crucial respects, though, Mason’s Scientific College, or College for the Study of Practical Science, typified the spirit of the age. It was devoted to a contemporary curriculum in touch with the changing needs of an industrial age and was also socially progressive in opening up opportunities to study, regardless of religion and gender. However, civic universities were not just about serving the needs of local industry. They were also about offering services to the community such as libraries, museums and public lectures (Jones, 1988). In this latter respect, the university extension movement was important in bridging the traditional divide between the university and the working man. The extension movement was pioneered by committed individuals such as James Stuart, a Professor of Mechanism and Engineering at Cambridge from 1867. Stuart went out to lecture groups such as working men in mechanics institutes and co-operative societies in the provinces. The movement gathered pace in the 1880s bringing the lower classes in touch with knowledge that had previously been the preserve of a tiny elite. Improving literacy rates and the extension of the franchise also fueled the success of the movement. Civic universities were about an opening up of higher education to other classes in society, regardless of religion, and to women (Haldane, 1913). The start of these changes were reflected in popular literature of the period. In Thomas Hardy’s novel, Jude The Obscure, the university at Christminster (Hardy’s fictional name for Oxford) stands in arrogant isolation from the life of common people with its students and professors pursuing a curriculum with little connection to contemporary life. Jude Fawley, the tragic central figure in Hardy’s novel, is frustrated in his ambition to join the ranks of academe by social class and poverty despite his dedication to self-education and improvement. For Jude Fawley the opening up of opportunities came too late.

The roots of service 33 I hear that soon there is going to be a better chance for such helpless students as I was. There are schemes afoot for making the University less exclusive, and extending its influence. I don’t know much about it. And it is too late, too late for me! (Hardy, 1998: 399, originally published in 1895)

Unlike their predecessors, ‘civic’ universities embraced a more modern interpretation of service that today is rooted in the language of access, widening participation and social justice. However, while contemporary universities seek to widen participation to all socio-economic groups, those in the nineteenth century were beginning the process of democratization by extending opportunities to the new middle classes who had prospered as a result of industrialization. A falling birth rate and family size also meant that investing more in the education of the individual child became a practical possibility for some (Jones, 1988). The ancient Scottish universities, such as Edinburgh and St Andrews, shared perhaps more in common with the English civics than their ancient English counterparts, Oxford and Cambridge. The Scottish universities received significant public funding and educated a larger percentage of both women and unskilled and skilled working class students than their English counterparts (Anderson, 1983; Burnhill and McPherson, 1983). The role of the Town Council in founding Edinburgh University meant that it continued to play a role in the appointment of staff and the direction of the institution until Victorian times (Carter, 1990). Unlike Oxford and Cambridge, the Scottish universities had a heterogeneous, largely non-residential student population. However, the curriculum of the Scottish ancients in the late nineteenth century shared more in common with the Oxbridge tradition than some of the more radical emerging civic universities. At Edinburgh University in the late 1870s, for example, this consisted of the so-called ‘seven’ subjects – Latin, Greek, English, mathematics, natural philosophy (i.e. physics), mental philosophy (i.e. psychology) and moral philosophy (Megroz, 1950). In the US, the service university tradition can be traced back to the land-grant universities3 that were established, like their civic counterparts in the UK, in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Boyer, 1990). Their

3 Land-grant universities were established through the grant of federal land to the states under the Morrill Acts (1862 and 1890).

34 The retreat from citizenship

objectives were in sharp contrast with the old colonial institutions of Harvard and Yale. Under the first Morrill Act (1862), the land-grant institutions were specifically designated to teach agriculture, the mechanic arts and classics to provide members of the working classes with both a practical and a liberal education. At the time, land-grants were also tasked with the mission of teaching military tactics to fulfill the need for trained officers to serve in the American Civil War. Universities like Wisconsin and Nebraska were established to serve their local communities through applied research to practical problems. They, along with other early state universities, had their ‘roots deep in the soil’ (Slosson, 1910: 245) working in technical support of farming and manufacturing communities (Kerr, 1982). In common with the English civics, the land-grant universities were about egalitarianism and opportunity as well as vocational relevance (Kerr, 1982). While the second Morrill Act (1890) effectively led to the establishment of separate land-grant institutions for blacks in the US southern states, they provided the basis for working class access to higher education for generations. Citizenship values were central to many American universities founded during this era. Benjamin Franklin, the founder of the University of Pennsylvania, and Joseph Wharton, who gave his name to the School of Finance and Commerce, shared a common vision of combining commercial education with a training for citizenship (Slosson, 1910).

The Oxbridge tradition While several of the English civics and US land-grant universities of the nineteenth century developed a service tradition rooted in local social and economic interests, a different version of service, especially in the UK, stems from the ‘Oxbridge’ tradition. The civic universities represented the exception rather than the rule (Wiener, 1981). Some ‘new’ English universities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries modeled themselves on the distinctive conventions of Oxford and Cambridge. Liverpool, for example, essentially offered an arts curriculum influenced by a powerful local elite (Jones, 1988). Gradually, the pull of convention overcame founding civic convictions, a process that has sometimes been labeled ‘academic drift’ (Pratt, 1997). As Halsey (1992: 17) asserts, in all its subsequent incarnations, the British university was in the ‘grip of the ancient over the modern’.

The roots of service 35

Oxford and Cambridge universities represent a distinctive English tradition of higher education in a number of respects. Key characteristics include commitment to ‘education’ rather than ‘training’ in vocational subjects, the importance of a residential community to allow close contact between teachers and students, individualized teaching, political autonomy and academic selfgovernance (Halsey and Trow, 1971). While the advent of mass higher education toward the end of the twentieth century means that few contemporary institutions can maintain all these characteristics, they continue to have a profound effect on attitudes to the service role of the university. A cornerstone of the Oxbridge tradition is the importance attached to forging close and concerned relationships between students and teachers. This can be traced back to the medieval university in which young men (sometimes as young as 14) were trained to enter the law, medicine and the church. In the middle ages the teacher was very much a moral tutor and a father-figure concerned with the virtuous development of their charges (Earwater, 1992; Arthur, 2005). The quasi-monastic, residential nature of university life reinforced the importance attached to the teacher’s moral role. While the distance between the students and the teacher is much greater in the European tradition, English higher education is inextricably linked to the model of the moral tutor. This philosophy was made real through the pattern of teaching prevalent at Oxford in the first half of the nineteenth century. Here, a single tutor, rather than specialist professors, would teach a small, select group of students. The personality of the tutor was thus as central to the curriculum as his command of Latin texts or Greek philosophy. This exclusive relationship with the tutor was considered more important in producing cultivated gentlemen rather than learned scholars (Ashby, 1967; Arthur, 2005). This tradition was reclaimed and reinvigorated in the nineteenth century through the English public school system and the influence of men like Thomas Arnold and John Henry Newman. The importance of producing ‘Christian men’ with the gentlemanly virtues of self-discipline and public service were central to Arnold’s philosophy of character-building as the prime purpose of an education. For Arnold, appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University in 1841, the development of intellectual abilities were subsidiary to inculcating religious and moral principles and gentlemanly conduct. The version of service which Arnold helped to popularize was one based on service to God and one’s country, building on the tradition of the medieval

36 The retreat from citizenship

university and its successors in the Oxbridge mold. He saw no place for non-conformists or those of other faiths as English citizens and opposed the establishment of London University as a non-religious institution (Bamford, 1970). In this version of service, there is little space for the practical needs of business and industry placing a ‘low valuation’ on commerce (Wiener, 1981: 20). Rather, producing a ‘good citizen’ in the Oxbridge tradition was synonymous with developing the character of the student through the tutor as moral guide and role model. The idea of a university promulgated by John Henry Newman in a series of lectures in the 1850s lent support to the Oxbridge tradition (Delanty, 2001). Newman highlighted the importance of character development and the role of pastoral care within the university. In similar vein to Arnold, Newman saw the pastoral responsibility of college tutors primarily as a natural extension of their vow as Church of England ministers (Arthur, 2005). While most closely associated with the Oxbridge ideal, it is also encapsulated in the German word Bildung, referring to the importance of the cultural development of the student as a citizen through a liberal education (Ashby, 1967; Delanty, 2001). The inter-war years witnessed a loss of confidence in the civic tradition and the triumph of the Oxbridge personality model (Barnes, 1996). While the civic universities had offered service to local social and economic needs combined with greater access, the Oxbridge tradition was still dominant. As late as 1904 and 1905, the defeat of proposals to abolish compulsory Greek at Oxford and Cambridge were symbolic of resistance in seeing the role of the university in broader economic terms. Academic drift meant that several of the late Victorian universities soon sought to resemble the elite Oxbridge tradition and started to move away from the civic principles on which most had been founded (Barnes, 1996). This was partly due to the recruitment of staff to teach at the new universities who themselves had been schooled in the Oxbridge tradition. It is widely argued that these new Victorian universities were diverted in their service mission by the Oxbridge academics who staffed them and sought to reproduce the culture of their alma mater (Dearlove, 1997). This had the effect of making provincial, civic universities the ‘colonial’ outposts of Oxford and Cambridge (Barnes, 1996). It was also due to a desire of the newer institutions to acquire the trappings of status associated with the ancient universities and their disdain for commercial imperatives (Wiener, 1981). According to Wiener (1981), the civic tradition was strangled at birth by an anti-industrial culture which has pervaded British society ever since. It is, perhaps, emblematic of the

The roots of service 37

hold of the Oxbridge tradition in English higher education that, of 204 ‘campus novels’ written between 1945 and 1988, 119 alone were set at Oxford (Carter, 1990). Carter’s sociological analysis of British university fiction notes that these novels ‘construct for us a consistent image of two different ways of life in Oxbridge and non-Oxbridge universities’ (1990: 12). During the inter-war period the civics were increasingly criticized for the narrowness and ‘overspecialized’ nature of their curriculum and their lack of community life by both students and the recently formed Universities Grants Committee (Barnes, 1996). The sentiments of the Vice Chancellor of Manchester, speaking in 1920, are symbolic of the triumph of the Oxbridge ideal at the civic universities: The training of character is even more important than the imparting of knowledge; the real value of higher education lies in the opportunity which it gives for the exercise of responsibility. (quoted in Barnes, 1996: 281)

The central importance attached to the quasi-monastic life of students living in university halls of residence should not be under-estimated. In the Oxbridge tradition living in college was seen as an essential feature of the learning process in contrast with many students attending the ancient Scottish or new Victorian English universities. Of the new English universities founded in the nineteenth century, only Durham followed the Oxbridge residential model. This was based on immersion in the ‘college experience’ while new universities had more functional halls of residence as ‘somewhere to live’ (Silver, 2004). The pull of the ancient model over the modern was illustrated in 1956 when the designation of English Colleges of Advanced Technology was made contingent on provision of at least one year’s residence. Similarly, the founding of new universities on green field sites in the 1960s represented a move back to the Oxbridge residential model. So long as students live at home or in lodgings and merely travel backwards and forwards to attend classes, it is difficult to develop that community life which is perhaps the most educative thing that the university has to offer. (H. C. Bernard, 1947, quoted in Burnhill and McPherson, 1983: 265)

As connections to the needs of the local community and the region weakened at new Victorian civics, university departments became more

38 The retreat from citizenship

theoretical in their orientation. The engineering, chemistry and physics departments at Manchester were examples of this trend (Barnes, 1996). A rejection of a more modern and technically oriented curriculum, as a reflection of industrialization, is sometimes identified as a reflection of a uniquely British ‘anti-industrial’ culture (Wiener, 1981). The reasons underpinning this academic drift are often ascribed to a mixture of snobbery and irrational sentimentalism. While, in some respects, this rejection of an economic service role is a British phenomenon, it is not exclusively so. German academics at the turn of the twentieth century also ‘adamantly opposed the assigning of equal or near-equal accreditation to “modern”, “realistic”, or “technical” studies, which they interpreted as an instrumental debasement of pure Wissenschaft’ (Ringer, 1987: 184). By contrast to the academic drift experienced by the English civics as they became increasingly dependent on central government financing and less in touch with the needs of their immediate communities, the founding intentions of the US land-grant system was protected by Acts of Congress such as the SmithLever Act. This created a system of co-operative extension services designed to keep the land-grants close to their communities. The academic drift of the English civics was re-played in the 1960s and 1970s as a similar process occurred among the ‘new’ UK universities of that era. The 1960s ‘green fields’ universities were modeled more closely on the Oxbridge rather than the civic tradition (Wiener, 1981; Silver, 2004). They were physically located on green field sites situated away from large industrial cities often on the outskirts of cathedral cities like Norwich or Canterbury. The UK polytechnic sector, created in parallel with, but distinct from, the universities during the 1960s, was intended as a firm break with the Oxbridge tradition by Anthony Crosland, the Labour Government Secretary of State for Education. The polytechnics were resolved to be a means of re-establishing the service tradition of the Victorian civics responding to a new age of industrial and commercial needs. They were seen as open to a wider range of courses and students, embracing the teaching function rather than research and linking strongly with commerce and industry (Department of Education and Science, 1970). However, like the civics, they failed to sustain their original intentions and moved steadily toward the modes and aspirations of the older universities (Pratt and Burgess, 1974; Pratt, 1997). During the same era, colleges of advanced technology established in Australia with broadly similar intentions to complement, rather than ape, the university sector befell a similar fate (Harman, 1977). The process by which

The roots of service 39

the UK polytechnics were assimilated, and then colonized, was completed when, in 1992, they were awarded university title.

The autonomous tradition One of the abiding myths of the university is that it has always been an institution heavily committed to research. In reality, the notion of a university as a place for research and graduate level study is just one, relatively recent tradition, originating in Germany, and dating back to the early part of the nineteenth century (Smith, 1999). It is by no means the only or indeed the most common tradition. The medieval European university was much more concerned with vocational preparation than research. An alternative tradition has its roots in German higher education and the ideas of Kant. The founder of the University of Berlin, Wilhelm Von Humboldt, following Kantian ideals, believed that research and graduate study should be the focal point of the university as an intellectual hub. Von Humboldt advocated the idea of a university that draws together teaching and research providing the state with an independent think-tank (Delanty, 2001). If the state could provide autonomy for the university and academic freedom for academics, the state would benefit from the generation of objective knowledge. The state must always remain conscious of the fact that it never has and in principle never can, by its own action, bring about the fruitfulness of intellectual activity. It must indeed be aware that it can only have a prejudicial influence if it intervenes. The state must understand that intellectual work will go on infinitely better if it does not intervene. (Von Humboldt, 1970: 244, trans. of memorandum written c.1810)

Universities in the US rather than the UK, drawing on a brain gain of German academics in the nineteenth century, were quicker to adopt elements of the Humboldtian tradition. These included John Hopkins University, Stanford and the universities of Chicago and Michigan at Ann Arbor (Smith, 1999). This resulted both from the flow of German professors into the US and the estimated 9,000 Americans traveling in the other direction to study at German universities during the nineteenth century (Ashby, 1967). John Hopkins was nicknamed ‘Gottingen-in-Baltimore’ after its large numbers of Germantrained professors (Ashby, 1967), while a statue of Wilhelm Von Humboldt’s brother, Alexander, can still be found at Stanford’s main quadrangle.

40 The retreat from citizenship

The doctorate is perhaps the most potent symbol of Humboldtian ideals. In 1861, Yale University became the first American institution to award a Doctor of Philosophy degree. However, this does not mean that the Humbodtian tradition is dominant throughout US higher education. Of approximately 3,500 higher education institutions in the US, only around 200 are doctoral granting institutions which to some extent reflect von Humboldt’s vision of a marriage between teaching and research (Clark, 1993). In England, it was not until the 1920s that Oxford University conferred a doctorate, a DPhil in science (Bourner et al., 2001). Thus, in an English higher education context, the autonomous tradition is a comparative newcomer post-dating the civic purposes of the Victorian university. Ironically, it was the growing involvement of the state in higher education that helped to establish the autonomous tradition. During the twentieth century the rapid growth of state funding for higher education began to re-shape the service role of the university in the direction of research in the service of the national interest. In the UK, the government established the Universities Grants Committee (UGC) in 1919 to distribute Treasury funds to universities. The dependence of UK universities on state funding grew rapidly. At the beginning of World War II the state accounted for a third of university funding. Shortly after its close it contributed two-thirds of university income (Scott, 1995). State funding provided UK universities with guaranteed income and, in the process, insulated them from the needs of their location and regions as private benefaction, student fees and the support of local communities declined in relative importance. The power of ‘donnish dominion’ (Halsey, 1992) insured that the UGC was a kindly ‘buffer’ between the state and the universities rather than a hands-on customer (Scott, 1995). In the US, there is a long history of research funding for university research by central government departments of state such as defense, energy and agriculture (MacFarlane, 1999). This has built a strong autonomous tradition among leading US research universities. However, in contrast to the UK, American public funding for higher education was channeled through state rather than central government. This helped to protect the civic tradition of the land-grant universities while the federal government stimulated the research role of higher education through the sponsorship of major scientific work. In the early to mid-twentieth century, universities were receiving an increasing proportion of their income from the state but had yet to widen

The roots of service 41

participation to the mass of the population. They were still very much elite institutions. This meant that their research output became an important new aspect of the service role of the university. Recognition of the service role of research became more explicit as the power of ‘donnish dominion’ declined and government developed a more ‘hands on’ attitude to universities (Scott, 1995). In the UK, the UGC was replaced by the Universities Funding Council in the early 1990s signalling a subtle, but significant, shift of control from the universities to the government and the start of an increasingly directive approach. Two national reports on UK higher education, separated by thirty-four years, illustrate the shift in power and thinking. The 1963 Robbins Report on higher education referred to the promotion of the general power of the mind, the advancement of learning, the instruction in employment skills and the transmission of a common culture and common standards of citizenship as the aims of universities. The Dearing Report (NCIHE, 1997), published in 1997, set out a largely similar set of expectations but explicitly stressed the role of universities in working for the benefit of the economy and society at the local, regional and national level (Smith, 1999). The so-called ‘third stream’ or ‘third leg’ funding for UK universities has subsequently encouraged their engagement with businesses in their local economic region. This aimed to kick-start knowledge transfer and joint ventures between universities and the private sector (Fryer, 2005). While this stream of funding is relatively small, compared with that available for teaching and research, it has tended to reinforce an avowedly economic version of community involvement rather than one based on a broader Victorian conception. The civic mission, at least in the UK, has been colonized by this dominant policy perspective focused on the creation of wealth and business competitiveness (Wedgwood, 2006).

One word, several traditions As this chapter has sought to illustrate, the civic universities, with their emphasis on serving the needs of business and industry, through a vocational curriculum and encouraging greater access to higher education, is not the only interpretation of the ‘service’ tradition. In an English context, it is also not the dominant tradition. This belongs, to some extent, to the ideals of the Oxbridge model rooted in the values of a liberal education where service is interpreted as producing young men and (more latterly) women of good

42 The retreat from citizenship

character. Despite the absence of many of the conditions necessary to make this elite tradition a reality in a contemporary context, the assumptions of the Oxbridge model continue to exert a profound influence. However, it is also apparent that both these traditions, the civic and Oxbridge, have been superseded by the autonomous tradition. Modern universities are eager to describe themselves as centers of research excellence and research audit mechanisms mean that governments have encouraged the spread of this new tradition. The forces of academic drift mean that newer universities seek to mimic the practices and cultural norms of older universities. Similarly, the contemporary emphasis of governments in the UK, Australia and New Zealand on rating universities in terms of their research excellence is a pattern of behaviour from which nations with developing higher education systems, such as Malaysia, take their cue. While this chapter has argued that the service role of the university needs to be understood as rooted in more than one tradition, others use the term ‘service’ exclusively in conjunction with the civic tradition. The use of the term ‘service’ deployed by both Burgess (1977) and Pratt (1997) has a very particular meaning. Here the authors refer to the role of the university in responding to the needs of society as interpreted largely by employers and government. By contrast, they refer to an ‘autonomous’ tradition, modeled on Oxford and Cambridge, where it was felt that the best way to serve society was by producing gentlemanly all-rounders. These citizens, with a liberal education, could be both critical and flexible, an inadvertent benefit of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. In my interpretation, the Oxbridge model is distinguished from the autonomous tradition. Burgess (1977) and Pratt’s (1997) ‘service’ tradition is associated with an avowedly vocational conception: responding to the needs of business, industry and the professions for graduates with the knowledge and skills required in the workplace. This aligns more closely with the civic tradition in my own reading of the literature. Despite differences in interpretation, what is clear is that a variety of traditions have helped to shape our understanding of the ‘service role’ of the university. The term ‘service’ cannot be rightly ascribed to any singular tradition of higher education. The convergence in the idea of the university, symbolized most visibly in the UK by the ending of the binary divide between universities and polytechnics in 1992, means that elements of all traditions are at play in the modern institution of higher education.

The roots of service 43

Conclusion The concept of service is multifaceted. There are several traditions all of which illuminate the contested nature of service and citizenship. They provide us with an understanding that notions of service are essentially a reflection of the changing purposes of the university over the centuries (Table 2.1). Providing students with one-to-one tutorial support is rooted in the Oxbridge tradition, meeting the needs of local and regional communities stems from the civic tradition, while providing research-based answers to meet the needs of a modern society is connected more closely with the autonomous tradition. At one level, the ‘service university’ has never gone away. It is still with us as expressed through the modern mantra of the institutional mission statement. In a key word analysis of mission statements from all UK universities, Davies and Glaister (1996) found that 25 percent mentioned the word ‘society’ while over two-fifths included the word ‘community’. Universities also commonly acknowledge that they are accountable to a range of ‘stakeholders’ such as students, parents and employers. Modern universities claim to ‘serve’ everyone but clearly some aspects of their service role are more strongly embedded than others within their institutional priorities and culture (see Chapter 6). In some respects, the version of service originally connected with the Victorian civics has triumphed. Contemporary higher education is characterized by openness to non-traditional learners, different modes of study and Table 2.1 Three service traditions Tradition

Historic examples

Definition of service

Civic

Victorian ‘civic’ universities Land-grant universities English polytechnics

Service to local, regional and national community through an applied curriculum and fair access

Oxbridge

Oxford and Cambridge universities English ‘green field’ universities University of Berlin John Hopkins University University College London

Service to God, the nation and the ‘common culture’ through a liberal curriculum

Autonomous

Service to science and the advancement of knowledge through research underpinned by academic freedom

44 The retreat from citizenship

the promotion of access regardless of religion or social class. The work of universities, including elite institutions, has been significantly re-orientated toward business and the economy. Vocational subjects are now mainstream with Business Studies, for example, the most popular first degree in UK higher education. Such trends may also indicate that universities are now principally the training grounds for business and industry. They are much more closely associated with serving the needs of society through producing graduates in technical, scientific and practical subjects for business, industry and public service. However, it is the market and competition with other institutions that has prompted universities to respond to the needs of their local and regional communities as opposed to the generosity and direction of local benefactors in the nineteenth century. Funding of UK universities by the central government has broken the historic connection of the civics from their communities regardless of the rhetoric of the mission statement. The language and sentiments of the Oxbridge tradition continue to hold powerful sway in the value that English institutions, in particular, place on university life as a cloistered environment designed to nurture the moral development of students. In reality, though, the importance of a residential community and the provision of tutorial guidance, with the lecturer as a ‘moral tutor’, have been largely lost, except in the most privileged and well-endowed institutional environments. This version of service has been a victim of the massification of higher education: an expansion that has eroded the privileged funding base that made such a high care environment possible. There is also a case to argue that the autonomous tradition has become a more influential version of service. Universities have a capacity for reinventing their own aims in response to the changing landscape of social, political and economic life. During the twentieth century, the Humboldtian idea of the university was assimilated by leading US and UK institutions. Research and scholarship is now widely, though mistakenly, viewed as the principal purpose of the ‘traditional’ university. Universities, from both the civic and Oxbridge traditions, as different in origin as Sheffield and Oxford now espouse their primary mission as being ‘research-led’. In turn, the process of academic drift means that this modern ‘tradition’ is adopted by other institutions looking to imitate the established order of the elite university. This process is perhaps more in evidence in the UK than in national systems where institutions specializing in professional,

The roots of service 45

technical and vocational education have developed a separate but established and respected position as higher education providers. As many modern academics are working in universities committed, to a greater or lesser extent, to research, it is essential to understand the link between scholarship and service in continuing to explore the meaning of academic citizenship.

Chapter 3

The new compact A university is not for scholarship alone. In these modern days the university is not apart from the activities of the world, but in them and of them. Butler (1921: 11) We think in terms of a compact between higher education and society which reflects their strong bond of mutual interdependence: a compact which in certain respects could with advantage be made explicit. National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NCIHE, 1997: 12)

Introduction Modern universities across the world espouse a service mission to contribute to the social, economic and cultural development of wider society. In the first chapter of this opening section it was argued, though, that despite the rhetoric of institutions, there is a danger that academic staff are not engaging as fully as they might be as citizens of the university and beyond. In this chapter, I consider how scholarship provides the foundation for the work of faculty as ‘academic citizens’. In the previous chapter, the term ‘service’ was shown to have a variety of meanings according to different university traditions. One of these traditions I labeled ‘autonomous’ in reference to the German Humboldtian model of the university. This became influential first in the US, and then in the UK, during the twentieth century. It is a vision that stresses the importance of universities

The new compact 47

serving the advancement of science and independent knowledge for the ultimate benefit of society. Despite criticisms of service in the autonomous tradition, research and scholarship does make a vital contribution. There is, though, as suggested by the Dearing Report on UK higher education (NCIHE, 1997), a need for a new ‘compact’ between universities and society. I will argue that strengthening the link between scholarship and service is a means of achieving a more explicit understanding of this compact. Finally, the chapter will reflect on attempts by Boyer (1990) and his followers to re-define the meaning of scholarship. This movement has sought to extend the definition of scholarship redressing the historic imbalance favoring individual achievement in research over teaching and other scholarly activities. This expanded re-conceptualization of ‘scholarship’ poses dangers, however, to the status of forms of service not perceived as scholarly in nature but which nonetheless play a vital role in what it means to be a good ‘academic citizen’.

Traditions and tensions Given the range of traditions that inform the meaning of service, defining the term in a satisfactory way is not unproblematic. As a result of the variety of university traditions from which the concept stems, it naturally means different things to different people. At an individual level, perhaps the most common discrimination is between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ service. Knight (2002), for example, distinguishes between service contributions within the institution and those made to the community outside the walls of the university. Student academic advice and sitting on a variety of committees are examples cited by Knight of internal service roles. Those given in relation to the external service role are public talks, representing the institution on local associations and contributing to national professional bodies. A number of other writers draw the same distinction. Ward (2003), in a book devoted to a more comprehensive study of service, also makes reference to internal and external service. According to Ward, internal service supports both the functioning of the institution, for which the academic works, through participation in governance, and their own discipline, via contribution to disciplinary associations. In Ward’s analysis, external service is about marshalling the intellectual resources of academics to meet the needs of a range of stakeholders involving outreach, extension, consultancy and service learning.

48 The retreat from citizenship

Unlike Knight or Ward, some writers use the term ‘service’ exclusively in relation to external activities such as providing advice to a government agency or giving a seminar at another institution (Gooler, 1991). As Ward indicates, the term ‘service’ is associated with ‘service learning’, a well-established tradition, particularly in North America where community service is integrated as part of an academic course (Gascoigne Lally, 2001). This encourages a synergy between the practice of service and a pedagogy based on the principle of active participation in society (Battistoni, 1998). Service learning often entails students reflecting on their experiences as a result of working with local community organizations. This invokes the pedagogy of ‘experiential learning’ derived from Dewey and Kolb (Annette, 2005). In several disciplines there are specific service traditions that relate to service learning. Public exhibitions and performances are popular in the performing arts whereas service learning opportunities in law programs are often linked to advice clinics for the poor. The definition of the types of activities that constitute ‘service’ varies and will be considered in more detail, by reference to my respondents, in the next chapter. At the individual level of activity, scholarship in a university context has long been understood in relatively narrow terms as research that relates to disciplinary or professional expertise. This refers mainly to research that seeks to discover new facts or social phenomenon or create new artefacts. Scholars possess highly specialized knowledge (Butler, 1921); they are hyper-specialized (Sykes, 1988). The ascendancy of the German idea of the university (Ashby, 1967; Smith, 1999) has had the effect of placing the claims of research and postgraduate education above the obligations of teaching undergraduate students or applying knowledge for wider public benefit or understanding (Sykes, 1988). Prior to the influence of the Humboldtian tradition, many of the original American graduate schools were founded within a civic context and their alumni tended to enter public life rather than become university professors. They helped to prepare politicians, social reformers and journalists such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt rather than career academics (Bender, 2005). However, the doctor of philosophy degree imported into the US and later the UK became the key symbol of a shift of tradition and purpose. In a short space of time, at the end of the nineteenth century, the possession of a doctorate became a standard requirement for US university professors (Sykes, 1988). By the latter part of the twentieth century, possession of a doctorate had become de rigour for budding academics in many university systems,

The new compact 49

such as the UK. This expectation has spread across university traditions as newer institutions, perhaps initially founded with civic ideals, have become populated by academics loyal to their roots in research intensive universities (Glassick et al., 1997). Research audit exercises in several national contexts tied to future national government funding opportunities have only served to reinforce the expectation that university academics should possess a doctorate and be engaged in some form of discovery-based research. The tension between scholarship and service may be further illustrated by the process of ‘academic drift’ (Pratt and Burgess, 1974). In the previous chapter, we saw how the term is associated with the retreat of some institutions, such as the British polytechnics (Pratt, 1997), from commitment to their founding principles of vocational relevance. At the ‘micro’ level, though, the same phenomenon can be observed more broadly in relation to academics working within applied disciplines. Many subjects in higher education, such as business studies, essentially gain their terms of reference from ‘vocational relevance rather than academic coherence’ (Scott, 1995: 34). Economics, for example, was developed by thinkers and theorists, such as Adam Smith, John Bates Clark and John Maynard Keynes, concerned with the broader social, political and philosophical impact of the workings of the economy. The study of modern economics, though, has tended to exclude ‘normative’ concerns in favor of a ‘positive’ economics paradigm. This restricts legitimate academic study within economics to empirical observation reflected in the interests of researchers and the content of the undergraduate curriculum (Lee, 1975; Healey, 1993). While subjects such as economics were established in the context of their impact on public life, they have subsequently become disconnected and increasingly inward-looking (Bender, 2005). The process of academic drift, of which the study of economics serves as an example, may be explained by reference to the characteristics of disciplines. The ‘parochial but universalized’ nature of these characteristics include autonomy, a foundation on the principles of scientific enquiry, an imperviousness to external influence in generating intellectual problems, and a certification of knowledge which is essentially elitist and authoritarian (Bender, 2005). The characteristics identified by Bender emphasize the importance of separateness over connectedness, an insularity from worldly concerns and pressures. While remoteness of academic from practical concerns is a condition not infrequently lauded as essential to the maintenance of the academic world (e.g. Minogue, 1973), it poses real questions about the relationship between scholarship and service. This privileging of the Humboldtian idea

50 The retreat from citizenship

of service means that academic kudos has been almost completely divided from public discourse in some disciplines. In order to find a way of bridging this apparent divide, it is important to consider the notion of a ‘compact’ between universities and society.

A new compact? Service in the autonomous tradition, then, has sometimes been associated with ‘ivory tower’ attitudes – that the university stands intellectually detached from the world (Butler, 1921) and the professor retains a ‘distance’ from the everyday world (Boyer, 1990: 9). Public perceptions of aloofness and arrogance do not sit comfortably with the notion of service to the community (Kellogg Commission, 1999). ‘Distance’, though, should really be about academic freedom for faculty to develop objective knowledge without fear of interference rather than disinterest in the issues that face society. While academic freedom is essential for independent research, it is not a privilege that comes without responsibilities toward others (Kennedy, 1997). Here, there is a bargain to be struck. The essence of the autonomous tradition of service is a ‘compact’, or an alliance of mutual interests, between higher education and society. An expression of this view can be found in the UK Dearing Report on higher education published in 1997. Dearing contends that ‘there is a growing bond of interdependence’ (NCIHE, 1997: 11) between higher education and those with a rightful expectation to receive a service in return from universities such as nations, localities and individuals. In relation to research, the report calls on higher education to play a more active role in relating the outcomes of research for the benefit of society while, at the same time, acknowledging the reciprocal need for expert opinion to be based on ‘disinterested advice’ (p. 12). Unfortunately, the nature of this compact in the UK has been expressed as narrowly economic in policy terms. In this regard, Dearing set the tone by overly stressing the role of universities in relation to ‘economic well-being’ (p. 11). It is understandable that national government, as the paymaster of higher education, wants to see a return on its investment. However, it is important that the compact is conceptualized in a ‘holistic’ way. This demands a compact that recognizes the contribution of universities to improving the quality of life within society rather than solely through the wealth creation and business agenda (Wedgwood, 2006).

The new compact 51

For this new compact to succeed, there is a need for the links between scholarship and service to be made more explicit and for these to be framed in social and cultural as well as economic terms. Here the work of Ernest Boyer has provided a means of making these connections more visible, uplifting in the process the status of scholarly activities related to the concerns of society.

Scholarship reconsidered Scholarship defined narrowly as discovery-based research came to ‘colonize’ the modern American university after World War II with the growth of federal government funding for science through the creation of the National Science Foundation, in particular (Boyer, 1990). This reinforced the pre-eminence of research and publication as the hallmarks of scholarship rather than excellence in teaching. While the medieval universities of Bologna and Paris only rewarded lecturers whose teaching was positively appraised by its students (Cronje et al., 2002), the university of the modern era has effectively adopted a merit system which has promoted the claims of research over teaching. However, scholarship needs to be understood in broader and richer terms than purely research defined narrowly as the discovery of new knowledge. Back in 1921, in his inaugural address as President of Columbia University in New York, Nicholas Butler defined scholars as dividing into different camps. The first of these are those who ‘investigate and break new ground’ (Butler, 1921: 7), essentially the standard definition of a scholar as a researcher. However, according to Butler, there are also those who ‘explain, apply and make understandable the fruits of new investigation’ (Butler, 1921: 7). This second type of scholar is one who is able to integrate existing concepts, apply them appropriately and communicate ideas effectively. In rejecting the notion of the scholar as purely a hyper-specialist researcher, Butler was perhaps ahead of his time in seeking to challenge prevailing understandings of ‘scholarship’. He wrote: A group of distinguished scholars in separate and narrow fields can no more constitute a university than a bundle of admirably developed nerves, without a brain and spinal cord, can produce all the activities of the human organism. (Butler, 1921: 8)

52 The retreat from citizenship

In many respects, Butler’s categorization shares much in common with that produced in the late twentieth century by Ernest Boyer in his influential book Scholarship Rediscovered (1990). In the book, Boyer sets out to challenge the view that scholarship is only about the discovery of new knowledge rather than its utilization. He outlines four different types of ‘scholarships’: of discovery, teaching, integration and application. Boyer, and the subsequent movement he inspired, has set about re-defining what scholarship means and, in the process, campaigned for greater reward and recognition for these broader forms of scholarship in academic life. Boyer and his followers have had a demonstrable impact on the reward and promotion practices of universities, especially in respect to the ‘scholarship of teaching’. Here, universities are now much more likely to recognize ‘excellence’ for teaching (Glassick et al., 1997). Internationally, Boyer’s work has also influenced the establishment of a number of national ‘Teaching Fellowship’ programs (Skelton, 2005). These include the Australian Awards for University Teaching, the US Professors of the Year program, the Canadian 3M Teaching Fellowships and the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) in the UK. Competing for these prestigious national awards is another reason why, at an institutional level, the vast majority of universities in countries such as the UK, the US and Australia now have internal schemes in place for the reward and recognition of ‘excellence’ in teaching. Of course, changing the culture of universities and the pre-eminent position of research will take more than the establishment of teaching award schemes (see Chapter 6). Indeed, evidence indicates that research continues to enjoy a higher status than teaching in university life (Jenkins et al., 2003). However, despite criticisms that teaching ‘excellence’ schemes can be perceived as divisive (Warren and Plumb, 1999) and ‘tokenistic’ (Skelton, 2005), it is likely that they represent a significant symbolic start in an ongoing process of change and reform.

The colonization of service The argument made by Butler, and then by Boyer and his followers, is that it is important to widen our definition of ‘scholarship’. This means that, in terms of service, it is important to distinguish between service activities that are based on scholarly expertise and those that are examples of academic

The new compact 53

‘good citizenship’. According to this view, serving on university committees or volunteering tutorial support to High School students are about good citizenship while scholarship entails the application of professional expertise as ‘an outgrowth of one’s academic discipline’ (Lynton and Elman, 1987: 148). Here, what is classified as the scholarship of ‘application’ or ‘engagement’ is the work of members of the academy that stems from their scholarship rather than philanthropic activity. Boyer (1990) develops the notion of the ‘scholarship of application’ on the basis of making the same, sharp distinction between internal and external service as Lynton and Elman (1987). He argues that the word ‘service’ has become a catch-all term from which serious application of scholarly knowledge needs to be disentangled. Boyer gives examples of the scholarship of application – medical diagnosis, serving clients in psychotherapy, shaping public policy, creating an architectural design and working with the public schools – as distinct from service activities within and beyond the campus not linked directly to the extension of discipline-based academic expertise. Boyer contends that his version of service as the ‘scholarship of application’ represents ‘serious, demanding work’ (1990: 22) as opposed to internal service activities like ‘sitting on campus committees, advising student clubs, or departmental chores’ and external work like ‘participation in town councils, youth clubs, and the like’ (1990: 22). Boyer’s division between scholarly and non-scholarly service is reinforced by his followers. In a major study evaluating the impact of Scholarship Reconsidered, Glassick, Huber and Maeroff assert that ‘to be considered scholarship, service activities must be tied directly to one’s special field of knowledge and relate to, and flow directly out of, this professional activity’ (1997: 12). Boyer’s identification of application as a form of scholarship has led others to develop the concept of the scholarship of engagement. This refers to connecting and applying faculty expertise to community needs bringing about an integration of teaching and research in the process (Sandmann et al., 2000). This builds a more sophisticated understanding and respect for activities that have been long devalued as second best to discovery-based research. Many of the elements incorporated under the labels of the scholarship of ‘application’, ‘integration’ and ‘teaching’ are service-related. Academic consultancy normally involves the application of disciplinary knowledge, the writing of text books often demands an integration of academic knowledge from neighbouring fields, while course design and development may relate to the scholarship of teaching.

54 The retreat from citizenship

This re-casting of elements of service as ‘scholarship’ needs to be seen in a wider context. Boyer, in particular, was concerned with broadening the definition of scholarship in academic life to counteract the historic bias toward reward and recognition for discovery-based research. However, if we are to accept this re-classification, where does this leave the notion of service? It privileges and gives a status to service activities stemming from scholarship but leaves other less scholarly elements out in the cold. While these less scholarly service activities are still considered to be meritorious and deserving of recognition (Glassick et al., 1997), the influence of Boyer’s re-classification has the, perhaps inadvertent, effect, of lowering still further the status of service unrelated to the discipline of the academic. Elements of service, such as academic leadership and pastoral support for students, do not necessarily stem directly from the disciplinary expertise of the provider. Neither participation in university affairs nor supporting student welfare are necessarily dependent on scholarly expertise. While there is expert knowledge associated with student counseling, largely stemming from the discipline of psychology, those practising student advisement are drawn from all disciplines across the academic spectrum. The ‘scholarly’ nature of such work will probably count for little for an engineer or a mathematician. Similarly, academic leadership roles are practiced by academics without generally any regard to their background or qualifications in management-related disciplines. Recognition of the need for academics playing leadership roles to develop their formal management qualifications is nascent. While, in the UK, a specialized few universities now provide an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) in Higher Education, this represents the exception rather than the rule. Academic management is still largely based on the model of the gifted amateur rather than the trained professional. Again, like student advisement and counseling, academic leadership has an intellectual basis but is unlikely to represent a natural outgrowth of the scholarly expertise of most course directors, heads of department, deans or vice chancellors. The work of Boyer and his followers has shown that it is important to re-appraise the service work of academics arising from the application of their scholarly expertise. Due recognition should be given to achievements in respect to the additional ‘scholarships’ of application, integration and teaching (Boyer, 1990). However, this upgrading of certain elements of service poses risks for the status of those activities which are not necessarily

The new compact 55

scholarly in nature or do not stem directly from the primary scholarly expertise of the individual academic. It would mean that service is defined as little more than internal charitable activity on campus. Moreover, Boyer characterizes internal service activities as uninspiring and un-intellectual ‘chores’. By dividing service activities stemming from scholarly expertise from those that do not relate directly to expert academic knowledge, the moral dimension of service is to some extent cast adrift. There are thus scholarly service activities and less scholarly ones that inevitably suffer in comparison (Table 3.1). In reality, however, the distinction which Boyer and other writers such as Lynton and Elman (1987) have drawn between internal and external service, casting only the latter as scholarly or intellectual, is hard to sustain. It is misleading to regard only those activities that stem directly from someone’s discipline-based expertise as constituting scholarship. So-called ‘internal service activities’ are more extensive and require greater specialized knowledge and skills than has been traditionally appreciated. These incorporate service in support of teaching, such as course design or teaching observation; service in support of research, such as reviewing a colleague’s paper prior to submission to a journal or organizing a conference; and other service activities that span the teaching and research functions. What, though, may it be asked, do these various activities have in common? The examples cited above all support a community of academic practice within the university. They are vital to nurturing student welfare and the continued learning of both academic staff and students. In short, this type of service is central to sustaining the well-being of the learning community and in maintaining the wider compact between universities and society.

Table 3.1 A scholarly continuum Non-scholarly Course management Administration Committee work

Scholarly Mentoring

Editing Public speaking Consultancy External examining Peer review of teaching Student advising Academic review

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The ‘dark’ and ‘light’ side of scholarly service While scholarship needs to be linked to the service of society, making this connection a reality is far from simple or uncomplicated. As the work of Boyer (1990) and others has shown, scholarship has long been associated with the possession of existing, and the discovery of new, knowledge rather than its application. This is why Boyer suggested the need for a ‘scholarship of application’ as a counter-weight to the traditional emphasis on discovery-based research as the exclusive basis of scholarship. Discoverybased research is more closely connected with ‘pure’ subjects, such as physics, chemistry, mathematics or philosophy rather than ‘applied’ subjects, such as engineering, management studies or nursing. ‘Applied’ disciplines, though, have much to contribute to the world in terms of promoting our understanding of economic and social issues. In the academic pecking order, the study of ‘pure’ subjects is said to be more prestigious than ‘applied’ areas (Becher, 1989). Critics argue that there is a need for those working in such areas to demonstrate the relevance of their work to the ‘real world’ (e.g. Sykes, 1988). Here, however, it is clear that ‘pure’ subjects contribute as much, if not more, in service to society’s needs through promoting understanding of social and economic change, scientific advances, new medical treatments, more efficient manufacturing processes and higher crop yields to name but a few effects. The simplistic divide between pure and applied subjects does not mean that both are not equally committed in providing a service for society through their research and other activities. A fundamental issue, though, concerns perceptions of the benefits, or harmful impacts, that academic knowledge can bring to bear on the world. There is a ‘light’ and a ‘dark’ side to such impacts. As Becher (1989) notes, many of the now taken-for-granted improvements in the conditions of modern life would not have occurred had it not been for academic research. This is the ‘light’ side. The ‘dark’ side are areas of contention and controversy, often focused on issues connected with scientific and medical advances, where the work of scholars working in ‘pure’ subject areas have controversial applications. There are several well-known examples such as the role of physicists in the creation of nuclear energy leading to military applications, economic theory that condoned rises in unemployment as part of a longer-term strategy for recovery, and the development of gene technology that might lead to ‘therapeutic’ human cloning.

The new compact 57

While these may be extreme examples, there are controversies with respect to the way academic research may be, or has been, utilized in relation to the ‘context of application’ (Gibbons et al., 1994: 3) in virtually every subject. An example from the field of teacher education might be recommendations arising from research on the exclusion of disruptive pupils in English schools. Some might wish to use such research to argue that ‘excluding’ disruptive pupils leads to the further marginalization of underachieving social and racial groups. Others might contend that such research demonstrates the need to protect the rights of the majority to an education free from disruptive individuals who represent a bad influence. Hence, scholarship in the autonomous tradition, by generating new knowledge or developing new ideas, does not provide a purely ‘neutral’ or ‘benign’ service to society. Academic ideas and discoveries will often lead to controversy and debate within society and there will be those who will perceive, at times, that scholarship is doing a disservice rather than a service to its host and sponsor. Those who support the autonomous tradition of the university would contend, though, that academic freedom for scholars is essential to enable staff to research and propose new ideas and theories that will not necessarily strike a chord with everyone. In many respects, the university in the autonomous tradition has become a substitute for the church in medieval times providing modern society with moral and intellectual guidance (Delanty, 2001). This is a position of power and influence that demands engagement with society’s challenges and problems but, at the same time, the maintenance of freedom of enquiry and independence to insure that intellectual judgment is not unduly influenced by the expectations of the ‘customer’. This means that universities need to strike a delicate balance. This balance can be brought into sharp focus where research sponsors, whether private or public sector, have particular expectations of the results of academic research.

Conclusion The chapter has argued that despite popular images of the university as an insular and isolated ‘ivory tower’, both pure and applied subjects do make crucial contributions to the service of society. Moreover, the role of the university as an incubator for independent and rigorous research is important to re-assert as part of a new compact between institutions and

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society. This is not a one-sided bargain, however, and scholarship has a responsibility to ultimately connect with the concerns of wider society. This ‘new compact’ (NCIHE, 1997: 11) demands the recognition of reciprocal obligations between the parties. Second, the chapter has identified the importance of making the connections between scholarship and service more explicit. While Boyer’s work in re-defining the nature of scholarship is welcome in this respect, unfortunately it also undermines elements of service that do not stem directly from an academic’s disciplinary or professional knowledge base. The effect of elevating the relative status of some service activities is to effectively devalue the status of those classified as less scholarly. In this context, the status of academic leadership and pastoral support roles may be adversely affected. The Boyer-led re-conceptualization of scholarship offers hope for the future status of some service activities, but it also represents a further retreat from the broader elements of academic citizenship. This first section of the book has been mainly concerned with the way our understanding of the meaning of service and citizenship has been shaped by the macro-level influences of national systems of higher education and the ‘meso’ level value systems of institutional traditions (Becher, 1994; Tight, 1988). The identification of distinctive service traditions that cut across national boundaries is important in this respect. The second section of the book begins the process of unraveling what service means to the modern academic at the ‘micro level’ (Becher, 1994). Here, personal aspirations and motivations intersect with academic identity shaped by discipline communities, professional backgrounds and membership of departments and schools of the university.

Part II

Service and citizenship

Chapter 4

Interpretations of service For many academics ‘service’ does not translate at all. Respondent I’m unfamiliar with the term (i.e. service) as applied to lecturers and do not use the term in respect of my own activities. Respondent I would see service in the sense implied as going beyond one’s contractual obligations. Respondent

Introduction What does the term ‘service’ mean to contemporary academic staff? Why do they do ‘service work’ and how are their contributions recognized and rewarded? In answering these questions, the following chapters have been developed on the basis of detailed feedback from over 30 university academics in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and parts of southern Europe. The respondents, both male and female, represent a range of disciplines, institutional contexts and levels of seniority. They were either interviewed or responded to a short questionnaire. The analysis on the basis of this research helps form a bridge between the espoused ‘macro’ level commitment of many universities to service and to citizenship values as part of their institutional mission and the way service work is lived out in academic lives. It will illuminate what ‘service’ and ‘academic citizenship’

62 Service and citizenship

means at the ‘micro’ or individual level of understanding (Becher and Kogan, 1992). This helps to redress the tendency of much existing work on the service role of universities to focus on the macro- or policy level (e.g. Gray, 1999). This chapter will focus on different understandings or interpretations of ‘service’. Subsequent chapters in this section of the book will examine in more detail what motivates academic staff to contribute to service activities (Chapter 5), the extent to which the service role is rewarded and recognized by universities (Chapter 6) and the virtues of academic citizenship which stem from different forms of service (Chapter 7).

Interpretations of service Service as administration The development of mass modern higher education in many national contexts, such as the UK and Australia, has not been accompanied by a commensurate rise in funding of student places at university. As a result, staff–student ratios have deteriorated and the administrative aspects of academic life, such as course management, have grown. Simultaneously, the increased emphasis on the accountability of higher education institutions for their use of public funding has led to a proliferation of auditing processes associated with teaching and research. Preparation for such external reviews has added further to administrative pressures on academic life. This contextual reality was reflected in the responses of many interviewees when asked to explain their interpretation of ‘service’. UK academics were largely unfamiliar with the term and often struggled to define what it meant to them. In the words of one respondent, the term ‘service’ did not ‘translate at all’. However, among UK respondents service was most commonly translated as ‘administration’, a term often perceived as the third aspect of the academic role together with teaching and research. Academics from other countries also connected service with administrative duties but were more inclined to attach a range of broader meanings to the term. In an attempt to make sense of this concept in relation to their normal frame of reference, several UK academics argued that service activities were part of the teaching role. Here, ‘service as administration’ was perceived to entail largely teaching-related service duties such as course

Interpretations of service 63

management, admissions work including student interviewing and preparing paperwork for university committees and both internal and external audits of teaching. Inevitably, this view of service, equating the term squarely with administration, is a largely negative one. Such activities are seen as a growing burden and an unwelcome intrusion into the core aspects of academic life, namely teaching and research. In this sense, administration was described by one American academic ‘as making up much of the clutter of professional life’, and by a Spanish respondent as ‘distractions from preparing classes or doing research’. In equating service with administration, several UKbased academics saw service activities as closely tied to what one described as the ‘quality control culture’ and another as ‘dealing with the bureaucratic demands of the quality people’. This involved what were perceived as increasingly burdensome demands in preparing documentation for the validation or approval of a new degree program, internal review processes and external subject-based or institution-wide reviews by government agencies charged with assuring teaching quality. However, while there was little sense of pleasure in being asked to carry out administrative tasks, some expressed a sense of obligation that such work was important and necessary for the good of the institution and its students. One respondent referred to ‘organisational citizenship’ as implying a responsibility to contribute to the development of the institution. Hence, activities like course management and participation on university committees and working groups are seen by some faculty as an integral part of being an academic rather than an illegitimate demand on their time. The fact, though, that there are different perspectives with regard to whether such work should be undertaken or avoided leads to what one respondent referred to as ‘the usual suspects syndrome’. Here, it was argued that some staff contribute disproportionately to service, defined in terms of administrative tasks. It is not necessarily safe to assume that such disproportionate contributions always arise willingly as there was some evidence to indicate that junior and inexperienced staff are allocated unpopular administrative duties as a rite of passage (see later in Chapters 7 and 9).

Service as customer service Profound changes in the aims of institutions, the curriculum, the composition of the student body and societal expectations more generally have resulted

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from the massification of higher education, in many national contexts, over the last twenty years. Higher education has become a globalized part of a service-oriented culture analogous with the ‘student-as-customer’ (Scott, 1999) and the lecturer as ‘service worker’ (Ritzer, 1998). While academics have traditionally been uncomfortable with notions of students as ‘customers’ or ‘clients’ (Gordon, 1997), university lecturers drawn from professional and vocational backgrounds are less likely to be discomforted in applying this lexicon (Macfarlane, 2004). The notion of service as performing a service for the ‘customer’ was identified by a number of respondents. The customer was normally regarded as the student with one academic from a Dutch management faculty describing their role, and that of their colleagues, as ‘service providers’ on behalf of students and business organizations. As another respondent suggested, ‘teaching is very much bound up with providing as good a quality of service for students as possible’. Moreover, this customer service perspective was not just limited to staff from business and other vocational disciplines. It was a perspective shared by an educational development specialist who described service in terms of liaison with different schools of the university and ‘providing what the School wants.’ A language lecturer from a UK university made a direct parallel by stating that ‘besides the teacher-learner relationship, students are also customers/clients. There are therefore a variety of customer service roles which can range from dealing with a variety of administrative issues to counselling.’ In these responses, the notion of customer service was positively identified rather than being associated with negative perceptions associated with loss of status, power or autonomy. Other academics, though, viewed student ‘demands’ for service in more negative terms and were concerned that this is resulting in unreasonable levels of expectation being placed upon lecturers. One UK academic argued that, in the context of e-learning provision, there is an ‘increasing perception that we provide a service that they (i.e. students) pay for and that they deserve, anticipate and require a certain level of service. They let us know when we do not meet their rising expectations and the work that adds to my admin load’. Thus, the term ‘service’ is regarded as closely associated with attempts to re-define higher education as a service industry. In this sense, it is a term which carries negative connotations by implying that academics are also service workers without the status of autonomous professionals. This association means that service has become a ‘dirty’ word for many

Interpretations of service 65

academics. As an interviewee commented, ‘When I see the term “service”, I see service industries    waiters, people who work in supermarkets and so on.’

Service as collegial virtue This interpretation links service with the support of colleagues within one’s own institution and more generally across a disciplinary or professional field. This understanding of the concept shares some elements in common with ‘service as administration’, such as providing references for fellow academics, but it also incorporates broader scholarly activities such as peer review for academic journals, external examining and both formal and informal mentoring of colleagues. This latter example was described by one of my respondents as a ‘gift relationship’ whereby senior academics help the development of those younger and/or less experienced without the expectation of reciprocation. Another lecturer described activities such as reviewing papers for publication as essential to the survival of the academic profession. Here, there was a frequently expressed sense of duty and responsibility toward more junior colleagues and disciplinary communities, in particular. Despite the time-consuming nature of collegial activities, many academics expressed communitarian instincts arguing, for example, that ‘each community member has a responsibility to share in the service role which is essential for any functioning community’. Echoing this sentiment more directly, another respondent stated that you ‘owe it’ to your colleagues to support them in their academic development. Despite the sentiment of this collegial ideal, a number of respondents expressed the view that a harsher reality sometimes lies beneath such rhetoric. According to this perspective, while senior academics perform service roles with power and status, such as peer reviewing for journals, newer or more junior lecturers are routinely forced to execute administrative service roles, such as course management, as a ‘rite of passage’. As a professor from an American university stated, ‘realistically, internal service is something that “junior” (un-tenured) faculty are pressed into and find hard to refuse’. While kudos is gained from collegial service roles in relation to wider scholarship, internal service tasks do not attract a similar degree of recognition or reward. This results in a sense of resentment among junior staff and led one of my respondents to state that he felt ‘shafted’ by more senior colleagues because of his administrative workload. The way that power relations within the academic community impact in shaping service roles is an example

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of what Hargreaves (1994) has referred to as ‘contrived’ collegiality (see Chapter 7). The implications of such unfavorable treatment of junior faculty, and other less powerful groups including female academics, are explored further in Chapters 7 and 9.

Service as civic duty This interpretation reflects what is sometimes termed ‘public service’, a sense of obligation to serve the interests of the local community and wider society. It represents a further extension of the service role beyond one’s own organization or institution (service as administration) and to academic colleagues (service as collegial virtue). One academic expressed this sense of wider duty to society when she stated that ‘much of value is lost when the “community” is viewed as a mere organization in which individuals just happen to work’. Service as civic duty entails doing ‘voluntary work’ or ‘outreach’ for the benefit of the (often local) community in a way not necessarily connected with scholarly expertise. An academic at an American university stated that within his institution the concept of service was interpreted as ‘being out in the community and helping people in a very tangible way    that typically means helping the homeless, working at a soup kitchen or some other “shelter” ’. This understanding fits squarely with the modern tradition of ‘community service’ (Coles, 1993). Giving the example of volunteering at a local hospital, a UK respondent saw this type of activity as congruent with his desire to ‘put something into those communities from which one derives benefits’. However, this definition of service is at odds with those concerned with promoting the links between service and scholarship (Lynton and Elman, 1987; Ward, 2003). They would contend that work done by academics in their capacity as private citizens, which does not relate to their scholarly expertise, should not be classified as academic service. However, ‘service as civic duty’ falls squarely within the civic tradition of the university. To seek to ‘exclude’ or downgrade service activities not directly stemming from an individuals’ discipline overlooks the strength of this tradition, especially in the US where it is most firmly embedded.

Service as integrated learning Service to the community though can mean more than charity. To be made meaningful to students, as well as staff, there is a tradition of integrating

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service into the curriculum through a variety of initiatives. ‘Service as integrated learning’ refers to connecting academic study with work and community-based projects and activities. Among North American academics, in particular, there was a strong awareness of ‘service learning’ whereby students carried out projects, internships and consultancies with individuals and organizations in the community. The learning benefits for students were described both in terms of enhancing their understanding of the link between theory and practice and the development of personal, social and work-related skills. Examples given of such activities included a dispute resolution program whereby students mediate between parties in civil law suits, ‘internships’ or work placements where students spend a period working in an organization, a case study of product ‘life cycles’ with local companies and a ‘consultancy module’ within a business degree. Much, although not all, of this activity is formalized as an accredited (and assessed) part of the curriculum. There was a strong sense among those academics involved with some aspect of service learning that this work improves the quality of student learning. Getting learners to reflect on their service learning activities through producing some kind of written assignment was seen as an important mechanism for students to appreciate and comprehend their own personal and intellectual development. Here, some respondents made reference to the principles broadly associated with experiential learning (see Chapter 3) in explaining how students benefited. The learning benefits arising from integrating learning with service to the community were further articulated from the teacher’s perspective. Although time consuming to establish, such programs provide a number of gains. The use of applied examples in class, the writing of case studies or the building of relationships leading to research opportunities related to scholarly interests were among the benefits derived.

Where does service ‘fit’? These five interpretations of service – as administration, customer service, collegial virtue, civic duty and integrated learning – have important implications for the relationship between research, scholarship and teaching. They provide a more detailed exploration of the way service is part of the academic role. This is much more than simply about ‘teaching’ and ‘research’. Unfortunately, the dominance of the teaching–research debate gives the misleading

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impression that all academic activities fall under these twin banners. Here, a lot rests on definitions, which are rarely made explicit. The term ‘teaching’, for example, is defined quite narrowly by academics in some institutional contexts as, sometimes little more than, giving a lecture to a group of students. By contrast, staff working in post-1992 UK universities among my respondents tended to associate the term ‘teaching’ with a broader set of interrelated activities incorporating personal tutoring, the preparation of teaching materials and designing new courses than their counterparts in older institutions. In all five interpretations, there was a clear sense that service is a moral obligation to students and colleagues, regardless of the direct or indirect career benefits. There are tensions, though, with regard to the willingness of some academic staff to undertake what is perceived as their ‘fair share’ of service activities, especially in relation to course management and committee work. This is a reflection, to some extent, in the rise of competitive pressures in academic life: to gain tenure, attract research funding, meet targets for growth in student numbers, publish in the ‘best’ journals and so on. While there has always been competition in academic life, such pressures have been exacerbated in recent years due to the globalization of the market for higher education and attempts by governments to audit research and teaching ‘excellence’ as part of a new culture of accountability and ‘performativity’ (Skelton, 2005). Here, though, it would be misleading not to acknowledge that the academic community has also not willingly co-operated in many of these performative processes, such as the UK research assessment exercise. This has reinforced ingrained practices that are less than collegial. The expectation that junior staff will enter into administrative and pastoral support work as a rite of passage is a notable example. Such practices, though, clearly create resentment leaving junior staff feeling unfairly treated and undervalued. This indicates that there is a ‘dark’ side to collegiality, a theme which will be returned to in subsequent chapters in this section of the book (see Chapters 8, 9 and 10). Further, it was felt to be problematic, according to several of my respondents, to measure, or in some way quantify in performance terms, the service contribution of an academic. This is in contrast with familiar ways of accounting for research success, such as through publications or research grants. In relation to the teaching role, measures of excellence have grown in sophistication in response to calls to raise its status vis-à-vis research. There is now substantial use of student evaluation, a growing emphasis

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on the training and certification of university lecturers, the development of professional accreditation and the use of teaching portfolios for promotion purposes. By contrast, the performance of service tasks at the individual level fits less comfortably with the measurement of academic activities and achievements via performance indicators. Chapter 6 will consider the way in which institutions measure and reward service activities. Another notable theme arising from interviews was the belief that the increased pressure to meet research and teaching performance measures means that the service role has been ‘squeezed’. A large number of lecturers commented that there was simply ‘not enough’ or ‘insufficient’ time to devote to service-based activities. Integrated or service learning initiatives are rarely unproblematic to establish and normally highly time consuming for academic staff in building and maintaining community relationships. They are unlikely to be ‘tidy’ or free from difficulties in supervising students or assessing their learning. Under pressure from modularization, which militates against cognitive integration, and a range of quality review processes, service learning which does not form part of the assessed curriculum is unlikely to thrive. Moreover, even formalized elements, such as work placements in UK four-year business studies ‘sandwich’ degrees, have fallen into serious decline in recent years. The recent introduction of work-based twoyear ‘Foundation’ degrees may provide a renewed opportunity to develop integrated learning opportunities (see Chapter 10). The changing nature of the academic workforce through casualization means that there are fewer full-time and/or tenured faculty able to commit the time and energy outside formal teaching timetables to service activities (Ward, 2003). In the US, estimates indicate that around two-fifths of university faculty now hold a part-time appointment, double that of thirty years ago (Benjamin, 2000). Moreover, audit of research quality, in countries including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, have put pressure on academics to focus on publication at the expense of other activities, including time-consuming service activities. These forces mean that there is less credit given to service activities with the occasional exception of promotion to a personal chair in certain institutional cultures, such as post-1992 UK universities (Tight, 2002). There was a keen awareness among academics that service work suffers both a lack of status and, further, ‘won’t get you tenure, promotion or a pay rise’. As an example of this perception, one respondent commented that in developing a school’s e-learning platform, there was little understanding or

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appreciation of the importance of this type of service work among colleagues and a perception that this ‘ought to be something IT support staff do’. There was a general feeling that service work went largely unrewarded and unappreciated. Thus, the motivation for performing service activities was mainly expressed in terms of a mixture of altruism and a sense of obligation to students, colleagues, disciplinary communities and wider society. Service, as one academic defined it, is effectively ‘any uncompensated (or more correctly, not directly compensated) work related activity’. The theme of motivation to perform service roles will be explored further in the next chapter (see Chapter 5).

Service and status The interpretations provided by my respondents uncovered a number of important themes and distinctions. Service activities can be both internal and external to the university; be related and unrelated to scholarly expertise; and have a high and a low status. Moreover, the responses help frame an understanding of the way service work benefits five overlapping communities connected with academic life. Academics provide service to students, colleagues, their institution, their discipline or profession, and the public. While all these communities are important, it is clear that there are fundamental differences in the status of different service activities. Status is associated with a number of interrelated factors valued in academic life: the extent to which the activity is regarded as ‘scholarly’, whether the activity is internal or external to the university and the degree to which the activity is ‘visible’ to colleagues and rewarded in performance-related terms. These factors help produce a ‘service pyramid’ (Figure 4.1). Student service lies at the base of the service pyramid as it is both the most disesteemed, or least esteemed, form of service and comprises potentially the most time-consuming volume of work. Student service incorporates a range of responsibilities, both academic and pastoral. While it is normal to divide academic support for students from pastoral care, in reality these responsibilities overlap. These activities involve ‘caring’ for students and tend to be largely ‘invisible’ in the sense that they take place mainly without extrinsic reward or recognition from peers or the institution. Examples include giving formative feedback on student work, acting as a student counsellor, coaching students for job interviews, writing references

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Public Service

Discipline-based or Professional Service Institutional Service

Collegial Service

Student Service

Figure 4.1 The service pyramid

for students or representing a student’s interests at an examination board. The positioning of student service at the base of the pyramid reflects the disesteemed and largely unrewarded nature of many of these activities. At the next level of the pyramid is collegial service. This consists of activities such as participating in the induction or mentoring of colleagues, observing their teaching to aid development, contributing otherwise to university or departmental staff development, acting as a second marker or sharing self-authored teaching materials with colleagues (such as lecture notes or case studies). Collegial service enjoys a higher status than student service and has, latterly, become associated with the increasing importance attached to staff and educational development in several national contexts. In the UK, it is reflected by the steady growth of structured support for academic staff through the work of educational development units within universities (Gosling, 2001) and the establishment of the Higher Education Academy in the wake of the Dearing Report (NCIHE, 1997). Institutional service implies activities such as membership of university Senate (or equivalent), committee/working party membership, representing the university at an external event, acting as the director of a degree program or as an admissions tutor. While some of these activities form part of formal job descriptions, some are unconnected with any explicit employment

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requirements. Some examples of institutional service, such as that of Head of Department, are formally recognized and rewarded although the perceived status of such academic leadership roles varies, especially between researchintensive and teaching-focused universities. Other forms of service are more externally focused and are taken as additional evidence of the scholarly expertise and status of an individual. Discipline or professional service takes place largely, although not exclusively, through activities external to the institution. This commonly involves research-related work and collaboration such as organizing an academic or professional conference, acting as a peer reviewer for journals and researchfunding organizations, editing an academic journal, publishing in unrefereed journals, writing book reviews and giving feedback to colleagues on draft papers for publication. These activities are mainly directed at supporting the development of colleagues within the discipline. Finally, public service was identified as use of the scholarly expertise of staff in interacting with the media, business, government, professional and voluntary organizations. Example activities include giving public lectures, working with broadcasters or the print media, advising government or government agencies, charitable and other public organizations, and developing educational links with community organizations through work-based or service learning initiatives.

Interpreting the service pyramid The service pyramid is an enabling or heuristic device for helping us to understand the communities that academics interact with in their service role. Here, it needs to be stressed that the place of these groups within the pyramid relates to perceptions among academic staff as to the relative importance attached by peers and institutions to their contributions in relation to these communities. The pyramid does not infer that the needs of students are unimportant; merely that institutional reward and recognition and the ingrained practice of academic life places a higher premium on service contributions to other communities. There was a strong feeling among those I interviewed that many of their service activities went unrecognized. Here, there is perhaps a ‘line of visibility’ that may be drawn midway up the service pyramid dividing esteemed from disesteemed forms of service. Public service, service to the discipline or profession and some

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forms of institutional service, such as Chairing a department or a leading university committee, are more highly valued and honored than student service, collegial service or forms of institutional service disconnected from prestigious leadership roles. While the pyramid relates specifically to service roles, the communities identified relate to all aspects of the academic role, including teaching and research. In the Statement on Professional Ethics produced by the American Association of University Professors, first adopted in 1966, responsibilities are detailed in relation to the subject, students, colleagues, the institution and the community. The statement connects moral responsibilities with each of these communities. These are, in summary, to seek and state the truth in the subject; to encourage the free pursuit of learning in students, to respect and defend the free enquiry of colleagues; to be effective scholars and teachers for their institution; and to exercise their rights and obligations as citizens of a wider community (American Association of University Professors, 2005a). Others, such as Rhodes (2001), have identified the same five communities in suggesting a set of obligations tantamount to a ‘Socratic oath’ for university academics. Understanding the importance of service to these five communities lays the foundations for such expressions of ideal behaviour. The moral implications of the service pyramid for academic citizenship will be explored further in Part II of the book where the virtues (and vices) associated with service work will be identified (see Chapter 7).

Conclusion This chapter has helped to identify the communities and activities that constitute service from the perspective of academic staff. It has also revealed that ‘service’ is a term that provokes both positive and negative reactions. On the positive side, faculty are keen to embrace the importance of helping students and colleagues, working for the good of their respective institutions and building links with practice environments. On the negative side, as responses from a number of academics indicated, ‘service’ is now a term more closely associated with business and consumer relations than public service. It tends to be used in relation to building business relationships on the basis of quality and efficiency. Thus, we have ‘service quality’, ‘service delivery’ or simply ‘service management’, phrases imported from the lexicon of business life. However, it is not just the language of business

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that has entered university life. Competitive individualism has always been a part of academic life but it now imperils the collegiality and co-operation required to maintain the quality of teaching and research activities. This is a threat to collegial service, where work is not perceived to be shared out equally among academic staff or entered into willingly by all faculty. The chapters which follow will explore what motivates staff to enter into service activities (Chapter 5), how universities reward this work (Chapter 6) and what excellences of character can be associated with working with the various communities identified through the service pyramid (Chapter 7).

Chapter 5

The call of service1

   all service is directly or indirectly ethical activity, a reply to a moral call within, one that answers a moral need in the world Coles (1993: 75)

Introduction What motivates academic staff to contribute to the different categories of activities that form the service pyramid? Many academics are driven by a desire to do good in the world by having a positive impact on shaping academic or professional practice, making a closer connection with students as well as contributing as an active community member. Others regard service activity as part of a process of student transformation through exposure to radical social and political ideas. These are all positive reasons why academics want to perform service roles both internal and external to the university. However, as this chapter will reveal, altruistic motives are only part of the explanation. Service roles are also undertaken in response to the modern conditions of academic life. This means that career survival, rather than student development or career progression, can be a significant reason why academics take on service roles, especially those associated with management and administration.

1. The title of this chapter is taken from The Call of Service: A Witness to Idealism by Robert Coles.

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This chapter will go on to outline ‘developmental’, ‘transformational’, ‘interrelational’ and ‘entrepreneurial’ reasons for faculty commitment to service work. The last of these motives, ‘entrepreneurial service’, or paid consultancy work, is concerned with providing a remunerated service for the benefit of individuals and organizations beyond the university. Some readers may feel that paid consultancy work is incompatible with the concept of service, and public service in particular. However, I will argue that paid consultancy activity must be considered as part of any modern definition of service if this concept is to be recovered in realizing the new compact between universities and society. Moreover, the reasons why academics undertake paid consultancy work are far from straightforward. It is often related to the service of others, rather than simply pecuniary gain. The example of consultancy demonstrates that the concept of service is a shifting rather than static one, reflecting the changing role of universities in society.

Motivations to serve The call of service is complex and motives underlying the choices made by academic staff to contribute in various ways to the life of the university or the wider community vary considerably. The ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ reasons underlying decisions to perform various service roles may be related to Herzberg’s (1959) work in understanding motivation at the workplace. Herzberg, and his colleagues, showed that there are factors that genuinely motivate people, which he called ‘motivators’, and other workplace conditions that need to be in place to prevent unhappiness, which he called ‘hygiene factors’. Motivators tend to be things like an intrinsic interest in work activities, receiving recognition for work performance, opportunities for personal advancement, autonomy and personal growth. Herzberg’s hygiene factors include status, security and good working relationships. Pay, often fallaciously thought of as a motivator, is in fact a hygiene factor according to Herzberg. Hygiene factors need to exist because without them people would be unhappy with their working environment but, on their own, they do not directly motivate. In other words, giving someone a pay rise does not make them more motivated to work harder but feeling that you are underpaid results in unhappiness, often due to a perception that your status is inadequately recognized. Herzberg’s work has been subject to criticism, partly on the grounds that his empirical evidence was too limited by focusing

The call of service 77

on 200 ‘middle management’ level engineers and accountants. However, the characteristics of Herzberg’s sample parallel, on a smaller scale again, the organizational position of my own interviewees and respondents who were, by and large, mid-career academics with managerial and administrative responsibilities. In understanding the call of service in academic life, I asked my respondents to comment on what motivated them, either positively or negatively, to perform a variety of service or ‘citizenship’ type roles. This resulted in the identification of three ‘motivators’ (Table 5.1) and three ‘hygiene factors’ (Table 5.2) applying the work of Herzberg. The three motivators identified span the division between altruism and self-interest. Career progression is connected with the desire for achievement and recognition. It is frequently connected with getting promoted into managerial or research leadership roles. Student development lies at the heart of what some academics value about their work. Many are motivated to aid their students as tutors through both an academic and pastoral interest in their progress and future success. Finally, professional development, involving service work that improves personal and professional knowledge and effectiveness, was identified as a key motivator by academic staff. External service activities, such as external examining, were seen as increasing professional knowledge of academic practice and resultant job satisfaction. Table 5.1 Motivators Motivators

Need

Professional development Student development Career progression

Personal growth Work itself Achievement and recognition

Table 5.2 Hygiene factors Hygiene factors

Need

Professional identity Fellowship Career survival

Status Work relationships Security

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Hygiene factors are important in maintaining the conditions necessary to prevent unhappiness in the work environment. For academics, the work environment includes both the immediate organizational setting of the university or college and other environments, such as professional practice, beyond the walls of the campus. The first of the three hygiene factors associated with this environment was professional identity. Here, academic staff with alternate professional or practice identities, such as nurses, lawyers or musicians, referred to the importance of maintaining their currency, understanding of and engagement with the practice environment. Sometimes the motive was also to retain their professional registration or, on other occasions, respondents considered such work vital to retaining credibility with colleagues in practice and students. Fellowship is a second hygiene factor related to forging close working relationships with colleagues and is important for the well-being of academic staff. Its absence can seriously undermine willingness to undertake service activity and can lead to staff wishing to leave. In this context, fellowship refers to activities such as mentoring colleagues at all career stages, from the novice to the experienced, normally in relation to teaching or research skills. While there are formal mentoring schemes at many universities, most operate on the basis of goodwill rather than reward structures for mentors linked to career development. Fellowship is essentially a relationship-building function. Career survival is a final hygiene factor that can play an influential role in the decision of academics to participate in service activities. This hygiene factor is perhaps best illustrated by reference to academic leadership roles. These roles can be related strongly to career progression as a motivator, particularly faculty working in less research-focused environments. However, for others, often working in research-intense universities, such roles are less positively regarded and may be linked to career-survival decisions where individuals accept posts managing courses or departments as a way to extend a career perceived to be failing in other respects. The tendency to view management and administration roles in this light is less apparent among faculty at US institutions where an administrative career track is more established and respected than in the UK. Recent research indicates that job insecurity is the most significant source of stress in academic life, irrespective of the career stage of university employees (Tytherleigh et al., 2005). Thus, career survival, as opposed to career progression, can be the underlying reason for agreeing to take on a service role, particularly those related to academic leadership and

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administration. In research-intensive cultures, such roles can be perceived as a safe harbour from the demands of research productivity and a pragmatic choice for individuals with relatively weak research profiles. It is clear that similar service activities may be undertaken for very different motives. In other words, service activities are related to more than one motivational cause. The preparedness of academic staff to take on the role of a head of department or course director may also be related, to some extent, to a sense of fellowship in sharing the duties necessary to insure an effective academic community.

A taxonomy of service The motivators and hygiene factors that have been identified need to be related to the extent to which service actions are ‘self-regarding’ or ‘otherregarding’. This distinction is drawn from the work of John Stuart Mill, a utilitarian philosopher. Other-regarding acts are oriented toward others whereas self-regarding acts are not. The relevance of the distinction in respect to service is that some aspects of this activity are undertaken mainly because they bring a benefit for the individual academic, such as personal development. Self-regarding acts may also affect or benefit others as a by-product even if they are not primarily motivated by such concerns. By contrast, some service activities are undertaken out of a sense of obligation to others in sustaining communities or transforming the experience or understanding of others. They are, principally, other-regarding. It is important to take account of gender in understanding this philosophical distinction. The other-regarding outlook to service is more frequently associated with female rather than male qualities. Research indicates that while academic women feel a strong sense of responsibility to look after their students, their male counterparts tend to be more keenly focused on their career progression (Burton, 1997). Moreover, it is argued that women academics are better ‘corporate citizens’ and possess more ‘institutional virtue’ (Burton, 1997: 21–22) than their male counterparts who relate more strongly to the wider scholarly community rather than those within the immediate university setting. This may explain, in part, why women often carry out substantially more service work than men (see Chapter 7). The distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding acts is sometimes hard to maintain as many acts have, arguably, elements of both self and

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other-regarding elements to them. For example, the purpose of peer review work for an academic journal may be to develop oneself and one’s own career, primarily a self-regarding set of considerations. However, for other individuals, it might be related more strongly to concerns about contributing to a community through nurturing new scholars or even through starting a new journal with a radical perspective toward an established discipline. Hence, peer review work may be undertaken for both self-regarding reasons (to develop personally and in career terms) and other-regarding reasons (to contribute to existing communities or establish new ones). While it is important to recognize the limitations of the distinction between self- and other-regarding acts, it provides, in conjunction with Herzberg’s motivational theory, a useful basis for identifying four broad aims of service activities (Figure 5.1).

Developmental service A desire to develop personally and professionally lies at the heart of much service work. This has been more formally aided in recent years through growing interest in the ‘professional development’ of academic staff. In the Action Self-regarding

Developmental motives

Entrepreneurial motives

Motive Motivator related

Motive Hygiene related

Transformational motives

Inter-relational motives

Other-regarding Action

Figure 5.1 A taxonomy of service motives

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UK, most universities now require new and inexperienced staff to undertake academic development programs accredited by the Higher Education Academy. This organization, formerly known in part as the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, is charged by the UK government with the development of professional teaching standards (DFES, 2003). As such, the courses accredited by the Higher Education Academy, with some rare exceptions, tend to focus mainly on teaching and student learning rather than the broader aspects of academic practice, such as research and service. The term ‘professional development’ also tends to be associated with formal, accredited programs such as Postgraduate Certificates in Learning and Teaching or other less formalized ‘workshops’ and ‘development seminars’. At the time of writing, it is estimated that the UK Higher Education Academy accredits over 150 programs at approximately 120 institutions. The involvement of academic staff in engaging with these types of programs is just one of the ways they develop their professional knowledge and skills. My interviewees regarded involvement in service work outside the employing university, such as external examining, as especially beneficial to their own learning and development. Several considered that their own work as external examiners had been valuable in feeding new ideas about teaching and curriculum design back into their own departments. As one of my respondents commented, ‘the information I have brought back as an external examiner has been invaluable’. This view corresponded closely with the findings of Hannan and Silver (2004) in their study of external examiners in the UK. They report that one of the benefits of undertaking an external examiner role is the knowledge and ‘intelligence’ of how other university courses are taught and run. The network of external examiners nationally leads to the dissemination of good practice in teaching and assessment. A number of respondents referred to their work acting as a peer reviewer for government agencies and professional bodies. These roles are also primarily motivated by the desire for personal development. Involvement in these processes is not, however, uncontroversial. In explaining the reasons why they chose to become academic reviewers for the UK Quality Assurance Agency for higher education (QAA), one interviewee referred to the need to ‘be on the inside of the review process’ garnering valuable intelligence to inform how their own departments and institutions could ‘play the system’. Hence, acting as a peer reviewer of teaching quality and

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standards does not necessarily imply that individuals endorse the legitimacy of the process. Where, however, respondents referred to their work as reviewers and auditors for professional bodies in applied fields such as nursing and engineering, this experience was seen as positive and legitimate and furthered their own professional development in the process. This feature of acting as a peer reviewer further demonstrates that concern to look after the interests of institutional colleagues also plays a role in such decisions. While external examining was seen by my respondents as principally about their own professional development, some academics regard it as an important part of building a case for promotion (Hannan and Silver, 2004). At one of the institutions from which several of my interviewees were drawn, being an external examiner was identified as one of the criteria in a ‘promotion round’ some years earlier. Being an external examiner was generally seen as not unhelpful in developing an academic curriculum vita with the perceived overall impact on promotion decisions best described as marginal. This indicates, though, that external examining is connected with career progression as well as professional development. Professional development as a motive for service work refers to a wider range of activities than external examining. It also incorporates some types of consultancy in which professional and academic knowledge is applied for the benefit of the wider public interest and professional practice. Reward for activities such as external examining or peer review tends to be modest and a token of esteem rather than representing significant income generation. While paid consultancy for a management lecturer as opposed to periods of professional practice for a nursing lecturer may appear quite different in character as examples of service, both are essential for their professional development and professional identity. As some of the quotations in Table 5.3 (see p. 83) indicate, work in practice environments, both paid and unpaid, are vital in ensuring that academics feel sufficiently contemporary and able to maintain a learning experience for students which is alive with examples from the ‘real’ world. For most academic staff, the importance of performing service activities outside their immediate institutional context goes deeper than the desire to enhance their knowledge and skills. This desire is also closely connected with their sense of self-identity. It is a means of affirming and re-affirming that identity as a respected historian, practising lawyer, enlightened business analyst, applied scientist or working musician. Indeed the reputation

The call of service 83 Table 5.3 Developmental service I see it (i.e. service) as about professional development and networking opportunities. My union links help me to develop personal links through meeting people and keeping up-to-date with the latest issues. Service work underpins teaching activity significantly. It gives you new insights into how to develop courses effectively. You pick up ideas for research, places for funding and access to carry out research. When you get involved in external service you are actually able to develop yourself quite a bit.

of the academic beyond the grounds of the university is, for many, critical to their credibility within it. Much of the expansion in higher education in recent years has resulted from the incorporation of more professional and vocational fields, such as nursing and sports science. As such, the sense of self-identity of those lecturers, teachers and professors who until recently were working ‘in the field’ still rests firmly in the context of application. Among my interviewees, those from professions such as nursing, midwifery, school teaching and law were eager to maintain their connection with practice settings. For them, this is about more than ‘keeping up-to-date’; it is about maintaining a sense of who they are. First and foremost I am a nurse and a member of the nursing profession. I need to maintain my nursing registration. I have a continuing commitment to this.

Here, academics’ sense of identity derives more from their discipline (or alternate profession) rather than their membership of the university as an organization. In practical terms, many nurses and other professionals working as university lecturers need to continue in practice in some part-time capacity in order to maintain their professional registration.

Entrepreneurial service ‘Entrepreneurialism’ is a word closely associated with the language of the market, the importance of profit and the imperative of serving the needs of

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the ‘customer’. It is practically a pejorative term in university life. In the context of service, it might seem strange and, indeed, contradictory to talk of ‘entrepreneurial service’. Academics can look disdainfully at those who conduct consultancy work and activities that bring profit, both personally and for the university (Shepherd, 2006). However, there needs to be a re-assessment of what reasons lie behind such activity and the contribution such activity makes to service in the broadest sense of the term. By using the term ‘entrepreneurial service’, I am referring to paid consultancy work undertaken on behalf of both individuals and the wider group, such as the department or university. ‘Academic entrepreneurship’ (Shane, 2004) has become an increasingly important feature of the way in which universities transfer knowledge and innovation to both private and public sector organizations. At research intensive universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and Imperial College, London, intellectual property is being systematically exploited through the creation of ‘spin-off’ companies, especially within the biomedical industries (Shane, 2004). Although negligible as a percentage of public income for higher education, in a UK context, so-called ‘third stream’ government funding is now available to universities for building links with business and the community (Fryer, 2005). For an elite few academics operating at the forefront of new research and development in science and technology, a considerable second income can be made from academic entrepreneurship. There are also academics in certain applied fields, such as management and some areas of medical science, who receive substantial fees in return for their ‘services’. For many academics, though, their consultancy activities are confined to working for other universities as external examiners for token fees. Entrepreneurial service, though, is not just about making money. It is strongly related to career survival in an increasingly competitive university research environment. Academics committed to a research career path need to demonstrate their ability to generate external funding from government, charitable and private sponsors, a demand that applies increasingly to those in the humanities as well as the sciences (Sim, 2005). This can demand considerable skill, determination and flexibility on the part of an individual researcher. It may mean that ‘personal research interests’ are adapted or ditched altogether in order to pursue research agendas likely to attract greater funding. The pursuit of more commercially popular or fundable research may be necessary in order to protect an individual’s own

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less economically viable set of research interests. Entrepreneurial service also applies to academics in the development of teaching programs. The increasingly competitive environment for higher education services means that academics must engage in continuous curriculum design and development with an eagle eye to market trends. Failure to do so can result in the threat of redundancy or the closure of departments where student numbers are in decline. Consultancy work is further subject to criticism on the grounds that where university departments become dependent on corporate finance, academic freedom is compromised. Where, in effect, a university department becomes little more than a drugs testing laboratory for a pharmaceutical company, a devil’s bargain is reached (Nelson and Watt, 1999). However, the other side of the argument is that universities ought to engage with the needs of business and industry rather than shrink from them. Despite the fact that none of my interviewees were drawn from private, corporate universities, several referred to the importance of generating income from consultancy and other research work with the professional or business sector in order to secure the continuing survival of their own research programs or interests. Intellectual freedom to pursue personal research interests in the modern university comes at a price and, for an increasing number of academics, must be worked for via various money-making activities involving the application of their disciplinary or professional expertise. Certain types of entrepreneurial activity can act as a mechanism for protecting personally cherished research interests. Examples include establishing lucrative teaching programs for corporations, undertaking paid consultancy where part or all of the income is returned to a university ‘profit centre’, and routine laboratory work undertaken for private organizations. These are a means by which an academic can continue to pursue other, more personally rewarding research agendas. According to this view, service activities are part of the quid pro quo of enjoying relative freedom to pursue academic interests. I see ‘service’ as an integral part of being an academic    part of the responsibilities of being an academic. In return I have a tremendous amount of freedom and a very satisfying job/life.

Links between business, industry and universities is one of the most contentious areas of ‘service’ activity. Yet, the university needs to engage with the modern world and be a part of it, rather than set apart from it (Butler, 1921). Consultancy activity is destined to grow rather than contract. Financial imperatives within university systems also mean that entrepreneurial

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service can, ironically, make a significant, if indirect, contribution to the survival of ‘disinterested’ research rather than signalling its demise. Entrepreneurial service is often undertaken for developmental or social reasons rather than pecuniary gain. It also needs to be borne in mind, though, that obtaining significant consultancy income from advising a business organization, offering an expert medical opinion or some other form of professional activity, does still makes a service contribution in response to a need within society. Paid consultancy activities are historically a ‘grey area’ in academic life. Many universities have chosen to turn a blind eye to such activity, mindful perhaps that, in some subject areas where recruiting and retaining academics can prove difficult, any attempt to curtail such activity would prove counterproductive in maintaining staffing levels. Some institutions, such as Imperial College, London, demand that academics channel their consultancy work through a subsidiary university company whereas others, such as Cranfield University, permit their staff to make their own arrangements. There is a need, though, to recognize the contribution of paid consultancy work for the benefit it brings to society and to incorporate such activity as a valued element of service. Entrepreneurial service needs to be respected as part of shaping a new compact between universities and society.

Interrelational service Performing service roles is also understood as a professional obligation or duty in relation to being an academic. This is about serving the needs of others in order to satisfy the desire to build and maintain relationships with different individuals. In explaining their reasons for undertaking service activities, a common response was that it was important to ‘do your bit’ by contributing to the operation and effectiveness of the immediate unit or department. Here, a sense of obligation was being expressed in relation to the support of colleagues and contributing to a collective ethic. I think there is a moral obligation to fulfil such a role, and that in a way ‘you owe it’ to your colleagues and the community. (Respondent) I think that any community member has a responsibility to share in the service role which is essential for any well functioning community. (Respondent)

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In their study of management in UK universities, Deem and her colleagues (2001) label one of the paths into university management as the ‘good citizen’ route. This is where an academic undertakes a senior managerial role (such as a dean or pro vice chancellor), frequently at a late stage in their career, motivated by a sense of obligation to serve colleagues. Deem and her co-researchers suggest, though, that this is a declining route into management, as academics take on management roles at an earlier stage of their career (Deem et al., 2001). Interrelational service is closely connected with the concept of ‘fellowship’ in academic life, explored in more detail in Chapter 9 as a ‘virtue’ of academic citizenship. Finally, job security as a hygiene factor can lead academics to perform service roles. This can occur where individuals are perceived to not be making an adequate contribution to academic work. Here, unpopular service demands, perhaps to serve on committees or undertake duties in relation to student administration, can result. People who are less research active do more service because it is harder to avoid. These are often people who reach a certain plateau, people whose careers are not moving very fast tend to do an inordinate amount of service. (Respondent)

Interrelational service is about maintaining the teaching and research infrastructure needed to serve the students, colleagues and other relevant communities. Some enter this work willingly as an obligation of university life. Others are strong-armed into contributing on the basis of their alleged weaknesses as an academic, normally, although not exclusively, due to perceived failings in respect to research productivity.

Transformational service Transformational service is service viewed as changing the outlook of learners on the world. It offers a more radical rationale for service activity. The desire to ‘transform’ students, colleagues, fellow members of a profession or members of the public through bringing about a shift in their attitudes or lifestyle is a key aim of service work for some academics. Commonly, we might associate the notion of transformation as moving students as learners from a state of knowing little about a chosen subject to obtaining a critical understanding of a discipline as a graduate. However,

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‘transformation’ means more than enhancing students’ discipline knowledge base. Academics use the term to refer to the empowerment of the individual through developing their self-confidence, their self-awareness, their understanding of economic, political and social issues and their consequent preparedness to engage in debate and action. Unlike notions of ‘fitness for purpose’ or ‘value for money’, transformation is a definition of ‘quality’ in higher education to which academics can relate strongly (Macfarlane and Lomas, 1999). Academics are often personally committed to ‘changing the world’ through a view of teaching as a process of ‘social reconstructionism’ (Trowler, 1998) or ‘transformation’ rather than ‘transmission’ of knowledge (Barton and Rowland, 2003). The desire to promote student development and processes of educational and social transformation were probably the most often quoted explanations for engaging in service activities. Several respondents argued that this was the rationale for their life as academics and made their work ‘real’ and ‘meaningful’. While some academics regard working with students as a social obligation of community membership, others see such contact from this more radical perspective as an opportunity to bring about some form of transformation. Asked to explain why a respondent had undertaken a service learning initiative involving students working with a community organization which led to the formal assessment of a reflective journal, a respondent spoke of the profound, positive effect this had had on students. As a result, they had matured as individuals, come to understand real world issues and gained confidence. What drives me (to perform service activities) is because of the impact on the student experience, which is, afterall, why we are here. (Respondent)    the desire to create a better learning environment for students. This is for reasons of my own happiness since students’ success gives a much better feeling than their failure! (Respondent) I see it as really worthwhile    seeing my students grow when I visit them in practice placements is great (Respondent)

Service learning initiatives are frequently associated with a transformational agenda involving ‘reaching out’ to disadvantaged groups in society. In American universities, where students are encouraged to perform community service such as helping out with the homeless, in nursing homes for the

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elderly, in prisons or at hospitals, this activity is often intended as a means of awakening their social conscience. For Coles (1993), service is about a transformational agenda based on the idealism of civil rights activists, peace corps workers and other community volunteers. Educators seeking to connect societal change with student learning are proponents of transformational service. Those involved in such work are sometimes looking to radicalize students to make them into ‘activists’ (Reid, 2005). Giroux (1991), for example, makes a case for a transformational view of education arguing for teaching that creates ‘critical’ rather than just ‘good’ citizens. Tisdell (2001) suggests an ‘engaged pedagogy’ to achieve similar goals concerned with social justice. Such academics are seeking to develop students with a social conscience about deep-rooted inequalities in society (Crowther et al., 2005). Here, students are often encouraged to be activists, rather than passive observers, involved in helping to tackle real social problems. In the process, they develop morally as well as intellectually enhancing their ‘environmental citizenship’ and ‘multicultural literacy’ (Ehrlich, 2001; Kreber, 2005: 402). Transformational service may also incorporate the work of academics seeking to shift public or government opinion in the public policy arena in relation to contentious issues. Examples of those seeking to have a transformational impact include those involved in campaigning on issues such as stem cell research, race relations or environmentalism. Some academics are committed to a tradition of social and political activism that characterized several university campuses in the 1960s. The generation that graduated during this period of student activism are now senior staff in universities. Those serving as trade union representatives within academic life may also hope that their work will have an impact on shaping government policy in relation to higher education. In 2005 the UK Association of University Teachers sought to impose an academic boycott on two Israeli universities for their alleged co-operation with the occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli government. This is a high profile example of contemporary academics seeking to influence a contentious aspect of public policy. Within disciplines and professions, individuals strive to establish new communities, often, in the process, challenging the dominance of existing propositional or professional knowledge. This may also be part of a transformational agenda. For example, within business and management education, there are those with a commitment to promote student consciousness of ethical issues in business practice (Bowie et al., 2004). This challenges the dominant paradigm that shareholder value is the only, or main, measure of managerial success. Many business ethicists are part of a broader ‘critical’

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management studies movement. This seeks to contest the ‘managerialist’ perspective that business and management education should be concerned with teaching students a set of techniques to be applied in business practice. By contrast, the ‘critical’ management perspective promotes student understanding of business and management as a social, political and moral phenomenon (Grey and French, 1996). This latter perspective has generated journals, conferences and networks dedicated to promoting this ‘alternative’ vision of business and management education. Within other subject areas, similar examples may be given of movements that seek to challenge the prevailing paradigms and transform the intellectual and practice-based terrain of the discipline or profession. It would be a mistake to suppose that commitment to a radical, transformational agenda is limited to academics working in the social and human sciences. There are controversial matters of public policy which have long been of concern to academics working in the physical sciences including abortion, gene therapy, nuclear power and the use of animals in scientific research to name just a few examples. Even in the discipline of statistics, some academics take a keen interest in the social issues connected with the study of their subject. The Radical Statistics Group, for example, is concerned with the extent to which official government statistics can be used to disguise social problems through the use of technical language.

Conclusion Service activities are inspired by a complex series of emotions and attitudes. These relate to our sense of security as university workers, our desire to lead professionally stimulating lives, to contribute to the maintenance and, sometimes, radical re-shaping of established academic and professional communities and our aspirations for change in society more widely. Service is about idealism but it is also about a pragmatic response to the modern conditions of university life. Hence, the ‘call of service’ is not, as might be supposed, exclusively connected with altruism or the desire to promote social justice. Consultancy now relates increasingly to the complex nature of modern higher education with the income derived from such activity used to cross-subsidize research activities and conference attendance. As a form of entrepreneurial service, consultancy provides a lifeline for personal research interests and can protect, as much as threaten, academic freedom.

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Regardless of the motives of the individual, benefits for society may still derive from service activity whether profit driven or not. As such, income generation can play a perfectly legitimate role in service. While there exists a genuine desire to serve students, colleagues and professional communities, the benefits that these connections can sometimes have for career progression cannot be overlooked. On the opposite side of this coin are the ‘negative’ reasons for performing service roles, such as the fear of being passed over for tenure or promotion. The next chapter will turn to consider how universities shape attitudes to service via their reward and recognition structures.

Chapter 6

Rewarding service Academic careers are shaped largely by reward and recognition for individual achievement. Shils (1997: 52) Service activities generally go unnoticed, un-rewarded and unappreciated. Respondent

Introduction This chapter will focus on the formal policies of a number of institutions of higher education in rewarding service activities and consider how these policies are perceived to operate in practice by academic staff. The case studies discussed and presented in this context include examples of promotion procedures from institutions in the UK, the US, South Africa and Australia. They represent a ‘snapshot’ rather than any kind of representative sample from universities across the world. Indeed, they are really illustrative of institutions that, to some extent, have already taken service into account in their formal policies and, as such, are closer to examples of ‘best practice’ as it currently exists. The policies of the selected institutions are analysed with respect to the extent to which they identify contributions to academic life beyond narrowly defined notions of ‘research’ and ‘teaching’. The information is garnered, by and large, from publicly available websites. The institutional case studies are then contrasted with the perceptions of academic staff drawn from a similarly international context.

Rewarding service 93

Nomenclature For the purposes of comparing promotion procedures across different levels of academic seniority it is important to compare like with like as far as possible. In UK universities established before 1992, the terms ‘Lecturer’, ‘Senior Lecturer’, ‘Reader’ and ‘Professor’ are used to indicate an ascending order of academic rank. In post-1992 UK universities a principal lecturer is equivalent in status to a senior lecturer in a pre-1992 institution. The nomenclature in the US and in some Australian institutions for academic appointees is somewhat different. Here, the terms ‘Assistant Professor’, ‘Associate Professor’ and ‘Professor’ are in common usage equating in rank and status to a ‘Lecturer’, ‘Senior’/‘Principal’ Lecturer and ‘Professor’ in the UK. Not all institutions use the term ‘service’ to denote activities of this nature. University College London, for example (see one of the case studies later), refers to ‘Enabling’. Many UK institutions identify management and/or administration separately from teaching or research. While, as I argued earlier, such articulations do not represent the full range of citizenship-type activities, they are nonetheless part of the service role. Some institutions are beginning to explore what ‘academic citizenship’ means in terms of the service activities performed by faculty members. The University of Alabama is one such example. It has identified student service-related activities, such as advising roles, and institutional governance activities, such as committee membership or other relevant commitments as categories for the evaluation of faculty members. It has also determined that performance of such obligations that go beyond those normally required for ‘responsible academic citizenship’ can result in the award of a salary increase. The University of Alabama, though, is unusual in explicitly identifying ‘academic citizenship’ as opposed to more generalized notions of service.

Institutional case studies Formal university policies on the reward and recognition of their academic staff are frequently now available online via the World Wide Web. This transparency is helpful in forming a picture of how ‘service’ and ‘citizenship’ activities are formally rewarded by institutions internationally. The following institutions were selected on the basis of web searches using the

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terms ‘service’ and ‘(academic) citizenship’. Hence, this selection is far from a representative sample of the promotion and tenure policies of universities. However, it does provide a useful insight into university policies across the world.

University College London, UK (University College London, 2002) University College London (UCL) is an elite, research-led institution founded in 1826 as only the third English university after Oxford and Cambridge. It provided access to higher education for non-conformists previously excluded from the ancient universities (see Chapter 2). The criteria for the promotion of academic staff at this institution is judged under three headings: ‘Research, Teaching and Enabling’. The final of these three criteria, ‘Enabling’, is defined as ‘contribution to management or administration in a manner which benefits UCL, furthers the discipline, and/or facilitates and enhances the personal contributions of academic colleagues’. The judgment of an ‘enabling’ contribution requires evidence in relation to the following examples: • • • •

a significant contribution to the management or administration of a department which benefits the College and enhances the activities of its members; providing an organizational framework which maximizes the effectiveness of other researchers and teachers in the department; external activity in relation to Learned Societies, Research Councils, Government committees, etc.; establishing and maintaining a clinical research activity of importance to the work of the department or others at UCL.

‘Enabling’ is represented in the form of bullet points among the criteria for promotion to Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor. At Senior Lecturer level, this contribution is expressed in terms of management/administration roles, the sharing of skills and expertise in relation to teaching and work in curriculum design and the development of teaching materials. The emphasis in the overall criteria for promotion to Reader is on individual research although this highlights the importance of teamwork and collaboration in this context together with administrative and managerial contributions.

Rewarding service 95 Table 6.1 ‘Enabling’ criteria at University College London Curriclum Sharing Management/ External peer review and design and teaching admin. contribution committee innovation skills work √ √ √ Senior lecturer √ Reader √ √ √ Professor

Leadership, motivation and team work

√

At Professorial level, the expected contribution is not only more substantial but more related to external contexts such as serving on government committees or Research Councils (Table 6.1).

Midwestern State University, USA (Midwestern State University, 2004) Midwestern in Texas, USA, is a state university with a broad range of academic programs spanning the arts and sciences. The University originally started as a Junior College founded in 1922 adding postgraduate provision after the end of World War II. Its current title dates from the mid-1970s. The University sets three criteria for promotion besides additional requirements laid down in respect of gaining tenure, such as years of academic experience. These are ‘Teaching effectiveness’, ‘Research and scholarly activity’ and ‘Service’. Service is defined as falling into one of two sub-categories: ‘service to the university’ and ‘service to the profession/community’. In terms of the service element, promotion to Associate or Assistant Professor is dependent on meeting the first three criteria with respect to service to the University and two of the criteria in relation to service to the Profession/Community (Table 6.2). At Professorial level, there is a requirement to satisfy all elements of service to the University and three of the four aspects of service to the Profession/Community. The inclusion of ‘collegiality in service’ is further explained by reference to a preparedness to work ‘respectfully and courteously’ with others within the University. Activities cited indicating a willingness to be collegial include mentoring, volunteering to take part in university affairs, taking on administrative responsibilities, and taking part in faculty and university events and a variety of open days.

96 Service and citizenship Table 6.2 Service at Midwestern University Service to the university

Service to the profession/community

a. Effective participation and administration of department/college activities. b. Effective participation within the Midwestern State University academic community. c. Responsible and effective out-of-class career planning and academic advisement of students.

a. Ongoing and active involvement in professional organizations.

d. Demonstration of collegially in service.

b. Conducting workshops, clinics, and performances, or hosting conferences or academic contests in areas of expertise. c. Obtaining grants and outside funding for scholarships, student activities, software, equipment, and other resources for university use other than research. d. Participating in non-compensated public service activities (e.g. public talks, tutoring, participation on boards or in public organisations, consulting).

University of Western Sydney, Australia (University of Western Sydney, 2004a and 2004b) The University of Western Sydney is a modern institution established in 1989. With a student population of over 30,000, it ranks as Australia’s eighth largest university. One of the stated principles of the promotion policies and procedures of the University of Western Sydney (UWS) is that ‘it also acknowledges, in promotion, the contribution made by staff within the University and the wider community’. This is in addition to a commitment to valuing innovative teaching, educational development, research, scholarship and the advancement of knowledge. It identifies four ‘fields of attainment’ for promotion from Lecturer through to full Professor. These are as follows: a. Achievement in Research and/or Scholarship and/or Professional Consultancy Activities. b. Experience and Achievement in Teaching and/or Curriculum Development and/or Educational Leadership and/or Learning Development. c. Contribution to Institutional Planning and/or Governance at UWS. d. Service to the Relevant Profession and/or Academic Discipline and/or Relevant Contribution to the Region and Wider Community.

Rewarding service 97 Table 6.3 Example of service in research at University of Western Sydney Achievement in Research and/or Scholarship and/or Professional Consultancy Activities ‘Satisfactory’ ‘Meritorious’ ‘Distinguished’

Some experience in refereeing articles Invitations to referee articles in scholarly journals Invitations to serve on editorial board of international journal

Table 6.4 Example of service in institutional governance at University of Western Sydney Contribution to Institutional Planning and/or Governance at UWS ‘Satisfactory’ ‘Meritorious’ ‘Distinguished’

Demonstrated capacity to work with other staff in areas of collective responsibility Evidence of ability to assist other staff in their own professional and academic development Constructive role in helping other staff in their own professional career development

All four of the fields of attainment identified at UWS identify service aspects indicating, at least at face value, that the service role is firmly embedded within promotion policies and procedures. Three levels of achievement – satisfactory, meritorious and distinguished – are mapped against these four fields of attainment. Examples are provided of activities that are considered as satisfactory, meritorious or distinguished, as illustrated below by reference to peer review of articles and mentoring processes respectively (Tables 6.3 and 6.4).

University of Alabama (University of Alabama, 2005) The University of Alabama is one of the top ranked public universities in the US. Established in 1831, the University became a military school during the American civil war and was largely destroyed when Union troops burned it down in 1865. It reopened in 1871. In the early 1960s it was the scene of an infamous incident in the civil rights struggle when George Wallace, a leading politician, sought to prevent the enrolment of AfricanAmerican students. The University currently has a student enrolment in

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excess of 20,000 and plays a prominent role in community and outreach initiatives. The basic criteria for promotion at the University is identified as follows: (a) performance in teaching and knowledge of the subject matter; (b) creative scholarly activities evidenced by publication; and (c) appropriate professional service. The policy states that teaching and research are considered to be of equal importance. In relation to service, the University’s promotion policy identifies two categories. Outreach is defined as external service of benefit to the public while ‘academic citizenship’ is internal service to students and the institution. Examples of outreach programs listed on its website include reading initiatives, legal counsel for the elderly, a community music school, a public radio service and a disabilities advocacy program. Evaluation of academic citizenship includes activities such as student advising and evidence of contribution to institutional governance within the department, division and/or university-wide. Outreach as a categorization is further elaborated by reference to four models: teaching/service; research/service; professional service; and public/community service. These models seek to separately recognize the contributions made through academic activity to different types of outreach. The criteria gives a number of examples of the benefits academic knowledge may bring to the wider public. These include continuing education for adults (teaching/service); collaborating with business, industry or consumer groups (research/service); participating or leading editorial boards (professional service); and contributing as a leader or consultant to public boards, panels or commissions (public/community service). The university handbook on promotion and tenure also makes it clear that service/academic citizenship is an integral part of decision-making criteria rather than an unrelated or isolated added extra. Thus, being a good teacher and researcher must be combined with an individual’s service/academic citizenship contribution to secure a promotion or favorable tenure decision. The absence of responsible academic citizenship detracts from what otherwise might have been a strong set of qualifications for promotion or tenure. Thus, performance in teaching and research are necessary for promotion/and or tenure, but they are not sufficient. Effectiveness in teaching

Rewarding service 99 and research must be combined with responsible academic citizenship. [my emphasis] (University of Alabama 2005: 18)

University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa (University of Kwazulu-Natal, 2004) The University was founded in 1910 as the University of Natal. Following the ending of apartheid, the university was renamed in 2004. It has centers in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. For promotion purposes, there are four main areas of staff evaluation: teaching; scholarship, research or equivalent artistic or creative activity; community service and development; and university service and community involvement. ‘Community service and development’ refers to ‘upliftment or development of sections of the wider community resulting from the application by the candidate of her/his academic discipline’. This form of service is designated as scholarly in nature since these activities are tied to the candidate’s discipline. By contrast, ‘university service and community involvement’ covers activities such as school, faculty or university-wide administration, activities of a professional, sporting, religious or developmental nature and marketing or promotional work on behalf of the university including careers guidance and school liaison. In application of these criteria, the University guidelines emphasize that in promotion up to the level of Associate Professor, while candidates may point to outstanding contributions in relation to service, they must also demonstrate strength in respect to teaching and scholarship at most immediate levels. Indeed, although the policy states that candidates may base an application for Associate Professor on community service and development and university service and community involvement, it goes on to indicate that applicants must also be excellent teachers and/or researchers. At full Professorial level, an outstanding and continuing record of achievement is needed in two of the four areas in order to succeed. If, however, one of the areas chosen is community service and development, the candidate’s contribution must be ‘exceptional and substantial and should be recognized by peers as being innovative, original or creative’. Thus, it appears that while service is recognized as a key criterion, the measure of proof of contribution required is considerable if a candidate is to overcome perceived weaknesses in the ‘traditional’ categories of teaching and scholarship/research.

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Edith Cowan University, Australia (Edith Cowan University, 2005) Following the re-designation of Western Australian College of Advanced Technology, Edith Cowan University was founded in 1991. It was named after Edith Dircksey Cowan, the first woman elected to an Australian Parliament in 1912. The University’s origins go back to 1902 when it began as a teaching college. Today it is Western Australia’s second largest university with around 23,000 students. Its provision is mainly professionally focused degree programs. The academic promotion policy at Edith Cowan groups academic work in four areas: teaching and learning, research and creativity, professional and community engagement, and service to the university (including enterprise on behalf of the university). These categories also serve as criteria for the assessment of applications for promotion. The University policy further identifies that academic staff should possess different strengths, and details differentiated role descriptions on this basis. There are six ‘assigned academic roles’, the standard category of which is ‘Teaching and Research Scholar’ (Table 6.5).

Table 6.5 Academic roles at Edith Cowan University Assigned academic role

Definition

Teaching and research scholar Teaching scholar

‘Standard academic role’.

Research scholar or creative artist Practitioner scholar

Academic leadership Enterprise

Mainly teaching and curriculum-related duties. Limited, practically oriented research or professional activities. Mainly research or performance/creative duties. Limited teaching, university and community service. Roles that utilise contemporary and continuing professional skills, creativity and experience from professional practice. Staff in roles as Heads of School, Associate Deans or equivalent may opt to apply under this head. Significant involvement in activities consistent with the University’s strategic themes of service, professionalism and enterprise.

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The policy statement from Edith Cowan goes on to detail a system of ‘weightings’ that indicates the relative importance of the four criteria (teaching and learning, research and creativity, professional and community engagement, and service to the university) in determining the promotion chances of staff in different assigned academic roles. For example, as might be anticipated, the percentage weighting allocated for research and creativity in determining the promotion chances of a ‘teaching scholar’ is considerably lower than that which is applied in relation to a ‘research scholar or creative artist’. Here, the University’s policy is to assign different weightings to the categories of professional and community engagement, and service to the University for each differentiated academic role. The weightings are related to three of the five different levels at which a member of staff may be appointed or promoted, namely Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor. In relation to professional and community engagement (Table 6.6), there is little differentiation in the expectations placed on staff in distinct academic roles apart from practitioner scholars who are expected to contribute more in relation to this criteria than other types of staff. It is notable, though, that the weighting for professional and community engagement does rise with the seniority of the appointment for all but one of these differentiated academic roles. A similar set of expectations can be seen in relation to service to the university in terms of relative contributions rising with the seniority of the appointment (Table 6.7). In this category, academic leaders and those

Table 6.6 Weighting for professional and community engagement at Edith Cowan University Assigned academic role

Lecturer

Senior Lecturer

Associate Professor

Teaching and research scholar Teaching scholar Research scholar or creative artist Practitioner scholar Academic leadership Enterprise

0–10%

0–20%

0–20%

20–30% N/A

20–30% 0–20%

20–30% 0–20%

102 Service and citizenship Table 6.7 Weighting for service to the University at Edith Cowan University Assigned academic role

Lecturer

Senior Lecturer

Associate Professor

Teaching and research scholar Teaching scholar Research scholar or creative artist Practitioner scholar Academic leadership Enterprise

0–10%

0–20%

10–40%

0–10%

10–20%

20–40%

N/A

10–30%

10–50%

assigned an enterprise role must demonstrate a particularly high level of contribution.

City University, London, UK (City University, 2005) City University can trace its roots back to the late nineteenth century when the Northampton Institute was created in the civic tradition (see Chapter 2) to provide an industrial and technical education to members of the ‘poorer classes’. Funding for the Institute came from charities, local taxation and a levy on spirits referred to as ‘whisky money’. It became a College of Advanced Technology in 1957 and was later named as City University following the Robbins Report (1963) that recommended the creation of a number of new universities. The University developed a broader range of subjects including mathematics, computer science and liberal studies from the late 1950s. It currently defines itself as a university for ‘business and the professions’ with a diverse range of professional programs including Nursing, Journalism, Engineering, Arts Management and the John Cass School of Business. The University uses four general criteria in academic staff promotion: Research and scholarship; Administration, management and academic leadership; Teaching and course development; and External and professional contribution. The acronym ‘RATE’ is used to summarize these four criteria. Performance against the RATE criteria is measured by a scale from 0 (none or a negligible contribution) to 5 (outstanding contribution, unusual at any grade of staff). Normally, a score of 4 or 5 is expected in relation to at

Rewarding service 103 Table 6.8 Example service elements in ‘RATE’ criteria at City University Research and scholarship

Administration, management and academic leadership

Teaching and course development

External and professional contribution

•

•

•

•

management of a research team

development of innovative administrative procedures

effectiveness of, and availability for, tutorial and pastoral work

membership of high-level government or international advisory groups

least one of these criteria together with good performance overall to achieve a promotion. The University also has created a relatively new category of staff, called University Teacher. Promotion to Senior University Teacher (analogous to Senior Lecturer) is entirely dependent on performance in relation to the three criteria apart from research and scholarship. In detailing the types of evidence that might be presented in relation to the RATE criteria, a number under each heading refers to service/citizenship type activities. These examples are mainly contained in the three criteria other than ‘Research and scholarship’ where measures of success relate principally to publication and citations, PhD supervision, attracting funding for research and conference presentations (Table 6.8).

Trends It is clear from this brief survey of university promotion and tenure policies that it is common practice for universities to distinguish between service activities in relation to wider communities and service activities within the institution, sometimes referred to as ‘corporate’ or ‘academic’ citizenship. James Cook University in Australia, for example, defines service as activities internal to the university. ‘Service’ is defined as administrative or representative responsibilities in, or on behalf of, the University. (James Cook University, 2005: 2)

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This definition excludes external activities, such as professional consultancy, which draw on an individual’s scholarly expertise. At James Cook, separate definitions cover ‘professional consultancy activities’ and ‘Leadership’. This latter category includes work in guiding and supporting the research of colleagues and students. Despite differences in the way universities recognize and reward service, there are a number of common threads running through the case studies. There are frequently expressed expectations, especially at more senior levels, such as at associate or full Professor, that career progression is dependent on more significant external service contributions. This is evident at UCL and Midwestern and explicitly clear through the publication of weighting contributions to service at Edith Cowan University. The UK institutions featured in the case studies conceive of service activities largely in terms of management, administration and external enterprise on behalf of the university. American institutions more commonly define service as outreach representing efforts to connect the scholarly expertise of a staff member with, often, local community interests. Very few universities make explicit mention of student service, such as academic advising, as a criterion for promotion although Midwestern State University is an exception. Most institutions that recognize service contributions tend to assign such work as a separate category. A rare, but very positive, example of a more integrated approach is provided by the UWS. Finally service activities are being increasingly linked with enterprise and entrepreneurship (see Chapter 5). At Edith Cowan University, enterprise is recognized as a potential career route that deserves reward and recognition. Examples used to illustrate enterprising activities include the development of commercial courses, teaching programs that help to attract enrolments from international students, and generating substantial income from selling learning materials and resources.

Perceptions of academic staff The case studies illustrate that many institutions do recognize service or academic citizenship type activities explicitly in their formal criteria for rewarding and recognizing staff through appraisal and promotion procedures. This might surprise the reader who has kept patience with the book to this point. Nevertheless, despite the commonplace existence of university

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policy statements explicitly incorporating service and citizenship elements, the overriding impression of my interviewees is that lip-service is paid to the importance of service in university life. Most interviewees were dubious that ‘service’ contributions were really rewarded in career terms (Table 6.9). These comments are illustrative of key differences in the way institutions pay formal and informal attention to service within their policies and procedures in relation to service contribution. The stress on the word ‘formal’ is intended to signify the fact that while universities may state that service is an important or, indeed, an integral part of their criteria in respect to promotion, this does not automatically mean that such work plays such a significant role in practice. A number of my interviewees voiced concern that what really mattered in such promotion decisions were contributions to research through publication and obtaining grants and, perhaps to a much lesser extent, teaching and service achievements. Most institutions provide bullet pointed lists of promotion criteria which appear to imply that teaching and service contributions rank on an equal basis to research achievements. However, the reality may be somewhat different if, to re-paraphrase George Orwell, some bullet points are more equal than others! In other words, criteria with respect to service or citizenship contributions are not perceived to have equal weight to those that relate to research and (narrowly defined) scholarship. Generally institutions do not provide ‘weightings’ to tenure and promotion criteria to indicate which are the most important. There are, though, one or two exceptions such as Edith Cowan University in Australia. Respondents recognized, though, that ‘measuring’ service is difficult since many such activities exist as part of the informal structure of academic life and are, thus, rarely recorded if at all let alone systematically (Table 6.10). Table 6.9 The recognition of service Service    is a very poor stepchild to scholarship and teaching, and is only notionally rewarded. Research is seen as having the highest kudos and teaching lies underneath. Service is at the bottom. To the best of my knowledge, neither my previous nor my current employer gives much recognition to service contributions. I think they (i.e. service activities) are certainly rewarded but there is a sense that they are a secondary component compared to teaching and research    service might provide a little extra help on occasions (in promotion decisions).

106 Service and citizenship Table 6.10 The reward and ‘measurement’ of service The ways we are assessed and rewarded are based on individual performance not service. The very notion of ‘service’ implies activities that are mainly above and beyond those that are formally incorporated into workloads. Immediately some are ‘measured’ you enter a minefield of trying to decide what is fair and equitable and how to compare activities that are not comparable in any meaningful sense. I believe the various service activities of the academic are not as measurable as teaching (must teach 5 courses per year) and research (publish, publish) and so they often end up merely filling in the time gaps between research and teaching. You can be a representative on a committee and say very little. You can only use quantitative indicators of how many committees you sit on or how many times you appear in the press.

One of the barriers to recognition is the fact that performance systems are rarely deployed in relation to service work while, by contrast, output measures, such as publication in refereed journals, the frequency of citation and obtaining research grants, are well-established methods to judge an individual’s contribution to research. By contrast, the teaching role has conventionally been measured in ‘input’ terms: the number of hours taught every week, term, semester or academic year. The popularity of teaching observation as a means of determining the quality of teaching has tended to reinforce this input model by concentrating attention on the performance of the teacher rather than the learning of the student(s). However, the introduction of university and national reward schemes for teaching has led to the development of more sophisticated ways of determining the effectiveness of teaching performance, expressed in output rather than simply input terms. This has led to the growing use of evidence-based teaching portfolios used to demonstrate the range and impact of practice on learners including the results of student evaluation processes, self-reflection on the part of the lecturer, examination results and the design of new curricula. A portfolio is becoming a more commonly accepted mechanism for determining applications in relation to special titles, such as Teaching Fellowships, or to academic posts designated as teaching only. At a more senior level, Warwick University in the UK, for example, uses a portfolio approach to judge applications for ‘Teaching Professorships’.

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The apparent indifference of some institutions to service activities carried out by staff is possibly best illustrated by external examining. This is a service role for which academics have rarely been recognized by their ‘home’ institution despite the benefits this can bring in terms of insights into practice elsewhere within the higher education sector (Hannan and Silver, 2004). Mostly academics are neither encouraged nor discouraged by their institutions from becoming external examiners, a position described by Hannan and Silver (2004) as ‘neutrality’. In some cases, though, they discovered that academics faced active opposition or discouragement from senior managers.

The effect of culture While university policies may indicate that service contributions are rewarded, a university’s ‘culture’ can inform a different modus operandi. The use of the word ‘culture’ in higher education is a metaphor for the way in which individuals behave and decisions are taken (Becher, 1989; Land, 2004). It is a term derived from anthropology that may be applied both to the way an organization works in practice and to the manner in which subcultures operate, such as academic ‘tribes’ in universities (Becher, 1989), informed by a series of norms, values, beliefs and commonly shared prejudices. Formal university policies with regard to the reward of service are not necessarily a secure guide to the practice of promotion and reward panels. While service activities are often recognized as legitimate criteria, their status may be considered of lower value because of the prevailing culture of universities as organizations. Many universities, for example, encourage community partnerships but they also find it difficult to institutionalize these efforts, particularly in research-based universities where the prevailing culture works against supporting such efforts. There are ‘institutionalized practices that may be inconsistent with the rhetoric of the mission statement’ (Maurrasse, 2001: 185). In an American context, one of these institutionalized practices is for untenured faculty to be unofficially (and sometimes officially) discouraged from getting involved in community-based service as this may sidetrack their research productivity that ultimately determines the success of their application for tenure. Deal and Kennedy (1982) identify four elements of culture in relation to organizations: values, heroes, rites and rituals, and the culture network.

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However, the elements of culture that are valued in an organization may contrast with those espoused in formal documentation and other ‘official’ pronouncements. For example, while universities often claim to value the importance of teaching, organizational values centered around excellence in research may prevail in practice (Jenkins et al., 2003). The ‘heroes’ of university cultures tend to be seen as ground-breaking researchers and other outstanding individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge rather than reliable teachers or good academic citizens. The rites and rituals of university life reinforce the cult of research through symbols such as special titles (such as Reader, Professor or Fellow) and celebratory events (such as book launches, conferences and the ceremonial conferment of awards). Hence, what is valued through the culture of the university as an organization will play a subtle, but significant, role in undermining often wellintentioned attempts to reward historically undervalued elements of practice, such as teaching and academic citizenship. In this respect, there can be an unconscious gap between the values that people believe they have, such that teaching and academic citizenship activities should be treated on a par with research, and the values implied by their behaviour, such as rewarding research work more highly. Argyris and Schon (1974) refer to the former as an ‘espoused theory’ and the latter as a ‘theory-in-use’. Lack of attention to the importance of the symbols of organizational culture mean that well-intentioned attempts to raise the status of teaching in university life over recent years have sometimes had the reverse effect. Some universities have sought to create teaching-specific career tracks around titles such as ‘advanced lecturer’, ‘teaching professor’ or simply ‘University Teacher’ as at City University in the UK. Others have created schemes to reward teaching through special awards and ‘teaching fellowships’. However, where these have been created in research-led universities, they are likely to embed rather than challenge perceptions of lower status attached to work that is not classified according to the dominant paradigm. The evidence indicates that while many institutions recognize service or academic citizenship type activities in formal criteria for reward and recognition, such contributions are felt to be undervalued and largely unrecognized in practice, especially in the UK. The distinction between ‘visible’ and less visible service activities was first explored in Chapter 4. The former involves prestigious external scholarly activities and contributions through management and committee service in the corporate interests of the university.

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The case studies indicate that these more visible elements are often cited in promotion criteria and that external service is, in general, more highly valued than internal service contributions, some of which tend to be far less visible. Service activities, such as student advising and collegial mentoring, play a less significant formal role in promotion criteria especially at more senior levels. The lack of recognition for these types of activity may be related to the changing nature of universities in terms of their organizational culture and the acknowledged decline of a collegial culture (McNay, 1995). This means that service as a concept is being re-defined in more narrowly entrepreneurial and corporatist terms as ‘knowledge transfer’ and ‘management’. In this respect, there is more explicit emphasis on collegial and community-related service work in North American institutions, where the civic tradition has stronger roots, than in the UK and Australia. The dominance of ‘teaching’ and ‘research’ in the discourse of university life manifests itself in promotion and tenure policies as a two-dimensional image of the academic role, lacking the depth that service/citizenship activities bring. At many universities, not featured as case studies in this chapter, career pathways are often expressed as either ‘teaching’ or ‘research focused’ (Figure 6.1). In this two-dimensional vision, the only alternative vision is of an ‘all rounder’ but defined as someone who contributes both to research and teaching, rather than service (Paton, 2004). There is a growing realization, however, that this two-dimensional vision fails to capture elements of practice vital to preserving the essence of academic life and the service of society. The damaging effect of audits of research linked to funding is now being recognized as having elevated selfish individualism in academic life. This is leading to a questioning of the efficacy of reward and recognition schemes, such as at Loughborough University in the UK. The Human Resources Committee feels that successive RAEs have had a negative impact on ‘good citizenship’ within departments, with some staff being extremely reluctant to take very necessary but time consuming administrative tasks (such as course directorships, personal tutoring etc.). (Loughborough University, 2004: 1)

The Loughborough Committee adds that a successful candidate would normally need a positive assessment of their role in the ‘life of the department’. Sadly, Loughborough University is not untypical in determining that there are just two criteria (of equal importance) for academic

110 Service and citizenship Teaching focus

Teaching pathway

All-rounder

Research pathway Entry Research focus

Figure 6.1 Two-dimensional model of academic careers (Paton, 2004)

promotions: teaching and research. Service to the University is only considered when the attainment of an individual’s achievement in either of these main criteria is considered borderline. It is not considered as a criterion of equal rank. The position of Loughborough University is probably still representative of the norm within higher education inasmuch that contribution to service is still treated as the least equal of the bullet points that determine reward and recognition of faculty.

Conclusion In conclusion, it is important that university promotion policies adopt a three-dimensional vision of academic career that includes service rather than the two-dimensional model evident at institutions, such as Loughborough. This will help to acknowledge that service is as central to academic practice as teaching and research. It is also vital for making real the commitment of institutions to a new compact with society as envisaged in the Dearing report (NCIHE, 1997). Part of the challenge facing modern universities is to reform their promotion and tenure policies adequately to reflect the collective

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contribution of academics as active members of a series of overlapping communities rather than as individuals (see Chapter 4). However, as the chapter has highlighted, cultural barriers will be difficult to overcome in moving toward a more sophisticated reward and recognition system that includes, rather than excludes, service and academic citizenship.

Chapter 7

The academic citizen How are appointments to be made.    The chosen candidate must be a person who will do his duty to the university and the academic world as a loyal and responsible academic citizen. Shils (1997: 75–76) In uncertain times for public service, a clearer and more explicit way of explaining its values are needed. The Public Administration Select Committee (2002: 1)

Introduction In this chapter I will seek to identify the components of academic citizenship more fully through the perceptions of my interviewees and the work of writers, such as Shils (1997) and Kennedy (1997), who have concerned themselves, either directly or indirectly, with this concept. I will also build on the service pyramid, introduced in Chapter 4, by adding a moral dimension. This will result in the identification of the virtues and vices of academic citizenship through an application of Aristotelian theory. I will argue that these virtues provide a basis for understanding the moral dimension of the academic service role. They will further complement the identification of virtues in relation to the teaching role, a task I undertook in a previous book, entitled Teaching with Integrity: The Ethics of Higher Education Practice (Macfarlane, 2004).

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Defining academic citizenship In this book I have been examining the nature of academic citizenship in university life as implied by the service role. However, in some contexts, the phrase ‘academic citizenship’ is an expression used to refer to a code of behaviour and values expected from university students. Such expectations normally incorporate reference to academic honesty, obligations to attend class and submitting to standards of discipline and general behaviour set out by the university and/or faculty. It is about what is expected of students in order to become a bona fide member of the academic and university ‘community’. My use of the phrase ‘academic citizen’, in common with Shils (1997), refers to the character of academic faculty rather than a behavioural code expected of students. This is not intended to suggest that students are not also members of the academic community. Indeed, some, such as doctoral students, are essentially apprentices to full membership of that community. However, it implies that academic staff are primarily responsible for the functioning of this community and its interaction with wider society. In Edward Shils’ classic essay, The Academic Ethic, he identified academic citizenship as an obligation complementary to teaching and research. In Shils’ analysis of the criteria governing academic appointments, a university must choose not only the intellectually best candidate but one who will ‘do his duty to the university and the academic world as a loyal and responsible academic citizen’ (1997: 76). For Shils, the need for academic citizenship as an added criterion for appointments had been, at least in part, heightened by the politicization of the American campus during the radical years of the 1960s and 1970s. This had, in Shils’ view, resulted in some teachers using academic freedom as a justification for political rather than intellectual ends. Other writers, while not explicitly referring to academic citizenship, have concerned themselves with matters associated with academic ethics in relation to the service role. Kennedy argues that ‘service is an important academic duty in all colleges and universities’ (1997: 117). In the context of working in large publicly funded institutions, Kennedy identifies a range of obligations both in relation to the community external to the university including service to industry, professions and in outreach work together with participation in support of institutional policy, faculty administration and student affairs. For both Shils and Kennedy, academic citizenship is about engaging as a member of a community, or a

114 Service and citizenship Table 7.1 Definitions of academic citizenship Citizenship is about belonging to a group. A learning community is what it means most and being a member of that community. Belonging to a community with a set of values, rules and objectives with an idea of how it contributes to society at large. Being a part of the wider academic community, contributing, via scholarly activity and/or research, to the development of one’s area of knowledge and being supportive of others in the same. The term ‘academic citizenship’ is used in the Faculty. It’s a bit of a ‘catch-all’. Means a willingness to work with others, take part in projects and so on. Table 7.2 The obligations of academic citizenship Staying up to date, supporting students, supporting the organisation and sharing expertise in the wider sense within and outside the university. Academic citizenship implies being part of a community which is supportive of students, colleagues and stakeholders. It means doing your bit as an academic. There is limited money in the academic world and a lot of things would fall flat otherwise. Academic citizenship implies that academics have responsibilities that extend well beyond those to their immediate colleagues, students, discipline and university    the term implies obligations to society at large.

series of overlapping communities, something reflected in the responses of my interviewees when asked to explain their understanding of this phrase (Table 7.1). Membership of a community also implies obligations or duties of kinship in reciprocation of the benefits which membership brings. This was identified by my interviewees as applying to different groups or communities such as students and colleagues. Others also expressed the view that academic citizenship implied broader obligations in connecting their work with the concerns of society (Table 7.2).

The virtuous academic citizen Service activities may be thought of as indications of Aristotelian virtue (Lewes, 1906), excellences of character possessed by individuals that define

The academic citizen 115 Table 7.3 The virtues (and vices) of academic citizenship Community

Vice (deficit)

Virtue

Vice (excess)

Public Discipline/Profession Institution Colleagues Students

Academicism Egoism Departmentalism Remoteness Neglectfulness

Engagement Guardianship Loyalty Collegiality Benevolence

Simplification Sectarianism Parochialism Cliquishness Servility

the moral dimensions of professional life. It is possible to distinguish the importance of excellences of character associated with being a university teacher, such as respectfulness, sensitivity, pride and courage (Macfarlane, 2004). Virtues in relation to research, such as honesty, modesty and humility, have also been identified (Pring, 2001). Similarly, virtues in relation to citizenship might include ‘trust, solidarity, habits of cooperation and public spiritedness’ (Bron, 2001: 9). It follows that virtues may be isolated in relation to academic citizenship too (Table 7.3). In conjunction with the virtues are related vices corresponding with a deficit or an excess of these excellences of character. These virtues and vices stem from the implications arising from membership of the five communities within the service pyramid (see Chapter 4). The following analysis will explore each of these virtues and vices in more detail.

Engagement The virtue of engagement is about a disposition to share, or seek the application of, discipline-based or professional knowledge for wider public education or benefit. At an institutional level, engagement has been described as about setting university aims, purposes and priorities in conjunction with communities outside academe; relating teaching and learning to the wider world; maintaining a dialogue between researchers and practitioners; and accepting responsibilities as neighbours and citizens (Gourley, 2004). For academics working in applied areas of the curriculum, engagement is about maintaining their links with practice, integrating work-based and university learning as closely as possible and, in the process, maintaining the relevance of their teaching to the professional or occupational ‘context of application’ (Gibbons et al., 1994: 3). This commitment was most strongly expressed by respondents drawn from nursing and related healthcare subjects, the vast

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majority of whom started their careers in a professional practice, rather than academic, setting. Several business lecturers interviewed also expressed a commitment to maintaining their work in practice for similar reasons. This virtue is not only relevant to academics from applied disciplines. For large numbers of university lecturers employed in less directly vocational fields, engagement is about reaching the wider public in order to share the importance of their subject for a variety of social, cultural and economic reasons. Here, activities like the writing of popular books, public speaking, and working with other educational sectors, especially schools, and with the media, were seen as important in contributing to the wider public understanding and appreciation of disciplinary knowledge. In disciplines with declining student numbers at undergraduate level, such as chemistry, this was regarded as a particular obligation. Clearly engagement with the wider public means something very different to the nursing lecturer as opposed to the chemistry lecturer. However, for both types of lecturers, academicism is seen as a vice to be avoided. This vice refers to a lack of interest in the application of knowledge or the wider dissemination of that knowledge for the public benefit. A popular and much repeated criticism of academics is that they live in an ‘ivory tower’ (Boyer, 1990). This is connected with an exaggerated, though widespread, perception that some academics fail to communicate and explain their specialist scholarly knowledge to the wider public. In the context of educational studies, Nixon and Wellington (2005) identify the importance of writing books that move beyond an intra-professional or, possibly at best, inter-professional discourse. While a need for specialist discipline-based knowledge is accepted, they argue that ‘educational studies must ultimately be defined in respect to its orientation towards the diverse constituencies that comprise the increasingly complex and multifarious public sphere’ (Nixon and Wellington, 2005: 92). Academicism is also one of the ‘heresies’ identified by Goodlad (1995) in connection with academic life. For Goodlad, this term represents a refusal on the part of some educators to connect the curriculum with the broader implications of learning either personally or in relation to wider society. Here, the discourse of academic life is inwardly facing rather than engaging with communities beyond the discipline. As Rhodes (2001) has argued, the dialogue of the university needs to be shared or ‘multi-directional’ encompassing communication with other disciplines, professions, communities and the wider public. Academics, according to

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Umberto Eco, should regard being accessible as a moral duty (quoted in Richards, 1997). While engagement is regarded as an important moral commitment, there is a danger that the desire to communicate to a wider public will necessitate too great a compromise in the presentation of specialist knowledge. Criticism of academics who succeed in developing a wider audience for their work through the media is sometimes based on little more than professional jealousy. However, where personal vanity for attention and/or pecuniary gain leads individuals to over-simplify the complexity of academic knowledge, criticism is perhaps more justified. This is the vice of simplification. Explaining specialist academic knowledge in an accessible manner without compromising the underpinning principles and attendant complexities is a challenging task. Some academics, such as C. S. Lewis and A. J. P. Taylor, have arguably succeeded more than others in this demanding assignment. Of contemporary figures, it is perhaps too early to speculate which will be remembered as ‘public intellectuals’ since this accolade can fade for some after death whereas others will come to the fore (Brock, 1996). Barrow (2004) expresses concern about the vice of simplification when he criticizes the ‘sound-bite’ academic. Real intellectuals, Barrow contends, want the full story and the debate in all its complexity rather than one-liners. This is a sentiment shared by Brock (1996) who argues that ‘the great publicists tend to be great simplifiers, or, in other words, to some degree the creators of myths. Academics are right to shrink from that risk    ’ (p. 71). In interviews, some academics expressed the sentiment that their colleagues were overly committed to activities external to the university in working in the media or as members of public bodies. Over-commitment can occur where consultancy activities are undertaken primarily out of pecuniary rather than scholarly interest and result in a neglect of teaching and research responsibilities within the university (see Chapter 5). While undertaking consultancy is seen as a legitimate activity per se, particularly in subjects with commercial applications, spending too much time in this way is regarded in negative terms and can lead to the neglect of academic duties within the university, to colleagues and students. One business professor spoke approvingly of rules within his school to limit the amount of consultancy which colleagues were permitted to undertake. Such rules are common to business schools. More generally, extensive consulting activities can be perceived negatively as a sign that someone is seeking to ‘escape’ from the restrictions of the university (Gooler, 1991).

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Some academic staff achieve a degree of public recognition through holding some form of high profile public office, governmental advisory role or through appearing regularly in the mass media. It is important, though, not to overlook the streak of unwarranted jealousy that can sometimes underpin disapproval of high profile public service in much the same way as individuals earning rewards from consultancy can face disapproval from their peers. One of my respondents, for instance, was critical of academics who became ‘media darlings’. While such criticism can be motivated by little more than petty professional jealousy, there are risks that the commitment of individuals to teaching, research and other aspects of service will be damaged by the demands on their time in high status public or media roles. As Brock (1996) contends, ‘the academic who puts forward his views on the deepest questions may be suspected of popularity-seeking or of neglecting his proper tasks’ (pp. 74–75).

Guardianship The virtue of guardianship is about active participation in processes that develop communities of discipline-based or professional practice. It is about a commitment toward other scholars in the same field; a guardianship of academic and professional knowledge and to common standards of scholarship. Membership of discipline and professional communities is not bounded by physical location. It is probable that academics may share closer intellectual interests, arising from the study of a particular discipline, with a peer based at another institution than an institutional colleague with a different set of disciplinary and scholarly concerns. These intellectual connections are about belonging to an ‘invisible college’ (Halsey and Trow, 1971; Barnett, 1990). This is the network of informal relationships that link scholars with common disciplinary interests across institutions (Halsey and Trow, 1971). In an allusion to this invisible network of support within his discipline, one of my respondents made reference to his debt of gratitude to colleagues: He commented that he would ‘not be where I am without the help of people who went out of their way to write letters or review articles, and I feel a need to pass that on as a professional responsibility’. Reviewing conference papers, journal articles, book and research grant proposals, writing book reviews, acting as an external examiner from undergraduate to doctoral level or serving as an external member of an interview panel are all examples of work within the ‘invisible college’. Others make a more far-reaching

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contribution to this community by initiating conferences, founding or serving scholarly societies and networks, or starting new journals. Guardianship frequently involves acting as a member of discipline-based groups making judgments about the scholarly merit of colleagues who submit their research ideas or output for scrutiny within this community. In making judgments about the merit of scholarly output, it is important to strike a balance between the protection of existing intellectual norms and encouraging work that is innovative and that challenges prevailing paradigms. In other words, guardianship is about protecting standards but not inhibiting the growth of knowledge in the process. There is an element of inter-generational equity in operation here, a behaviour associated with enhancing the collegiality of academic life (Massy et al., 1994). Senior academics are often the ones in powerful positions to make judgments about the scholarly merit of work submitted by those of more junior rank. This is about being a responsible ‘gatekeeper’, one of ten categories of scholar identified by Podgorecki (1997). There are dangers and temptations, though, in the exercise of power connected with making judgments about the standards of teaching or research. Gatekeepers, as Podgorecki warns, can serve as censors as well as facilitators. The future of knowledge and the development of professional practice, across all subjects, depends on participating in communities dedicated to academic or professional knowledge to support, encourage and guide colleagues. Hence, while guardianship is about being a responsible gatekeeper, sectarianism is about participation in intellectual communities in order to promote narrow ideological or epistemological interests. While all academics ascribe to some form of ideological position through their choice of methodology, membership of scholarly societies and selection of research interests, it is important that these commitments do not result in a prejudiced attitude toward colleagues developing alternative scholarly perspectives. Here, personal convictions should not interfere with a more measured intellectual judgment in allowing others to develop their own voice. Rejecting a candidate for interview or a paper submitted to a journal on such prejudicial grounds are examples of the operation of this vice. Professional and disciplinary communities need to encourage alternative intellectual perspectives rather than stifle individuals who dare to challenge the status quo. The other extreme of guardianship is egoism. This is about an exclusive focus on personal scholarly reputation without being prepared to serve the knowledge or professional community. The fact that success in individual

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research and publication is habitually cited as ‘the way to get on’ in universities and colleges only serves to encourage the vice of egoism. Cahn (1986) uses the term ‘self-aggrandisement’ to refer to this type of selfish indifference, hypocritically ignoring the need to contribute to peer processes that make the path to personal glorification possible. Research reputation is built through competitive processes: striving to have a paper accepted by a highly rated journal, bidding for research funding and challenging rival theoretical perspectives. These processes are not for the faint-hearted. The vice of egoism has been allowed to take root more firmly as national research audits in some national contexts have increased the pressure for individual scholarly performance. While younger or less experienced academics looking to establish their own scholarly reputation may be well advised to focus on personal objectives, this should not exclude service to the community in, at least, the medium to longer term.

Loyalty Active participation in processes connected with departmental and institutional governance is central to the maintenance of academic freedom. This needs to be actively protected through continuing commitment to participation in governance rather than idly asserted as a ‘right’ of academic freedom. Here, Burgan (1998) has argued that principle needs to be accompanied by process. Participation in governance is a reflection of the loyalty of academic staff to the university as a collective entity based on co-operation with colleagues. This loyalty is demonstrated through taking part in some positive way in maintaining collective processes: serving on university committees, writing papers connected with institutional change and management, standing for Senate or, at the very least, voting for academic representatives. A number of respondents referred to their work in respect to university management and governance roles. Some representative work was undertaken on the basis of fulfilling ‘management’ responsibilities but respondents also made reference to a number of assignments undertaken out of a sense of loyalty to the collective well-being of the university. Contributing to a special initiative on widening participation or working as a representative for the Association of University Teachers serve as examples in this latter respect. Taking part in governance and institutional management were seen by most respondents as integral to being an academic rather than fulfilling performance targets. This indicates that a ‘collegiate esprit

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de corps’ (Tapper and Palfreyman, 2002: 52) is still considered important in academic life. The word loyalty implies that individuals participate in the life of the university and make a positive contribution to its betterment. However, in a world where institutional governance is increasingly seen as the job of professional managers rather than academics, loyalty is threatened by growing cynicism among academics that such matters are of any interest or relevance to them. This has led to a retreat by academics from service to the institution (see Chapter 1) and is represented by the vice of departmentalism. This vice occurs where the locus of loyalty is the department, center or basic unit rather than the wider university. Of course, intellectual interests are dominant factors in the social organization of universities (Becher, 1989; Goodlad, 1995) and many academics ‘identify’ more strongly with their department or basic unit than the university. Contemporary performance pressures on individuals, though, mean that academics have tended to withdraw more into their own departments (Barton and Rowland, 2003). Respondents were critical of individuals who were unprepared to take a part in the administrative life of the institution and regarded such disinclination as a form of freeloading. Several respondents regarded themselves as ‘workhorses’ invariably being called on by their dean or head of department to serve on a variety of committees, working parties or ‘task groups’. Asked to explain why they had come to assume this role, a common explanation made reference to committee and other representative work as the penalty they paid for being considered insufficiently research-active. Patterns of behaviour among academics in this respect also relate to the vice of egoism and the extent to which individuals are prepared to contribute to governance at the expense of developing their personal scholarly profile. One interviewee criticized the tendency of universities to balance representation from different departments, schools or other organizational units that, in the process, serves to encourage departmentalism. She spoke disapprovingly of the ‘politics which goes on all the time in committees at the university’ and the way certain members were minded only to block initiatives on the basis of departmental interests, regardless of their merit. This vice has long been associated with academic self-governance, originally parodied by Cornford in Microcosmographica Academica (Johnson, 1994). According to Watson (1994), it is a responsibility of ‘the managed’ not to turn their department into a laager or to avoid, in other words, being insular and defensively minded. Instead, academics need to think

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of community building in a wider sense incorporating colleagues from across the university rather than just within their own department or section. At the other extreme of loyalty is parochialism. Here, individuals participate willingly in institutional level committees, working parties and other forum. They are often the ‘workhorses’ of university life referred to above. However, there is a danger that such loyalty can lead to a narrowness of outlook and a belief that the challenges and issues facing the university are unique to the institution. An interviewee who had recently been appointed to a post-1992 UK university spoke disapprovingly of the tendency of long-standing members of the university community to speak ‘as if there is only one way of doing things’. This tendency is often a reflection of a process of enculturalization whereby an individual follows the norms and customs of the culture in which they have entered.

Collegiality1 Collegiality entails association with others on an equal basis. In the context of university life, it implies a willingness to share fully in administrative, managerial and mentoring processes, both formal and informal, at the level of the immediate academic unit. A series of nomenclatures apply including ‘center’, ‘school’, ‘institute’, ‘department’ or ‘faculty’. Collegiality is about being a supportive and generous colleague and entering into gift-giving relationships with others based on no expectation of reciprocal favors. Shils (1997) outlines what may be interpreted as a basis for collegiality identifying the importance of mutual respect and trust between colleagues, regardless of age and the keeping ‘alive’ of intellectual traditions by assimilating junior members into the social and moral traditions of the department. Here, according to Shils, senior and middle-aged members of department have a particular obligation to share their knowledge and experience, such as advising on how to apply for research grants, and encouraging junior members to pursue their own research agendas. The term ‘collegiality’ was used frequently by respondents with regard to this disposition, with examples of such behaviour including acting as an informal mentor to junior staff and a ‘critical friend’ to all colleagues.

1. The use of collegiality as a virtue, together with remoteness and cliquishness as connected vices, also appears in Macfarlane (2004) Teaching with Integrity in relation to managing academic programs.

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The use of the term ‘collegiality’ by respondents related strongly to what Tapper and Palfreyman (2002) refer to as ‘intellectual collegiality’. This implies the organization of teaching to insure that different intellectual perspectives are accommodated and that there is an unfettered exchange of views encouraging originality in research. However, the unequal power relationships that exist within the basic academic unit means that relations between colleagues can often be ‘contrived’ (Hargreaves, 1994) and result in the vice of cliquishness. This is a disposition to form exclusive relationships with colleagues that privilege some and exclude others. In the context of academic citizenship, it implies that the obligations of life within the basic academic unit are not fairly shared out. It often disadvantages colleagues of junior rank or those new to the department or lacking in experience through an expectation that those individuals outside the ‘clique’ will contribute disproportionately to low status service activities. Shils argues that ‘in teaching, junior members should not be disproportionately burdened by routine and disesteemed tasks’ (Shils, 1997: 67). He further warns against segregating junior members by allocating them elementary or non-specialized subjects. Several of my respondents identified the existence of this vice, especially those based in national contexts (such as the US) where there is a gulf between ‘tenured’ and ‘untenured’ staff. One respondent commented about the way the promise of gaining tenure was frequently invoked as a device to insure that junior faculty did more than their fair share of disesteemed tasks. ‘The tenure “clock” is routinely seven years, and junior faculty are repeatedly told that it is good form to do extra student advising, service on committees or other voluntary acts for the university (such as moderating sessions for student clubs or giving guest lectures for other instructors).’ The vice of cliquishness also relates to the gendered nature of citizenship roles. Women are good ‘campus citizens’ inasmuch that they contribute often disproportionately to student advising and in service to the institution (Burton, 1997). They are more likely to be taken advantage of in respect to fulfilling disesteemed roles due to their commitment to the ‘ethics of care’ (Gilligan, 1982), their ‘institutional virtue’ (Burton, 1997) and through occupying less senior positions in universities. Remotenesss is about a failure to accept the responsibilities of collegiality involving the need to share in the administrative, managerial and mentoring processes that are central to departmental life. This vice is often associated with certain more senior academics who, perhaps due to the strength of their

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talents or their organizational power, are allowed to contribute very little to the life of the department or faculty. System-wide change affecting higher education has led to a fundamental shift toward a culture based more closely on ‘performativity’ and income generation (Skelton, 2005). The changing culture across education sectors represented by the term ‘performativity’ is one characterized by an unremitting diet of ‘targets, indicators and evaluations’ (Ball, 2003: 215). This is perceived to have had a negative effect on the extent to which academics will model the virtue of collegiality, especially with regard to research. The impact of the Research Assessment Exercise in the UK, for example, has been blamed for creating a modern breed of professors who are ‘rather selfish in their approach’ (Richards, 1997: 4). Piercy (1999) argues that some business school professors ‘contribute little to their universities, their disciplines or professional groups, or to industry or commerce’ (Piercy, 1999: 698). In his analysis, Piercy identifies a number of ‘stereotypes’ of business school professors. One of these, labeled ‘the cowboys’, is associated with the selfish pursuit of paid consultancy interests outside the university contributing little in the process to teaching, research or service activities. Bassnett (2004) also summarizes the negative perceptions of professors held by staff on short-term contracts. Many are regarded as ‘idle, unwilling to support younger colleagues, content to let the burden of undergraduate teaching fall on other shoulders, distant, authoritarian’ (2004: 3). The exhibition of the vice of remoteness by some of the leaders of the academic profession damages the culture of collegiality that is essential for the preservation of good academic citizenship. The importance of senior faculty setting a good example in this regard will be explored further in a later chapter.

Benevolence The least visible form of service is the work of academics in respect to the student community. Here, respondents referred to the personal importance they attached to working as a ‘student tutor’ or ‘personal tutor’. For most, this involved being assigned a set number of students to ‘look after’ during the course of an academic year. However, both the nature of this advisory and/or pastoral role and the degree of formality that it entailed varied considerably. Some staff held regular tutorials with their ‘tutees’ and had received training and development to enable them to identify the signs of, and understand, commonly occurring student problems, such as dyslexia

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or social problems. Other academics had less well defined responsibilities and had received little or no guidance or development for such a role. This embraced a mix of academic-related obligations such as providing students with guidance on, or feedback about, assignments, advising on job and postgraduate applications or interviews, or acting as a student’s referee. There was also mention made of ‘pastoral’ obligations whereby tutors acted, often reluctantly, in a counseling role toward students with a host of personal and social problems, such as debts or family bereavement. Moreover, respondents indicated that their service responsibilities to students often extended beyond those individuals who were formally assigned to them but whom they came to know through teaching activities. There is a lack of clear guidelines, or career-related benefits, associated with student service. Extensive involvement in this type of work is seen as a ‘career cul-de-sac’ (Earwater, 1992: 50). Academic contracts tend to emphasize ‘teaching hours’ or research-related targets. Respondents in post-1992 UK universities frequently referred to their 550 hour ‘teaching loads’ per academic year that rarely took account of student service. Student advising, both pastoral and academic, is largely hidden behind the radar screen of reward structures and career development opportunities. Maintaining student service depends, almost entirely, on the virtue of benevolence; a preparedness to aid student development beyond conventional class-related obligations, such as lecturing or assessment. In the assessment process, as one of my respondents commented, some tutors are far more generous than others in providing students with feedback. In thesis, project and dissertation supervision, at all levels up to and including the PhD, the relationship between the student and their tutor(s) is central to the teaching and learning process. Here, the virtue of benevolence is particularly apposite. While such supervision is formally recognized through the allocation of notional teaching hours, the commitment of tutors to such work can vary considerably. Unfortunately, the increasing popularity of teaching observation schemes, both for developmental and auditing purposes, has tended to further marginalize the importance of more informal forms of teaching, assessment and feedback that are vital to student service. Sadly, not all academics are equally committed to the virtue of benevolence. While many staff talk of having an ‘open door policy’, some keep their doors firmly shut to students with academic and personal difficulties. They make themselves deliberately ‘unavailable’ to students (Trowler, 1997). One of my respondents referred to ‘colleagues who go AWOL’ when they should

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be available to give students tutorial assistance. This is the vice of neglectfulness renouncing responsibility for student development beyond the letter of the academic contract. The increasing casualization of the academic profession (Benjamin, 2000) together with the growth of research auditing and competitive processes are environmental factors that help to explain this form of behaviour. While such forces may have eroded the generosity of academics in respect to student service, the probable connection to worsening retention rates, at, for example, many UK universities over the last ten years, means that this phenomenon has economic as well as moral repercussions. Servility is a vice that lies at the other extreme of neglectfulness. It represents a disposition to regard relations with students as directly equivalent to those in any other market exchange of goods or services. It is a vice that characterizes the concern of respondents that students should not be treated simply as ‘customers’ in a market-based relationship by academics. Sometimes the service demands of students were considered by lecturers to be unreasonable, or not in their best interests. Examples given of what were perceived to be unreasonable demands were unlimited tutorial assistance in planning an assignment or for an assignment to be re-marked when a student was disappointed with a grade despite a double-blind marking process. One respondent expressed dismay at the weakness of university regulations in dealing with student plagiarism. Another respondent referred disparagingly to the practice of placing lecture notes on the ‘web’ arguing that this modern custom failed to challenge students to think critically. This view is echoed by a recent survey of academic staff in which almost three quarters of respondents agreed that ‘there is a risk of supporting students so much that it becomes spoon-feeding, not encouraging them to find their own stance’ (McNay, 2006: 11). These examples also serve to demonstrate that academics feel that being helpful and responsive to students can go too far and lead to a submissive consumer culture to meet the needs of the ‘customer’, a market analogy that many respondents were not prepared to endorse.

Conclusion This chapter has identified a series of virtues and vices associated with academic citizenship. It might be said that such a list is highly contextspecific and culturally bounded. However, the identification of virtues as a means of outlining ideal character is not limited to an exclusively western or

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secular philosophy. In the Buddhist, Christian and Confucian traditions, the virtues of good character play a central role (Alderman, 1997). The virtue of benevolence, identified in this chapter in relation to student service, is the paramount virtue of Confucian teaching along with sincerity, filial piety and righteousness (Fengyan, 2004). In Christian thought, St Thomas Aquinas refers to the ‘cardinal’ (or principal) virtues of justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude (Gilson, 1929). This indicates that a virtue-based approach may have a broad resonance across institutional contexts and cultures. Moreover, it needs to be acknowledged that the identification of a list of virtues does not automatically mean that all individuals will be able to practice them. They represent an ideal that academics can strive to attain through habit, training and following good examples. The ability of academics to be a role model for all these virtues depends on a variety of factors. First, more experienced, senior academics are better placed to fulfill the commitments implied by the upper echelons of the service pyramid. Full professors and senior lecturers arguably have a stronger obligation to demonstrate virtues such as engagement and guardianship. On the other hand, this should not imply that the work of student service should be disowned in the process and that junior or inexperienced staff should be bullied into filling this void as a rite of passage. Individual personality also plays a role in determining where academics will make their most significant service contribution. Some virtues, such as engagement, are more instrumental in nature than others, such as generosity, which is akin to benevolence (Pincoffs, 1986). An academic who has strong moral qualities, like benevolence, may not have the instrumental qualities, such as resourcefulness, needed to substantially engage with wider communities. Less experienced academics are capable of developing virtues other than benevolence in student service in a departmental or university culture that encourages an understanding of the service role. Individual personality needs to be nurtured to develop an understanding of the moral dimensions of the service role. Here, senior staff will play a key role in determining the environment of a university department or faculty. Despite the pressures of performativity and market-based competition in modern higher education, good examples set by others who, knowingly or unknowingly, act as role models is a central means by which virtue is learned (Ryle, 1972). As I will argue in Chapter 9, the senior academics of today have a responsibility to nurture the academic citizens of tomorrow through commitment to the service role.

Part III

Recovering academic citizenship

Chapter 8

Re-valuing student service Many educationalists would prefer to set up complicated procedures, separate structures, and various quasi-counselling services in order to avoid grappling with the real problem of assessment and personal tutoring. Bramley (1977: 30) In addition to skill, therefore, we need qualities which have traditionally been defined as ‘moral’: patience, respect for the other, a willingness to put the other’s interests above our own, altruism, caring. Earwater (1992: 67)

Introduction The virtues of academic citizenship, detailed in the previous chapter, may appear to readers of a pragmatic disposition, as largely unattainable given the conditions and pressures of modern higher education. This is characterized by rapid system-wide change, deteriorating staff–student ratios, the widening of participation to previously under-represented groups and a more demanding culture of public accountability and performativity (Ball, 2003; Skelton, 2005). Despite these pressures, this final section of the book will contend that it is possible to ‘recover’ academic citizenship in the modern university. It will be argued that re-discovering the significance of these virtues is vital for both practical and moral reasons. This chapter will focus on re-valuing the importance and centrality of ‘student service’ to academic practice. This includes an overlapping range

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of academic and pastoral responsibilities that comprise the least ‘visible’ or prestigious aspects of service. In terms of the perceived link with scholarship and status, this is situated firmly at the base of the service pyramid (see Chapter 4). Student service, though, is in many respects the most important duty of an academic; variously acting as a teacher, mentor, coach, counsellor and friend to insure that learners find university life a positive and personally enriching experience. However, higher education institutions have developed a reward and recognition system for academic staff that, to some extent, runs counter to this duty. While reward schemes for ‘excellent’ teaching are now in place in many universities and at national level, these tend to privilege formal and more measurable elements of teaching ‘performance’ (see Chapter 3). They offer little by way of incentives for some of the less visible but, nonetheless, essential elements of being a good teacher in the broadest sense of that word. If the twin concepts of service and academic citizenship are to be re-invigorated, we need to start by addressing the relatively low status of student service. Hence, this chapter will consider how student service can be re-vitalized as a key academic role with attendant scholarly status.

Student service and retention In recent years, student retention has become a critical issue for UK higher education. Accelerating participation rates have been accompanied by worsening rates of retention adversely affecting the reputation and financial health of institutions. It is estimated that non-completion rates in the UK stand at approximately 17 percent (Christie et al., 2004). As a result, many universities and colleges make retention the focus of ‘strategic’ policy documents, institutional research and initiatives. The problem of retention is, though, not a new phenomenon. ‘Wastage’ was an issue noted by the Robbins Report on UK higher education back in 1963. The report also noted that student drop-out is much higher in the US and France where the rate has historically been in the region of between 40 and 50 percent. This may largely be attributed to higher participation rates in North America and parts of continental Europe compared with the UK. However, the gradual massification of UK higher education compared with the early 1960s has led to higher levels of student non-completion in the UK and in other national systems. As a result, internationally, there is now a growing body of research

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evidence on the reasons why students ‘drop-out’ of higher education (e.g. Tinto, 1993; McInnes, 2000; Yorke, 1999). The reasons underpinning retention are complex and related to the extent to which students experience both social and academic integration (Tinto, 1993). For some groups, such as mature students, financial reasons can play a more significant role in the decision to discontinue their studies. What is clear from this research, though, is that the tutor is the most significant ‘actor’ in determining whether students persist (Gibbs, 2004). Drop-out is most common during the first year of study and this is where the structure of advising is critical to the student experience (Barefoot, 2004). Unfortunately, rather than making undergraduates feel cared for as part of a new community, the reality for many is an ‘impersonal first-year experience where students are rarely known by name or recognized for their individual characteristics’ (Barefoot, 2004: 14). While Barefoot is referring to a North American context, a broadly similar pattern now applies in the UK.

The ‘personal tutor’ British, and more especially English, higher education has a long tradition of the lecturer acting as a personal tutor responsible for the moral well-being of students in addition, and complementary, to their intellectual growth (Arthur, 2005). This tradition stretches back to medieval universities which were concerned with the preparation of young men for entry into the law, medicine and the church (see Chapter 2). The tutorial tradition is most intimately associated with the older English universities as opposed to the Scottish ancients or newer English universities (Robbins Report, 1963). Here teaching was characterized by ‘a close, concerned relationship between students and teachers’ (Brown, 2002: 141). The decentralization of teaching at Oxford and Cambridge from the middle of the sixteenth century meant the academic and pastoral responsibilities of tutors became ‘increasingly blurred’ (Skelton, 2005: 28). It is important to be clear, though, about what is actually meant by the term ‘tutorial’ as it is a word subject to a wide range of interpretations. The ‘old-style tutorial’ associated with teaching at Oxford and Cambridge is one ‘in which teaching is a dialogue between one teacher and one pupil based on the pupil’s written work’ (Robbins Report, 1963: 185). However, the Robbins Report offers a broader definition of a ‘tutorial system’ which it commends as a pattern of support for students to all universities.

134 Recovering academic citizenship a system that ensures that the pupil comes into personal contact with his teachers, and he feels he can bring his difficulties and problems to them, and that his progress is a matter of sympathetic concern to them    (Robbins Report, 1963: 186–187)

The Robbins Report went on to recommend that every institution should assign each student with a personal tutor ‘whom he can consult at any time over his work and, if he wishes, his personal affairs’ (1963: 188). The personal tutoring ‘system’ in the Oxbridge tradition was mimiced by the English universities established in the 1960s and 1970s (Williamson, 1972; Pashley, 1974; Arthur, 2005). The personal tutor, aside from duties as a teacher, was expected to be a ‘guide, philosopher and friend to a given number of students’ (Pashley, 1974: 179). Essentially, a personal tutor was someone who dealt with the everyday needs and problems affecting students, both academic and personal, barring those of a psychopathological nature (Bramley, 1977). It might have been thought that, when the age of majority was reduced in the UK from 21 to 18 more than thirty years ago, the assumption that the personal tutor would act as a moral guide might have withered. However, the removal of the legal obligations surrounding the in loco parentis principle which took place in the UK in 1970,1 and with it much of the original justification for the personal tutoring role, has done little to clarify understanding. Forty years on from the Robbins Report, while many contemporary higher education institutions continue to support the principle of the personal tutor in theory, in practice, evidence indicates that the system is under serious strain in many universities. Rising student numbers, worsening staff–student ratios, the increasing casualization of academic labor and other pressures related to research and quality audit mean that the student experience is becoming ever more impersonal as academic staff have less time to provide tutorial assistance. While there is a growing literature asserting the positive relationships between teaching and research, studies have demonstrated that universities with a research-intense environment for staff may also create the conditions that lead to student dissatisfaction with levels of tutorial support. In a study of American undergraduate colleges, Astin and Chang (1995) found that research orientation among faculty staff had a negative effect on

1 This resulted from the Family Law Reform Act (1969).

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student satisfaction, measured in terms of cognitive and personal development. A more recent account of life inside a leading research university also indicates the lack of support for student advising as a function. Frank H. T. Rhodes, who served an eighteen-year tenure as President of Cornell University, asserts that ‘(student) advising is generally unstressed by university officers, unenforced by chairs, unrecognized by peers, and unrewarded by the institution’ (2001: 77). Similarly, the ‘open door’ policy of the British academic has come under similar pressure and been largely replaced, in the age of mass participation, by ‘office hours’ not uncommonly restricted to little more than one hour of tutor availability per week (Brown, 2002). Lack of availability to see students is also condoned, or even favored, as a more efficient use of time to get on with the serious business of being research-active. Lecturers in many institutions are encouraged to distance themselves from students by institutional pressures which prefer prolific researchers to committed, concerned teachers. (Brown, 2002: 143)

These pressures are also leading to a decline of formative feedback on student work, something which the research has demonstrated is very important to retention. The reality is stated starkly by Yorke (2001: 122). The pressures on academic staff are such that they see little scope for providing formative feedback (let alone getting to know the students as people) in the dozen or so weeks that pass before the first summative assessments take place.

The adoption of modular structures have exacerbated the difficulties of providing formative feedback and damaged the extent to which staff can build relationships with students. In a modular system, these relationships must now be built over a shorter time frame of 10, 12 or perhaps, at most, 15 weeks rather than the duration of a complete academic year. In practical terms, it is difficult for tutors to get to know the names of their students before the end of short modules. The increasing dependence of academic institutions on part-time staff also militates against student support. Part-time faculty often have no office facilities in which they can meet their students besides which they are rarely contractually required to be on campus except to teach formal classes (Bennett, 2002). Symptomatic of this state of affairs is the fact that the largest employer of academic labor in

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the US is not a university but a temporary agency called Manpower Inc. (Taylor, 1999). While reasons for student non-completion are complex, it is likely that the role of ‘academic difficulties’ in the decision to withdraw is probably under-reported. This is because, in being asked to explain their reasons for dropping-out, students are likely to want to present themselves in a positive light (Davies and Elias, 2002; Christie et al., 2004). Hence, the role of a proactive academic tutor is vital in formative assessment and feedback processes if ‘academic difficulties’ are to be identified and addressed at the crucial early stage in the students’ course of studies. The importance of feedback and the tutorial role is also damaged by the spurious argument that students are only interested in their grade rather than written or oral commentary. This argument is based on the assumption that students are ‘surface’ learners with a purely instrumental attitude to their studies. ‘Surface’ learning is characterized by memorization and regurgitation of facts in assessments. This contrasts with a ‘deep’ approach to learning where students try to understand the connections between concepts integrating new knowledge with old (Marton and Saljo, 1976). Thus, it is often assumed that students in the age of mass higher education adopt the characteristics of the surface learner and, therefore, have little interest in feedback beyond their grade. Challenging this assumption, a study on assessment feedback found that while students were naturally concerned to discover their grade they also valued feedback comments (Higgins et al., 2002). The majority of students in the study were found to be intrinsically motivated to improve on the basis of feedback from tutors to develop generic, ‘deep’ skills. The authors of the study also report that students felt that they had a right to feedback commentary which helped them to improve and that providing this was the tutor’s ‘duty’.

The growth of specialist support The response of institutions to the challenges of widening participation and retention has been to invest in student support units dedicated to providing a specialized service. These units provide specialized services in areas such as skills development (including literacy, numeracy, IT and broader academic study skills), counseling, dyslexia support and careers guidance. The vulnerability and particular needs of students with disabilities or, to some extent,

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those from overseas have been recognized through the establishment of units dedicated to meeting their needs. Invariably these units provide a valuable service to students often on the basis of limited funding. Some might ascribe their development to a creeping ‘therapy culture’ that has come to normalize going to university as a traumatic experience (Furedi, 2003). However, the growth of student support services outside of academic department structures is also symbolic of the decline of academic citizenship and the narrowing focus of what ‘counts’ as teaching. Ironically, the rapid acceptance of the role of extended support services has led to an impoverishment of the role of the academic tutor, as Barefoot (2004: 13) points out: when retention is perceived to be the ‘business’ of student services, course instructors are in essence relieved of any responsibility to relate retention to what happens in the classroom or in other teaching/learning settings.

Less contact between academic staff and students has also been legitimized by attempts to improve the ‘efficiency’ of teaching and learning. This has resulted in university environments ‘where students may work in bigger groups, have rather less direct contact with staff, and where staff may generally seem less available/approachable’ (Christie et al., 2004: 634). In a study of Scottish universities, only a minority of students who experienced academic, social and financial problems went to lecturers, tutors or other support staff for help (Christie et al., 2004). There is also a practical assumption that improved funding for professional and specialized support services will help to stem the non-completion problem (Universities UK, 2001). This ignores the fact that it is often the lack of social and academic integration into the life of the university that underpins student withdrawal (Tinto, 1993). Academic tutors are in a unique position to provide this social and academic integration rather than professional support services. Further ‘unbundling’ of the academic role (Kinser, 1998) by investment in professional support services and establishing specialist personal tutors is unlikely to reverse the retention problem. This is not because those in support roles do not provide a good service. There is a need for students to have access to specialist support such as counsellors trained in psychotherapy and, exceptionally, psychiatrists medically trained to be able to diagnose and treat mental illness. Rather, it is because academic staff are in a unique position of trust to build integrated

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social and academic relationships with students. As Bramley (1977: 19) argues, If the personal tutor role is seen as a speciality in its own right divorced from the teaching function, then an uncomfortable atmosphere is produced between personal tutor and students and they fail to relate spontaneously to one another.

Recovering the role of the tutor There is, thus, an urgent practical and moral need to revive the personal tutoring role of academic staff. Practically this is because such contact is critical to retention and the increasing diversity of the student body. Prior to mass participation in higher education, it would be fair to say that the role of the personal tutor was often somewhat vague and ill-defined. In most UK universities, it tended to refer to the need for an academic member of staff to act in a pastoral capacity towards a small number of first-year students. In effect, the personal tutor was cast in the role of de facto parent built on the assumption that students were a largely homogenous group of young and immature individuals living away from home for the first time. While the profile of students in higher education has now changed dramatically and fewer can now afford to live away from home, the need for the personal tutor is as great as ever. It is clear that one way of reviving the perceived importance and status of academics as personal tutors is to link their activities to institutional objectives with regard to retention and student skills development. Some institutions have already recognized that they need to revive and modernize the role of the personal tutor by linking their work explicitly to the development of student academic skills. Here, tutors are specifically tasked with identifying and working with students to develop their academic and learning skills. Where this type of work is given academic credit, tutors can be allocated teaching hours for this type of work and it is more likely to produce desired results. Linking the role of the tutor with the development of a student’s employability and work-related skills is increasingly coming to define the role of the modern personal tutor. In the UK, following a recommendation of the Dearing Report on higher education (NCIHE, 1997), all universities are now

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formally committed to implementing a system of ‘progress files’ for students on taught courses (East, 2005). Progress files consist of three elements: an institutional transcript of an individual student’s educational achievements, a supported learning process by which students reflect on their personal goals and achievements referred to as ‘personal development planning’, and records to support a student’s claims to the possession of a particular skills set (Clegg, 2004; Jackson and Ward, 2004). UK higher education institutions are currently establishing a variety of means by which progress files may be integrated into students’ learning experience. One commonly adopted strategy is to use existing personal tutor systems as a vehicle for introducing students to personal development planning (East, 2005). Re-orientating the work of personal tutors towards working with students to help them identify and develop their skills profile may appear attractive. It poses the risk, though, that the pastoral responsibilities of the personal tutor will be cast further into the background. The progress files initiative is built on a government policy focus that emphasizes the economic development of human capital with employment-related skills (Clegg, 2004). It is not concerned, particularly, with the emotional or moral growth of students that has traditionally been at the heart of the role of the personal tutor. There are further pragmatic reasons why academics should strengthen, rather than reject, their historic role as personal tutors. Academics provide students with pastoral support in an amateur tradition while counsellors are drawn from a professional tradition with its roots in psychology as a discipline. Indeed, alluding to her colleagues within a university counseling service, Brown states that while everyone refers to themselves as a ‘counsellor’, some could be more accurately described as ‘psychotherapists’ or ‘clinical psychologists’ (Brown, 2002). In the UK, there are now professional groupings of staff in advisory and counseling roles such as Heads of University Counselling Services (HUCS), Association of University and College Counsellors (AUCC) and Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) (Humphreys, 2005). The counseling tradition has its roots in the US where universities have a much longer history of employing professionals working in this capacity. British ‘reserve’ or ‘reticence’ about personal matters is widely acknowledged (Earwater, 1992). This means that it might be the amateur tutor rather than the professional counsellor who is better able to meet the needs of British students. A further pressure comes from the development of new attitudes to higher education as a service industry that should provide a good level

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of ‘service’ to its customers. There is growing evidence to suggest that this market analogy is becoming more widely accepted. It means that university students increasingly regard themselves as ‘paying customers’ in both western and eastern higher education contexts (Bai, 1997). The growth of tuition fees in English universities will probably accelerate this trend as students enter higher education with greater expectations and with more willingness to litigate if these expectations are not met (Humphreys, 2005). In the age of the student-as-customer, one-to-one relationships with tutors have never been as important in sustaining a higher education experience. At a different level, though, pastoral care is something that should be of concern to all teaching staff. This does not mean that academic tutors should become professional counsellors as part of the growing ‘therapy culture’ of modern society (Furedi, 2003). Knowing when, and to whom, to refer a student for specialist support remains vital. Often, due to increased workload and other pressures on time, such as meeting the demands for research output, there can be a failure to identify student problems and refer them to an appropriate student service early enough (Thomas et al., 2002). However, being referred can also be experienced by students in a negative way, as someone ‘fobbing’ them off, and may, in the process, damage the relationship established between student and tutor. Bramley (1977) outlines twelve different types of referral, some of which, such as the ‘abandonment’, ‘premature’, ‘unnecessary’ and ‘panic’ referrals, illustrate an abdication of responsibility or an error of judgment on the part of the tutor. Such decisions, often made with the best of intentions, can damage students in unintended ways. Referral can result in students feeling that they have been branded as weak minded, rejected by their tutor and ‘ashamed and humiliated at the prospect of laying what they see as their weaknesses before yet another person, who in many Colleges will be a complete stranger’ (Bramley, 1977: 44). Increasingly, though, conceptions of the personal tutor model in contemporary higher education are based primarily on their role as a gatekeeper or broker to specialist learner support services (Ottewill and Maier, 2005). While Bramley’s work on personal tutoring dates back to the 1970s, it is unlikely that the kind of reactions she describes have altered substantially in the interim. Moreover, in modern systems of mass higher education, the student population no longer consists of a homogeneous group of young, middle class and (largely) white young people with few demands on their

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time apart from studying for their degree (Little, 2006). The student population is now far more heterogeneous by reference to levels of maturity, ethnic origin, cultural background, religion, social and economic class and previous learning experiences. Just one of these factors, cultural diversity, demands knowledge and sensitivity on the part of the contemporary personal tutor. The internationalization of the student population is another powerful reason why there is a need to revive personal tutoring. In UK and Australian higher education, many universities have become increasingly dependent on the income generated from expanding places for students from overseas. Around one in eight of full-time students in both UK and Australian universities are now from overseas and the figure at postgraduate level in the UK is approaching a third. The liberalization of the Chinese economy has partly fueled this demand together with the expansion of the membership of the European Union improving access to UK higher education for students from eastern European countries. While students from overseas provide a financial boost for cash-strapped institutions, they also present significant challenges for tutors who need to be aware of cultural differences in styles and attitudes with regard to learning. For example, there is now an expanding literature on cultural differences between students from different national and ethnic backgrounds, especially those of Chinese origin (e.g. Li, 2003; Jones, 2005). It would be false to assume, though, that rising numbers of students from overseas implies a growing dichotomy between local (or domestic) and international learners. Indeed, it may mean that some local groups of students share more in common with groups of overseas students on the basis of culture and/or religion (Asmar, 2005). Greater student diversity, on the basis of race, nationality and culture, implies a need for faculty to develop their knowledge of these differences, analyse their teaching and tutoring practices and respond appropriately (see Chapter 10). The increasing use of information and communication technology in higher education further highlights the contemporary importance of the personal tutor role. Email has become a significant means of communication in university life and students increasingly seek tutor support via this medium. Moreover, an increasing number of universities and colleges have adopted electronic (or ‘e’) learning as a mode of delivering all or part of an academic program. E-learning is seen as a means of making higher education accessible to more students transcending restrictions of time and space especially for communities in rural areas or those working in full-time

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employment (Bentley, 1998). Other perceived benefits of e-learning include its interactional potential, accessibility to students with disabilities and cost effectiveness over traditional face-to-face education from both a student and institutional perspective (Madoc-Jones and Parrott, 2005). While e-learning approaches to the delivery of academic programs may provide benefits in certain respects, there is a danger that students will perceive such approaches as a reduction of the quality of their learning experience in relation to contact with tutors. Students in online programs still expect tutors to show an interest in them as individuals and provide the kind of support, advice and encouragement one would normally associate with the role of a personal tutor (Hanson, 2003). Other research indicates that e-learning does not replace the need for tutors who provide students with academic and emotional support (Carnwell, 2001). Face-to-face contact is vital in developing some sense of ‘connectedness’ (Carnwell and Baker, 2005) as is developing online provision which is sensitive to cultural and linguistic differences in customizing provision for different global regions such as the Asia-Pacific market (Marginson, 2004b: 110).

Tutoring and contextual pressures Aside from the increasing complexity of the student body, the role of the academic tutor is under pressure from various other sources. The increasing atomization and fragmentation of the academic job description has squeezed tutoring in comparison to the demands of research output and ‘contact’ hours, defined narrowly in terms of whole group classroom teaching. Tutoring plays a vital role in the student experience but, by its essentially private and individualized nature, is not open to crude measures of effectiveness. Reward systems are built around research and, to a much lesser extent, formalized aspects of teaching. The concept of the personal tutor is also under pressure from those who would contend that academics are (largely) unqualified to involve themselves with students at a personal level lacking the professional counseling qualifications and skills required to help them with any non-academic problem in their lives. Personal tutoring is thus a marginalized and disesteemed activity, the legitimacy of which is now being called into question by the professional counseling culture (Furedi, 2003). The concept of the personal tutor is in need of recovery.

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In recovering personal tutoring, it is important that the threats from research-intensive cultures are challenged. In focus group studies with groups of British undergraduates, Lindsay, Breen and Jenkins (2002) found that students perceived staff research as taking place quite separate from themselves as learners. Students did not see themselves as stakeholders in staff research and commented on the negative effects of the way staff research was managed, such as key academics being unavailable to interact with them. Zamorski (2002), in a study at another UK university, found that students felt ‘excluded’ from the university as a research community. A way of overcoming this sense of exclusion among students is to involve undergraduates as researchers or participants in work carried out by academic staff as an integral part of a course. This can provide students with important intellectual development and make them into participants, rather than outsiders, in the research process (Jenkins et al., 2003). In the process, stronger relationships can be built between staff and students as co-learners. It is important to contest the separation between teaching and research, especially in research-intensive universities. While this problem may be less immediate in institutions with an emphasis on teaching rather than research, there are still threats to the tutorial relationship. In post-1992 UK universities a common expectation is that staff will teach up to 550 hours per academic year. However, it is rare to find that any of these hours are specified in relation to personal tutoring. The assumption that personal tutoring does not ‘count’ as teaching needs to be challenged in a similar way that tutors engaging in online or work-based learning arrangements need to have these aspects of their practice recognized and rewarded.

Developing personal tutors A minority view among my respondents was that student advising was not really their ‘business’. This reticence was expressed by two of my younger respondents, one of whom pointed out that ‘as lecturers we are handed the role of personal tutors without any training’. This points to the need to incorporate a stronger emphasis on personal tutoring as an element of academic development programs if this role is to be recovered. It is now commonplace for UK higher education institutions to require their new and inexperienced academic staff to undertake a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning

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and Teaching. These programs, however, rarely include a substantive focus on the personal tutoring role. The Higher Education Academy, acting as the accrediting body for such awards, requires such curricula to cover ‘the development of effective learning environments and student support systems’ as one of five broad areas of professional knowledge. This, though, is often interpreted in terms of provision of electronic learning resources, use of information technology in teaching and making staff aware of professional university services to which they can refer their students. Personal tutoring is not the same as providing online learning opportunities to students. Similarly, the emphasis of many accredited learning and teaching certificates on teaching observation privileges the large-scale formal teaching context (e.g. the lecture or whole group discussion) over the informal one-to-one exchange (e.g. the tutorial). By focusing on a narrow range of presentation skills, teaching observation fails to capture and value aspects of academic practice such as one-to-one tutoring and provision of feedback to students. Given its obvious limitations, it is a worrying trend that teaching observation is used increasingly in institutions solely to determine whether academic staff are competent teachers. Incorporating personal tutoring in academic development programs will not make lecturers into professional counsellors. This does not mean, though, that academics should not be prepared to take responsibility for helping students. The ‘moral’ qualities of ‘patience, respect for the other, a willingness to put the other’s interests above our own’ (Earwater, 1992: 67) are needed in addition to academic knowledge and teaching skills. Individuals wishing to side-step this aspect of academic life will always find reasons for not taking responsibility for student service pleading role overload. This does alter the fact that such a responsibility remains an historically rooted part of being an academic.

Conclusion There are many spurious reasons as to why the role of the personal tutor is no longer valued. Bureaucratically, it is an outmoded role that is difficult to evaluate and fails to fit with a performance-based culture. Teaching hours rarely capture the time tutors spend informally guiding and supporting students. Another spurious argument is that there are now other professionally trained specialists employed to support students. Modern universities

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employ counsellors, careers professionals, subject librarians, finance/student debt advisors, disability advisors, Chaplains, numeracy and literacy specialists and international student officers. It is not just minority groups who are considered to require specialist support. This now extends to mature students at some universities even though this is the age profile of the majority of British students (Humphreys, 2005). These support professionals are often better qualified to help students in relation to many of their learning and emotional needs. They can and do play important roles in supporting students. However, their existence should not be taken as a cue by some academic staff to renounce any interest in student problems by simply acting as a ‘gatekeeper’. Referral of a student to another more qualified professional demands emotional intelligence dependent on individual circumstances rather than an attitude of disinterest or, worse, neglect. Just as the university curriculum should be about more than knowledge and skills (Barnett and Coate, 2005), teaching involves engaging with students as persons rather than simply depositories of learning. Many academics still find the pastoral role meaningful to help students develop and achieve their goals (Collins, 2005). It is not a role that should be restricted to specialists or academics assumed to have greater capacity in this role. Rather, it is something that all academics should be required to contribute to, regardless of seniority or presumptions about personal skill sets as part of good academic citizenship.

Chapter 9

Leading academic citizens We forget at our peril the medieval origins of universities as guilds analogous to the craftman’s guild, in which the masters, the journeymen and apprentices were all brethren but not equal. The apprentice had to serve his terms and learn the mystery before he could judge a masterpiece and admit its maker to become one of themselves. The future of the craft, its standards, its ethics, were in their hands. Equally, today’s professors and lecturers cannot abdicate the duty laid upon them by their calling. Mowat (1968: 13)

Introduction Mowat’s analogy of the university professor as master craftsman provides a useful starting point in considering the responsibilities of our leading academic citizens.1 As Mowat suggests, the senior members of the academic profession should insure that they uphold the standards of their discipline as responsible gatekeepers. However, they must equally nurture the next generation of scholars, including students and junior colleagues, if their discipline is to thrive in the future. The relationship between the masters (the senior lecturers and professors), the journeymen (the lecturers) and the apprentices (the students), though, is essentially one of unequals. Despite the talk of collegiality in academic life, significant differences

1 The title of the chapter is inspired by Robin Middlehurst’s book, Leading Academics.

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within the academic community in terms of position power and status provide many opportunities to take advantage of others. Thus, one of the first duties of the senior academic leader, in common with others at the top of their profession in other fields, is to resist the temptation of abusing their privileged position by making unreasonable demands on those of junior rank. As indicated in Chapter 7, cliquishness is a vice associated with an excess of collegiality where this virtue is distorted in favor of certain individuals and often to the disadvantage of junior or inexperienced colleagues. Senior academics are critical in the process of social reproduction of new academics but they can also play a vital role in the internal life of the university as leaders and in helping their respective institutions to engage with society. The role of the doctorate as a rite of passage is critical in this process of social reproduction as is the treatment of doctoral students who often fulfill teaching duties as graduate teaching assistants. This chapter will focus on the special role of the senior academic, and especially the professoriate, in setting good examples as academic leaders. The responsibility of being an appropriate role model for others to follow cannot be underestimated in the preservation of academic citizenship.

Collegiality as oligarchy The rapid growth of central government funding for university education during the early to mid-twentieth century, particularly in the UK, had a number of effects. One of these, as noted in Chapter 2, was that many universities came to rely less on the benefaction of local government, philanthropists and other forms of community support and began an academic drift away from the civic ideals of their founding fathers. They no longer needed to confine their attentions to meeting the technological needs of local industry or in professional training and began a process of absorption into the Oxbridge tradition. Another effect was that universities, with both civic and medieval roots, became more autonomous in terms of self-governance and moved away from lay control (Moodie and Eustace, 1974; Scott, 1995; Lapworth, 2004). The strength of the welfare state tradition after World War II meant that governments in the UK, and elsewhere in Western Europe, regarded the provision of higher education as a social responsibility but acted

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as a patron rather than a regulator (Scott, 1995). In the UK, the University Grants Committee acted as a gentlemanly buffer between universities and the state. The so-called ‘donnish dominion’ (Halsey, 1992) reached a high watermark in the 1960s in a higher education system largely insulated from political and market pressures (Moodie and Eustace, 1974; Scott, 1995). In this protected and privileged position, internal academic selfgovernance thrived. Derived from the liberal Oxbridge tradition, and simultaneously supporting university autonomy and academic freedom, it is described by Middlehurst (2004: 260) in the following terms: The model of internal governance that supported this position was one in which academic authority was supreme, expressed operationally in terms of management and decision-making through committees, with senior academics chairing the committees. The purpose of the committees was to achieve consensus about the direction and functioning of the institution across the range of different academic interests, and to maintain this over time.

Sometimes this period of well-funded, elite higher education with high levels of academic self-governance is recalled fondly by those who experienced it as a ‘golden era’. However, it gave considerable power and authority to academics. Power was concentrated in university Senates in which the professoriate was a dominant influence (Moodie and Eustace, 1974). The notion of the old collegial university as a site of critical and open exchange is an abiding myth. In reality, heads of department carried out their role in a somewhat authoritarian manner (Barton and Rowland, 2003). Here, it is important not to confuse an academic oligarchy for a fully functioning academic democracy. The subsequent decline of academic self-governance is well charted (e.g. Tapper and Salter, 1992). It is closely associated with the perception that the slow and consensual nature of collegial decision-making is out of step with contemporary global and market pressures on higher education demanding rapid responsiveness to a more dynamic external environment (Lapworth, 2004). The need for speedier decision-making has led to the importation of managerial practices from the business sector into higher education and other public sector organizations, referred to by Deem (1998), and others, as ‘new managerialism’. Moreover, the post-1992 UK universities have adopted a model of governance that gives greater power

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to Boards of Governors dominated by non-executive directors. These, and other, changes mean that academic self-governance has been severely limited over the last twenty years as universities have sought to become more competitive.

Inclusive collegiality History shows us that academic governance has been too often rooted in oligarchic inequality rather than the democratic ideal. It is important to acknowledge the need for governance to be more inclusive of different categories of staff in the future rather than demand a return to the oligarchic ways of the past. Dearlove (1997) identifies a number of characteristics of collegiality including financial independence, participatory democracy, shared values, equal status of academics and the inclusion of non-academics. In a global and market-based environment, financial independence is the preserve of an elite few Oxbridge colleges. Most of these other characteristics, though, can still be practiced, particularly at the level of the department where the influence of academic leaders remains critical. The notion of equal status among academics is one characteristic that needs to be re-visited in relation to the position of graduate teaching assistants and part-time staff, especially women who are twice as likely as men to be employed on such a contract in a UK context (HESA, 2004). These categories of staff have traditionally had very little input into collegial decision-making processes. Both these groups are now central to the provision of higher education in many contexts. Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are postgraduate students, normally pursuing a PhD or equivalent, who generally teach undergraduates on a part-time basis (Park and Ramos, 2002). In a North American context, there is a long history of using graduate teaching assistants within undergraduate programs to enable academics to spend more time on research and postgraduate tuition (Shannon et al., 1998). In the UK, there is a growing dependence on GTAs in teaching undergraduate degree programs (Park and Ramos, 2002). By employing doctoral and other postgraduates as teachers they cross the line that divides the ‘students’ from the ‘teachers’. GTAs are invariably involved in assessment and marking practices that also, in effect, make them examiners. They are neither ‘fish nor fowl’ (Park, 2004) and serve, simultaneously, as students, employees and apprentices (Vaughn, 1998).

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The apprenticeship metaphor is plainly inadequate, though, since few GTAs receive a satisfactory vocational training for the teaching function or a guarantee of academic employment on graduation (Nelson and Watt, 1999). Sometimes it is idly asserted that GTAs do not really ‘teach’ because they are mostly involved in grading papers and leading small group seminar discussions. However, arguably, these can be more difficult and demanding elements of professional practice than delivering a lecture with minimal student interaction. Fortunately, the importance of providing support through mentoring or formal teaching instruction programs for GTAs is now being slowly recognized both in the UK and the US. Rhodes (2001) asserts that instructing GTAs who teach in pedagogic techniques should be an obligation for universities, a sentiment which echoes that of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in their Statement on Graduate Students first adopted in 2000 (American Association of University Professors, 2005b). Here, there is a strong moral case for arguing that GTAs, along with other part-time academic staff, should be treated as full members of faculty. This would imply their right to participate as equal members of departmental committees. The department is the basic unit of governance in university life (Moodie and Eustace, 1974). Broadening participation to include GTAs, and other part-time staff, might also be a driver for addressing long-standing inequalities in their treatment including a lack of training, support and empathy for their role from other academic colleagues (Park and Ramos, 2002). Unionization of GTAs in the US has resulted in a strengthening of their position from a legal perspective (Streitz and Hunkler, 1997). This creates an added practical reason to respond to growing recognition of their status as members of the workforce. The AAUP Statement on Graduate Students also acknowledges the need for improved standards of treatment and a strengthened governance role for GTAs. Graduate students should have a voice in institutional governance at the program, department, college, graduate school, and university levels. (American Association of University Professors, 2005b: 2)

The treatment of GTAs is about inter-generational equity, one of the key behaviours that foster collegiality according to an American study (Massy et al., 1994). Many of the other key behaviours identified in the study, such as frequent interaction between faculty, tolerance of differences, workload

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equity and consensual decision-making, also relate closely to the leadership role of the departmental chair. They signal the ways in which inclusive collegiality may be realized. For example, in exemplary departments, opportunities to teach courses at all different levels are rotated between academic staff rather than routinely assigning the teaching of large undergraduate programs to junior and less experienced staff. There is ‘workload equity’ inasmuch that all faculty teach at all levels and the ‘buying out’ of teaching on the basis of research grants is something which is actively discouraged. The role of academic leadership is critical in determining whether the key behaviours identified in the study are adopted (Massy et al., 1994). While the study is concerned principally with the encouragement and valuing of teaching, its findings are indicative of the way in which academic leaders can create an environment that is supportive of academic democracy through the equitable treatment of different categories of staff. These academic leaders, however, are far more likely to be men than women. In the UK, just 14 percent of full professors are women (HESA, 2004). As highlighted in Chapter 7, women tend to do more than their fair share of less esteemed service roles. This suggests that our leading academic citizens need to be mindful of the need for gender equity, in addition to generational equity, in fostering genuine collegiality.

The professor as manager A growing literature now exists focusing on the business of leadership in academic life (e.g. Middlehurst, 1993; Knight and Trowler, 2001; Shattock, 2003). This is devoted, by definition, to the leadership function of those in managerial roles rather than focusing exclusively on the particular responsibilities of the professoriate as academic leaders. Indeed, many of those now vested with responsibilities to lead academics have previously pursued managerial careers outside academia in business, industry or the arts. Further, there is now a growing cadre of academics who have specialized in a career in university management rather than research and teaching. This latter group has grown as a result of the separation that has now been established in many modern universities between organizational or department management and scholarly leadership. This growing separation between managerial leadership and the professoriate is well illustrated in a study of deans of faculty and heads of academic departments in Australia

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(Harman, 2002). This study found that, compared with the 1970s, the research records of deans and heads had become more similar to that of other academics rather than other professors. This demonstrates that leadership is becoming a specialist role rather than the exclusive preserve of the professoriate. The work of Evans (1993) is helpful in illuminating a rapidly changing world of academic leadership. Writing about English departments in UK universities during the early 1990s, Evans describes their typical organizational life as ‘socially satisfying anarchic autonomy’ (1993: 90). Here, he describes academics working in small groups similar to Belbin’s Apollo teams. In terms of academic leadership, Evans provides an example of a department where its head is a non-professorial member of staff while a recently appointed professor is asked to lead research. Evans observes that here ‘status and authority are oddly at variance and this dissonance is seen as democratic’ (1993: 94). The fact that status and authority do not go hand in hand in university life is connected to the collegial tradition of academic leadership. The role of the head of department in the liberal Oxbridge tradition is as a first among equals (pares inter parum) rather than a ‘manager’. The trend toward appointing departmental leaders as permanent, often non-professorial ‘managers’, rather than rotating leadership responsibilities between senior academics, is linked to the demands on higher education in the modern era to be more responsive to market forces and to changes brought about by weakened governance structures. Evans (1993) detects signs of the trend writing in the early 1990s. He comments, Basically then the conflict is between a collegiate concept where decisions are taken by majority vote and implemented by a chair who is servant of the group, and where senior people consult but act executively (p. 94).

Evans also notes that academic leaders need to be ‘bilingual’ in order to retain credibility. In other words, they need to be able to converse in the language of their discipline within their department and understand a different lexicon when communicating with senior management within the university. This is the language of the market and strategic planning. In short, this is the language of ‘management’. However, despite the ascent of the professional manager in academic life, the source of status remains the professorial title.

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The changing professoriate Where does the changing nature of departmental and university leadership leave the professoriate? In many respects, it leaves the professoriate increasingly disconnected from decision-making within the university. The attempt to professionalize university leadership through the application of management principles adapted from the private and business sector means that some ‘research’ professors are no longer formally regarded within their institutions as playing a ‘leadership’ role within their managerial structure. Others are, in effect, manager-professors with a formal senior management function but playing a more limited role, or none at all, as an intellectual leader. Hence, the modern professoriate is now composed of individuals with increasingly disparate backgrounds and job descriptions. The professorial title has traditionally been a reward for a privileged few who have been recognized for their contributions to breaking new ground in their discipline or profession. In recent years it has become common practice in UK universities to award the title on a broader basis than research excellence. The UK-based National Conference of University Professors (NCUP) has been a long-standing critic of this trend and has noted that it is increasingly commonplace to make professorial appointments in order to fill managerial roles (NCUP, 1991). A professorial title is sometimes awarded to those holding senior management responsibilities, such as Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice Chancellors, Pro Vice Chancellors and Deans. Long-standing service to an institution often in connection with academic leadership responsibilities are now also rewarded on occasions through the conferment of a professorial title (see Chapter 6). While the liberalization of the award of the professorial title represents recognition that individuals make significant contributions to university and community life in a variety of ways, it has also led to divisions within the professoriate. The adoption of a management culture within universities, in place of one based on principles of collegiality and academic leadership, is just one of the reasons for the increasing division between the ‘management’ and ‘non-management’ professoriate. In the UK, the RAE has accelerated this division by giving prominence and profile to those with a strong publications record and marginalized those without significant research. Promotion to the top of the academic profession depends almost exclusively on individual achievement normally though research output. While collaboration is often valued, promotion panels look for evidence of

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single-authored work, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Where teaching excellence is taken into account, methods of assessment such as portfolios and student evaluation tend to emphasize the role of the academic as an individual. The distinctiveness of a personal contribution to knowledge or broader scholarship is vital. In becoming a full professor, individuality and the separateness of an academic’s achievements are all important. The elevation of individuality and separateness at the expense of relationship-building and connection are at the heart of Western culture. This is reinforced by the academic curriculum vitae which neatly divides an individual’s academic achievements from other aspects of their life, work and interests. In writing about academic leadership, Bennett points out the danger of this atomism which leads to ‘self-promotion and self-protection rather than to the larger common good’ (Bennett, 2002: 5). The atomism that Bennett identifies has been exacerbated in recent years by research audit of academic staff in countries such as the UK and Australia. There are many examples of the ill-effects of rewarding selfish individualism with a professorial title. The culture of exploitation of junior staff (see Chapter 8) has led the NCUP to comment that ‘the abdication of such (i.e. managerial) duties to younger, non-professorial colleagues is sometimes a deliberate resort by professors who prefer to devote their energies elsewhere’ (NCUP, 1991: 7). In this context, ‘elsewhere’ is a euphemistic reference to the selfish pursuit of personal research agendas. The professoriate must take its share of the responsibility for this culture of exploitation that has its roots in Mowat’s analogy of the university as a medieval guild. Such practices are not in keeping with responsible leadership. Bassnett (2004), in a prize-winning essay for the NCUP, summarizes the negative perceptions of professors held by staff on short-term contracts some of whom they regard as ‘idle, unwilling to support younger colleagues, content to let the burden of undergraduate teaching fall on other shoulders, distant, authoritarian.’ (2004: 3). Here, it is important to challenge the growing assumption that university management can be divided neatly from intellectual leadership as indicated by Harman’s study (2002) of university practice in Australia. This sets up a dangerous division between the ‘managerial’ professor and the ‘research’ professor. Influential studies on academic leadership have sometimes tended to reinforce this assumption by defining the role of the modern academic leader in task-oriented rather than intellectual terms. Tucker (1984), for example, identified no less than 54 tasks that need to be performed by

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departmental chairs. This has inspired subsequent studies which have sought to atomize the role in increasingly detailed ‘training’ terms (e.g. Aziz et al., 2005). While there are critical knowledge, skills and abilities that academic leaders must possess to be effective managers, such as budgetary competence and adhering to legal requirements in recruitment procedures, characterizing their role in purely functional terms risks diminishing the key moral dimensions of leadership. A more balanced characterisation is provided by Carroll and Gmelch (1994) who focus on the perceptions of departmental chairs with respect to their role. Just one of the four dimensions of their role is identified as ‘manager’ while the other three, ‘Leader’, ‘Scholar’ and ‘Faculty developer’, point to the importance of being a good role model and a supportive academic citizen.

The public role of the professor Public service rests at the pinnacle of the service pyramid. Work in this aspect of service represents an indication of prestige and public recognition not attached to other service activities. As argued earlier in the book (see Chapter 7), it is important for academics to engage with society by contributing their expertise and communicating to a wider public. This is a role that particularly applies to leading academics possessing a command of an area of expertise that has been recognized as making a significant contribution to knowledge or professional practice. It is important for academics to engage more in the reshaping of policy and practice frameworks connected with their discipline and make a contribution, in the process, as a ‘public pedagogue’ in a democratic society (Lingard, 2001). The public role of the professor, though, is not unproblematic. While public service is prestigious, there are aspects that are more visible than others. A professor of education may use his or her expertise in serving as a school governor. They may also make frequent pronouncements on a range of issues through the national media. Both are elements of public service but with very different levels of visibility. The relationship between the professor and the media can simply provoke the petty jealousy of colleagues (see Chapter 7). However, this relationship can also raise more substantive issues. Barrow (2004) asks the question ‘when is it appropriate, let alone desirable, that the professor should be a “public” figure?’ (p. 224).

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He argues that there is a crucial difference between those making public contributions in areas which match their expertise and those who choose to make pronouncements on matters which they are not qualified to comment. In particular, Barrow contends that leading academics should not trade on their position as university professors while taking part in political activism. There are similarities here with Shils’ (1997) contention that the academic on campus should abstain from encouraging students to disrupt university life through political activism and avoid exploiting their authority by making politically motivated assertions. According to Barrow (2004: 225) there is a disjunction between academic knowledge based on a sustained and longterm commitment to ‘dispassionate understanding’ and the media’s desire for simplistic ‘sound-bites’: Universities are not about idea-mongering through the self serving brokerage of the mass media. They are about getting it right. (Barrow, 2004: 225)

As suggested in Chapter 7, while public service is associated with the virtue of engagement there are associated vices. One of these is the estrangement hinted at by Barrow which can result where the desire to seek attention fails to correlate to one’s area of scholarly expertise.

The professor as moral leader The irony is that in a modern context to become a Professor calls for a selfish, individual pursuit of publications and research grants while discharging the wider moral responsibilities of being a Professor demands a more selfless set of qualities that nurture others and encourage collective interests. In this respect, Tight (2002) identifies nine roles and responsibilities of a professor following a brief survey (Table 9.1). What is notable about Tight’s list of roles is that the majority relate directly to service to others rather than pursuing personal and professional goals. Tight’s list illustrates that professors, in common with leaders in all walks of life, have ethical responsibilities. Two of the eight archetypes of leadership identified by Sinclair (1990) are the ‘caring leader’ and the ‘moral guardian’. The ‘caring leader’ is committed to nurturance and devolution while the ‘moral guardian’ stresses standards, community interest and should

Leading academic citizens 157 Table 9.1 Nine professorial roles • • • • • • • • •

leadership in research; leadership in teaching; helping other staff to develop; being a role model; representing the department within the university; trying to influence the work and direction of the university; representing and gaining contacts for the department, nationally and internationally; upholding standards of scholarship, through, for example, external examining, refereeing, conference organisation and editorial responsibilities; and helping to build up academic communities.

Source: Tight (2002: 29).

exercise concern and caution. Balancing these roles is crucial. Regardless of their formal responsibilities for ‘leadership’, the professoriate still need to be effective role models of these two archetypes if academic citizenship is to be sustained. Leadership is linked to qualities such as ‘integrity, honesty and trust’ (Middlehurst, 1993: 11). Hence, there is a leadership role for the professoriate regardless of the formal extent to which its members are allocated managerial responsibilities. Bassnett (2004: 8), in a passage from her prize-winning essay, describes the difference between intellectual leadership and university management in the following terms: Intellectual leadership involves inspiring other people to follow up lines of thought that may be difficult or obscure but which will bring rewards to the individual and ultimately, also to others. In professorial leadership there may be traces of the heroic and of the commercial success story, but there should also be elements of nurturing, hence a form of vicarious parenting, and above all there should be a sense of an even higher calling, a leadership that can be defined as aspirational.

The role of the professor is now multifarious and, in many cases, members are more closely connected with performing managerial functions rather than leading research. The emergence of a non-professorial management culture within university life means that many service duties are no longer

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seen as necessarily core to the role of a professor promoted to this position on the basis of their scholarly excellence. However, the trend toward non-professorial management does not relieve the professoriate of its moral responsibilities for scholarly leadership. It is historically the responsibility of the professoriate to provide intellectual direction, mentor others and build communities. This is a leadership function rather than one that can be conveniently abdicated to others who may now have the formal responsibility to manage university departments. Institutional structures that promote the pursuit of self-interest may hinder the work of academic leaders in developing and nurturing colleagues. This does not mean, though, that nothing can be done. The environment of academic life can be influenced through exhibiting the virtue of friendliness (Megone, 2005). Establishing opportunities for students to interact with staff outside the lecture theater in discussion and debate and for staff to enter into intellectual exchange with each other beyond the limitations of email are possible to create but demand a commitment to community life. Moreover, the professoriate need to act as role models with respect to all elements of the service pyramid (see Chapter 4). Such activity should not be restricted to the more scholarly and prestigious aspects of academic citizenship such as public service or service to the discipline or profession. It should include a commitment to the less esteemed elements, especially student service. Becoming a professor should require a commitment to inclusive collegiality through example rather than giving up or assigning such tasks to others of junior rank.

Conclusion The professoriate plays a vital role in acting as role models (Tight, 2002). In so doing, they need to demonstrate a commitment to service. This is essential in sustaining the well-being of academic communities and making a broader intellectual contribution to society through research, teaching, dissemination, application and communication of knowledge. This demands selfless qualities and an understanding of the concept of inter-generational equity. Applied in the context of environmentalism, inter-generational equity refers to the importance of ensuring that one generation leaves an equitable legacy to the next by preserving the world’s finite resources. In the context of academic life, this concept is also instructive. It implies a commitment to

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developing a strong and healthy academic community for the next generation of scholars to inherit. This can only be achieved through modeling virtues such as guardianship and fellowship (see Chapter 7). Guardianship implies that, while upholding the standards of the discipline or profession is essential, academics must be prepared to encourage work that challenges their own perspectives. The virtue of fellowship demands a preparedness to nurture colleagues and resist the temptation to take advantage of less experienced or more junior colleagues in task allocation. As Bennett (2002) points out, the ethics of leadership within an institution set the tone for faculty ethics.

Chapter 10

Recovering academic citizenship The University is an intellectual collectivity, and not just a collection of stimulating individuals and necessary services provided by the university; it is not just a legal construct and it is not an epiphenomenon. It is a general pattern of attitudes and activities which moulds the activities of the individual members of the university. If this pattern is dissipated, it has a debilitating effect on the relation of teachers and students and of colleagues and colleagues. It is a pattern which is sustained by academic citizenship. Shils (1997: 86)

Introduction Academic careers have long been shaped by reward and recognition for individual achievement (Shils, 1997). As the book has shown, competitive pressures in a globalized higher education market combined with national research audit exercises and the growth of schemes to reward teaching ‘excellence’ have exacerbated the conditions which reward the ‘individualised individual’ (Beck, 2001). The cult of the individual has had a corrosive effect on citizenship in broad societal terms (Bauman, 2001). In the academic arena, this trend has put pressure on the practical ability and commitment of academic staff to undertake service and ‘citizenship’ type activities (Morley and Walsh, 1995). However, this does not necessarily mean that ‘academic citizenship’ is an outmoded ideal connected with a ‘golden age’ that never was.

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The words of Edward Shils emphasize that academic citizenship is central to the success of the university as a collective entity rather than as a collection of individuals set on achieving personal goals. Some may regard this vision, and the moral virtues of academic citizenship that support it (see Chapter 7), as a romantic ideal rather than a practical possibility. Yet, to secure a new compact between universities and society a moral commitment to academic citizenship is essential. Without virtue, the vitality of academic life and the university’s contribution to society will wither. It will also be harder to sustain public support and understanding for the role of higher education in a free society unless universities are perceived to be meeting their side of the compact. This chapter will start by outlining the contemporary challenges of being an academic citizen and why the exercise of the service role is still an essential part of the academic role description in the twenty-first century. It will go on to consider how to overcome the perceived problem as to how institutions can evidence, or systematically document, the academic citizenship activities of faculty. Finally, it will consider how to develop intellectual virtues to complement moral virtues. Possessing these skills will enable faculty to become more effective academic citizens.

Twenty-first-century citizens The service pyramid (see Chapter 4) indicated that academics serve five interlocking communities. In connection with these communities, academics provide service to students, colleagues, their institution, their discipline or profession, and the public. While it has always been important for academics to serve these communities, the contemporary demands of working in higher education offer new challenges. The analysis that follows suggests that meeting these fresh challenges will be critical to the future functioning and success of the university if it is to fulfill its compact with modern society.

Public service In fulfilling their public service role, universities now increasingly stress their economic contribution to society as sources for knowledge transfer and as an entrepreneurial hub of the community. They encourage the exploitation

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of their expertise in terms of staffing and research through the establishment of spin-off companies and the utilization of their intellectual property assets in the open market. Universities are expected to work as ‘enablers’ and even leaders with respect to regional economic and entrepreneurial development (Gunasekara, 2004). This so-called ‘third role’ or ‘third leg’ role, in addition to traditional expectations concerning teaching and research, demands new forms of engagement on the part of the modern academic as a knowledge ‘broker’, consultant and entrepreneur. As detailed earlier in the book (see Chapter 5), this encourages entrepreneurialism as a motive for service. The environment of contemporary higher education suggests that there are likely to be more ‘entrepreneurial academics’ in the future (Land, 2004) in the mold of Gouldner’s ‘cosmopolitans’ (Gouldner, 1979). However, not all academics are either sympathetic to this university mission or necessarily skilled to take on a more market-oriented role. Some regard such expectations as contrary to the Humboldtian role of the university as an independent hub of intellectual activity and discovery rather than an institution that seeks to tailor its role as a knowledge producer to a commercial agenda. Others are concerned that the public role of universities should not privilege business and commercial interests at the expense of the social dimension (Annette, 2005). While government funding in the UK encourages these orientations, there is a danger that universities seeking to become ‘global players’ will overlook the implications of social issues on their doorstep. In London, for example, political immigration and public health are key issues (Barton and Rowland, 2003). In this environment it is easy for the social role of academic citizenship to be defined in purely economic terms. Here, the civic mission of the university needs to be reclaimed from a ‘holistic’ perspective supporting both a strong economy and a strong society (Wedgwood, 2006). The establishment in 2002 of a ‘Higher Education Active Community Fund’ by the UK government is a relatively recent initiative that provides an opportunity for universities to develop this more holistic perspective. At the curriculum level, universities would be well advised to look to the service learning movement in the US as a means of ‘recovering’ a holistic perspective. University–community partnerships are made possible, and are more embedded, by the broader-based nature of undergraduate education in the US where national organizations such as Campus Compact provide a network of support for institutions. The establishment of Campus Compact, which now has a membership consisting of 950 colleges and universities,

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was prompted by public perceptions that American higher education in the mid-1980s was too inward-looking in its concerns and self-regarding in promoting its own private interests (Campus Compact, 2005). The goal of this organization is to advance the civic mission of universities through contributing positively to wider public and community interests rather than a narrow economic, wealth-creation agenda. In the UK, the traditionally specialized nature of the single honors degree, compared to North America, militates against service learning (Mohan, 1996). Little space is left for electives or opportunities to develop community-based learning schemes. The introduction of the two-year Foundation ‘degree’ in the UK, with its emphasis on work-based learning, challenges this narrowness of focus. It provides opportunities for lecturers to integrate elements of public and community service into a more flexible form of abridged undergraduate studies. It also means that work-based learning is central to the assessed curriculum rather than periphery to it. However, the emphasis of Foundation degrees on ‘job readiness’ (Morgan et al., 2004) indicates that the challenge for academics will principally lie in developing partnerships with further education and business organizations rather than community groups (Smith and Betts, 2003). Government audits of research quality have been perceived by universities to reward ‘pure’ more than ‘applied’ scholarship, especially in a UK context (Gibson, 2004). More explicit rewards, though, are growing for research that interacts positively with the public and private sector. In the UK, new guidelines for the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise place greater emphasis on the public utility of research in terms of its impact on local businesses or the provision of public services. This results from recommendations from a Parliamentary committee that, while some research may not be internationally significant, there is a need to measure the way that research affects the practice environment (Gibson, 2004). Here, again, there are continuing challenges for academics to demonstrate the relevance and applicability of their work to the public sphere.

Service to the discipline or profession Academics are faced with growing demands in relation to service to their discipline or profession. This demand stems, at least in part, from the fact that an increasing number of faculty in higher education are drawn from a broad range of professions. The nature of the university curriculum has

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widened to accommodate professions in health, information technology, science, social work and management. The composition of the academic profession is reflective of this shift. There are now members of faculty with a dual identity: as both an academic and a professional practitioner (Peel, 2005). Maintaining this dual identity, and the continuing respect and recognition of professional peers, normally necessitates that considerable time is spent in the professional environment or ‘context of application’ (Gibbons et al., 1994). There are often continuing professional development requirements which such dual professionals must fulfill (Peel, 2005). Aside from continuing professional registration, such activity is further necessary to maintain an understanding of rapidly changing applied environments and to retain credibility in the eyes of students. Growing demands for service activity in relation to the discipline or profession are also related to the expansion and fragmentation of knowledge. The modern academic is no longer the ‘renaissance man’ famed for a command of all human knowledge. The explosion of knowledge, especially in science and technology, during the twentieth century has led to the creation of new disciplines and a rapid splintering of established fields into sub-disciplines, such as medical engineering and biological physics (Katz, 2002). Even disciplinary specialists are increasingly unlikely to consider themselves experts in all knowledge within their field. The pace of knowledge production has led to an unremitting trend of sub-specialization, as Katz (2002: B7) illustrates in reference to history: I was trained to be able to teach any course relating to American history, and at the beginning of my career I was also teaching Tudor-Stuart English history. I tried to keep up with all the new work in those fields. Within five years, I had begun to concentrate on colonial-American legal history, and soon I was struggling simply to keep up with that. It has gotten a lot more specialized since then.

The fragmentation of disciplines and increasing specialization means that, in some respects, the academic community is in a stronger position to offer expert knowledge to society. On the negative side, though, there are now fewer faculty in a position to communicate a more comprehensive understanding of a field of study, able to take an overview of a field and interpret academic knowledge for the benefit of the wider public. It also means that academics are more likely to tunnel into a sub-specialism than to seek to communicate across disciplinary boundaries. The rewards for being

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a ‘renaissance’ man (or woman) are few compared to the prestige attached to disciplinary specialization. The notion of a supportive ‘invisible network’ among scholarly communities is long recognized (Halsey and Trow, 1971; Barnett, 1990). While the need for support among like-minded colleagues may have grown, modern technology, such as email, video-conferencing and global electronic discussion boards, makes possible, in new ways, a more ready engagement with this type of service. This has added greatly to the richness of academic life and facilitated international collaboration on a scale previously undreamt of. While these benefits of modern technology are clear, so are the challenges it poses. Email, in particular, has resulted in increased information flow and attendant demands on faculty time from both students and colleagues.

Institutional service It was the French Monarchist Joseph de Maistre who famously declared that ‘every country has the government it deserves’. This is an apposite phrase for the modern academic profession in relation to the governance of its own institution. The unbundling of the academic role (Kinser, 1998) is resulting in some staff withdrawing active interest in the management and administration of their own institution. In parallel to student service, where specialist counsellors, advisors and support staff are now deployed in most universities, there is a danger that the development of career track ‘manageracademics’ (Deem et al., 2001) means that management and administration are seen increasingly as someone else’s job too. Here, there is an urgent need for faculty to renew its commitment to participate in decision-shaping and decision-making processes within their institutions. If self-regulation of the academic profession is to be sustained, then there needs to be a renewed commitment to peer review processes (Dill, 2005). This includes taking responsibility for quality assurance and enhancement processes in teaching, increasingly sub-contracted in the modern university to administrative units. The globalization of higher education and the emergence of competitive national environments make it essential that academics engage fully with institutional service. This will enable their universities to respond appropriately to new challenges. One practical example is the need for continuous course development. Here, there is a constant need for innovation and course

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renewal in response to the changing whims of the market. In parallel with the concept of the ‘product life-cycle’, academic programs now enjoy a truncated period from introduction, through growth and maturity to decline and withdrawal. In the UK, there has been a startling growth in recent years in some undergraduate subjects such as psychology, while others, such as chemistry and modern languages, have experienced falling popularity. Here, adaptation and awareness of new areas for development, such as media studies or forensic science, is vital within disciplines. Spotting the need for curriculum change is a valuable institutional service which academics, rather than professional managers and administrators, are best placed to anticipate. Academics are most aware of the changing landscape of their discipline and the possibilities for new course design. In this respect, the reward and promotion policies of institutions (see Chapter 6) need to provide sufficient transparent encouragement to academics to contribute to the life of the university, especially in a leadership role. Some institutions are pioneering overdue reform to academic promotion policies by paying more explicit attention to such service work (see Chapter 6).

Collegial service Growing government control and public scrutiny of higher education means that academics are faced with increasing demands to support each other to cope in their more competitive environment. Auditing the quality of teaching and research within universities has forced greater openness in habitual practices, especially with respect to the teaching function. Historically, the classroom has been a private and closed world but increasingly it is being opened up to public scrutiny. In terms of service, this has extended the need for academics to act in a peer review capacity working for government quality and professional accreditation bodies. While academics undertaking such work are sometimes criticized for acting as government auditors, peer review is essential for the preservation of professional autonomy (Dill, 2005). Research audit has also stimulated the growth of journals and the attendant need to find academic staff capable and willing to review contributions. The cross-institutional work of peer review demands more in the way of ‘critical companionship’ (Titchen, 1998 in Walker, 2001). At departmental level, mentoring has become vital in ensuring that colleagues can cope with the multi-faceted demands of modern academic life. Mentoring schemes are now in widespread use in higher education

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institutions for the induction of new staff (Woodd, 2001). However, mentoring is not just important in relation to preparing and supporting inexperienced colleagues in their teaching duties. It is also important in raising standards in staff research and fostering a research culture (Delamont and Atkinson, 2004). One example of the way this can be achieved is by matching inexperienced researchers with experienced academics acting in a mentoring capacity (Johnston and McCormack, 1997). Mentoring is key as a career-supportive mechanism for all staff. In particular, it is a means of helping socially disadvantaged categories of staff, such as those on part-time contracts and women. In a Swedish study, the pairing of women academics of junior rank, or at mid-level stages of their career, with more senior faculty had a beneficial impact in narrowing the gender gap (Eliasson et al., 2000). Growing numbers of part-time staff may also benefit from mentoring programs (Charfauros and Tierney, 1999). While there is clearly a growing need for more collegial service activities, it is important that this work is undertaken in a way that insures a collective responsibility for making improvements in practice. Learning from external quality review processes is an important part of this collective professional self-regulation (Dill, 2005). Such processes often highlight issues around marking standards (Piper, 1994) and the quality of student assessment and feedback more generally (Ottewill and Macfarlane, 2004). However, a pattern that has been referred to as ‘hollowed’ collegiality, in which there is nominal collective action but an avoidance of hard issues that might lead to quality improvement, can thwart real change in critical areas of academic practice. The persistence of issues concerning the structure of the curriculum, teaching styles and student assessment have been cited as indicative of ‘hollowed’ collegiality (Massy et al., 1994; Dill, 2005). Here, academics need to confront such issues in a new spirit of openness with all categories of academic and support staff rather than conveniently dismiss such criticism as an affront to their professionalism.

Student service According to my respondents, student service is perceived as the least prestigious element of academic citizenship. The unbundling of the academic role, as at Edith Cowan University in Australia (see Chapter 6), creates a range of specialist roles, such as teacher, researcher, instructional designer,

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practitioner scholar and academic leader. It means that service, in this sphere, is increasingly seen as someone else’s job. As I argued in Chapter 8, the employment of specialist student support staff should not be taken as a signal for academic staff to withdraw from this historic aspect of their work. Participation rates in higher education, allied to deteriorating staff–student ratios, means there is now ‘more work to mark and more feedback to give’ than ever before (Court, 2006: 176). In this environment, it is hardly surprising that some academics are tempted to seek an escape from the demands of teaching. However, one of the most corrosive aspects of modern university life is the culture of ‘buying’ your way out of teaching and other service obligations through the pursuit of a research career. One way of recovering student service is through spreading good mentoring practices in response to the changing profile of learners. Mature students are now the norm rather than the exception in higher education often studying on a part-time basis and working in a variety of professions and other occupations. They do not fit the profile of vulnerable eighteen-year-olds away from home for the first time. Hence, there is a need to construct student support on the basis of mentoring, recognizing the increased maturity of the average learner and the practice orientation of a large swath of the higher education curriculum. As government support for full-time study dwindles in many national contexts, more students study on a part-time basis. Moreover, the demand for postgraduate and post-experience education rises as professions now routinely expect their members to undertake continuing professional development. Mentoring is now widely recognized within professional development programs of professional associations (Friedman and Phillips, 2002). This means, in turn, that the modern tutor in higher education needs to be far more than a lecturer. They need to fulfill a variety of roles such as exemplar, motivator, expediter, counsellor, interlocutor and mentor (Harris et al., 2000). Indeed, the role of the higher education tutor is now ‘more of a mentor than a teacher’ (Weil and Frame, 1992: 53). The mentoring of students in the workplace is now a significant element of this partnership between academics and learners. This is often undertaken through academic staff working with their peers in both professional practice and other organizational settings. The roles adopted by academics in these circumstances can mirror those of their peers in practice settings and may include acting as coach, facilitator, networker and counsellor (Stewart and

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Knowles, 2003). Moreover, the academic may be mentoring the placement provider as well as the student in the work-based environment (Greenbank, 2002). The potential of mentoring students is not restricted to the universitybased academic. Where responsibly introduced and supported, postgraduate students and research associates may also act as mentors to undergraduates (Wilkinson, 2001). Here, it is vital that such schemes are adequately integrated into the curriculum and that students, working as mentors, are rewarded appropriately through academic credit. Universities and their constituent departments are increasingly involved in partnerships with organizations in the public and private sector such as schools, hospitals, local government and business and industrial enterprises. These relationships often incorporate mentoring of professionals in practice settings by university-based staff. Constructing student support on the basis of mentoring is thought to impact positively on their satisfaction and motivation to attend arresting poor completion rates (Wallace et al., 2000; Wilkinson, 2001). According to Ottewill (2001), tutors need to ‘walk the talk’ of their identity as professionals by acting as role models when dealing with students in a university setting. This means that the attitudes and behaviour of tutors from professional backgrounds need to set a standard that mirrors the way they might ideally interact with clients in a work-based setting. Finally, the internationalization of higher education means that academics must be capable of supporting students from a variety of socio-economic, national, cultural, racial and religious backgrounds. As higher education goes global, facilitated in part by the expanding use of online learning, academics will teach an increasingly heterogeneous group of students. Postgraduate provision attractive to international students is on the rise as universities seek the financial benefits of overseas student fees. This new environment demands an informed understanding of issues related to student diversity. It has already prompted debate within the literature on teaching and learning with regard to the particular needs of Chinese students as learners (e.g. Li, 2003), for example. Within school citizenship education, Oxfam has been influential in calling for the curriculum to embrace the importance of ‘global citizenship’. For academics there is a parallel need to be informed about the wider world from which their students are drawn, and to respect and value this diversity in practice. Here, there is a need for academic citizens sensitive to global issues and cultural differences.

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Evidencing academic citizenship In this book, we have seen that service activities are inadequately recognized and rewarded. The prevalent culture is one that favors individual research achievements at the expense of citizenship activities. There is also a worrying trend that career paths only reflect a choice between specializing in either teaching or research, or as an ‘all-rounder’ who does a bit of both (Paton, 2004). Part of the problem is that more reward and attention is afforded to the visible as opposed to the less visible aspects of academic practice, such as student service. However, ‘good’ teachers are not just the performers in the lecture theater. They are the ones who dedicate themselves to providing students with unstinting support behind the radar screen of performance management systems through study support, feedback on assignments and personal guidance. This work is essential to the student experience but too rarely shows up even when someone’s contribution as a ‘teacher’ is taken into account in promotion decisions. Similarly, areas such as tutoring, mentoring and, to some extent, peer reviewing are insufficiently visible elements of academic citizenship. My interviewees recognized that it is also difficult to ‘measure’ service and citizenship-type activities as opposed to research outputs such as papers, books and compositions or the acquisition of grant funding. Part of the problem in measuring academic citizenship is that, while many institutions do acknowledge aspects of this role in their reward and recognition criteria, few do so in a comprehensive or sufficiently detailed way to do justice to the range of activities that academics undertake in this regard. Table 10.1 indicates the range of activities that academic citizenship entails. For almost all these activities, evidence can be produced. One way of handling the collation of this sort of information is to present it in the form of a portfolio, a technique which is now widely used in relation to evidencing teaching activities and associated claims for promotion and recognition on this basis. While evidencing contributions to service are important, this does not suggest that promotion or recognition in academic life should be based wholly on such contributions. Such evidence needs to be provided in more detail and taken more seriously, though, alongside research and teaching achievements. There are, of course, differences in outlook and culture between national systems of higher education. In North America, for example, academic resumes or curriculum vitae commonly place emphasis on community and outreach activities as citizens, often in response

Recovering academic citizenship 171 Table 10.1 Evidencing academic citizenship Acitvity

Examples

Engaging

Inter-professional and public audiences through work in the popular media; public lectures and contributions to debates; working on public and national committees; holding public office relevant to dissemination of expertise. Teaching materials and coursewares; unrefereed papers and articles in the popular press; university papers and reports; new academic programmes. Educational programmes; organisational units; universitywide initiatives; committees; journals; research groups; societies; networks. Institutional colleagues and research students; external academic peers; colleagues in allied professions or commercial settings. Field trips; educational visits; work placements, servicelearning opportunities; conferences; symposiums; public debates. The School or Faculty on university committees; the university in recruitment work; national and international organisations, networks and societies. Academic papers; the quality of teaching and learning; books; applications for promotion, research grants and other awards. Self-authored teaching materials; research findings; through consultancy. Student advising including pastoral support and skills development; writing references; liaison with allied student services.

Authoring

Leading

Mentoring

Organising (Initiating)

Representing

Reviewing

Sharing Tutoring

to promotion and tenure guidelines (Ward, 2003). It is unusual to find such information contained in an equivalent submission for appointment or promotion by a UK-based scholar. This is partly because of the more established tradition of service learning and outreach found in North American universities which helps to integrate academic learning with community service (Rhoads and Howard, 1998). In the UK, part of the difficulty of evidencing service activity is that the service learning tradition is only weakly

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established or understood. The UK university sector, in particular, still has a long way to go before it adequately recognizes and rewards academic citizenship.

Developing the skills of academic citizenship This book has argued that lecturers and professors working in higher education need to be committed to a series of moral virtues in connection with academic citizenship. In Chapter 7, the moral virtues of engagement, guardianship, loyalty, collegiality and benevolence were identified and explored as the required excellences of character. However, as Aristotle argued, moral virtues need to be supplemented by intellectual virtues, such as good sense, good counsel and wisdom (Aristotle, trans. Lewes, 1906). Next, Man’s work as Man is accomplished by virtue of sense and Moral Virtue, the latter giving the right aim and direction, the former the right means to its attainment    (Aristotle trans. Lewes, 1906: 197)

In other words, possessing the moral virtue of benevolence, for example, will ultimately be of little value if someone is incapable of combining this with the intellectual skill and good sense which acting as a mentor, tutor or advisor demands. Attitude needs to be accompanied by appropriate knowledge and skills. Thus, academic citizenship is something that needs to be learnt through application and experience. It is about developing the right capabilities. Helping to tutor students from a variety of national, cultural, racial and religious backgrounds serves as a good illustration. While a tutor may possess appropriate moral virtues, such as benevolence and sensitivity, there is a need for knowledge of cultural differences and other forms of diversity in order to be fully capable of managing the needs of students. In this regard, a vital role can be played by educational and staff developers through initial and continuing professional development opportunities provided for academic and learner support staff. Most UK universities now possess a Center or Unit concerned with the development of academic staff. The focus of such Centers or Units has now broadened from their early remit around the development of practical teaching techniques (Land, 2004) to incorporate an emphasis on student learning. They are still, though, by and large, focused on the enhancement of the teaching function

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and promoting an understanding of the nature of student learning rather than broader aspects of academic practice, including service and citizenship activities. Psychological constructions of teaching and learning are dominant within the literature (Malcolm and Zukas, 2001) and, in turn, have led to ‘psychologized understandings of teaching excellence’ (Skelton, 2005: 31). This dominant discourse is reflected in the accredited programs and short courses offered by educational and staff development units. Some elements of academic citizenship associated with the improvement of teaching, such as mentoring and peer observation, are commonly featured in university development programs. Coverage of other aspects of academic practice, especially those bridging the teaching-research functions and activities both internal and external to the immediate institutional setting, are harder to find. Examples might include external examining, reviewing an academic paper, organizing an academic conference and establishing service learning programs. They would represent areas of professional practice that relate more broadly to academic citizenship. The narrowness of this educational development agenda has arisen in the UK, in part, from the recommendation of the Dearing Report (NCIHE, 1997) to establish an Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE). However, it is also attributable to the growing influence of ‘performative’ understandings of teaching excellence privileging more easily ‘measurable’ formal classroom-based interactions, especially the lecture. The performativity agenda, to which teaching ‘excellence’ is linked (Skelton, 2005), is concerned with activities that can be converted into simple ‘targets’ or ‘indicators’ (Ball, 2003) rather than capturing the richness of academic practice. Skelton (2005) reports that in the UK government ministers were initially attracted to the idea of videos of ‘star performers’ being used as a device to improve practice across the sector. The pre-eminent position of the lecture has also been reinforced by the widespread use of teaching observation as part of university quality assurance audits and as a means of evidencing good practice within accredited programs of teaching and learning for new academic staff. Such programs are now commonplace in many national contexts including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and compulsory in others, such as Norway and Finland (Trowler and Bamber, 2005). In a performative culture the importance of teaching contact hours cannot be underestimated. Even the language of academic life, through phrases such as ‘teaching load’, reflects this link. This ‘workload’ can only be

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exchanged against proven success in research (through grants and publications) or through taking on managerial responsibilities. Other areas of teaching (and related) activity strongly connected with less visible forms of academic citizenship such as personal tutoring, the provision of student feedback and the design of teaching materials often fall outside the scope of ‘workload’ planning arrangements and are thus out of step with the performative model. Research has shown that students and staff define excellence strongly in terms of interpersonal skills (Hillier and Vielba, 2001). However, teaching situations that most help to demonstrate these abilities, such as seminars and tutorials, are, in practice, rarely subject to observation. The creation of the UK Higher Education Academy as a successor to the ILTHE may serve to broaden the focus of the development agenda. However, it is unlikely that at an institutional level the work of educational and staff developers will change significantly in this regard. The introduction of compulsory teaching standards for UK university academics in 2006 (DfES, 2003) signals an intention on behalf of the government to ‘professionalize’ just one element of academic practice, and this is likely to continue to dominate educational development provision.

Hope for the future Much of the analysis contained in this book might appear to offer only limited hope for the future of service as a core commitment of universities and academic life. However, there are grounds for optimism. The modern university is under increasing pressure to convince the state that it deserves public funding (Tjeldvoll, 1998). This means that service has probably never been so important to the efficient functioning of the university. Auditing of the teaching role by government agencies and professional bodies has added expectations to university life such as peer mentoring, the observation of teaching and continuous curriculum design (and re-design). The thirst for research funding has similarly expanded the range of service demands which support the establishment of new journals, the review of more grant applications and the need to mentor junior researchers to achieve their full potential in a competitive environment. The critical role that service plays in supporting teaching and research needs to be better understood. At the formal heart of the academic role are clearly defined

Recovering academic citizenship 175

expectations in relation to teaching and research, often expressed in metrics such as teaching hours or numbers of publications. While these functions may represent the core, formal expectations of academic life, service forms a substantial part of the way these key functions are sustained and invigorated. Despite the impression of my respondents, most universities do recognize service and citizenship contributions in their promotion procedures. Academic staff will play a key role in determining the extent to which these commitments are made real through absorbing the language of ‘service’ into the mainstream of university life. Recent attempts to re-define the concept of ‘scholarship’ in academic life offer further grounds for hope. Most attention may have focused on the ‘scholarship of teaching’, encouraging academics to research their own practice to bring about better understanding of teaching as an intellectual pursuit. However, as I argued in Chapter 3, service is not just about scholarly activities stemming from the discipline. It is also about a broad range of non-scholarly activities that form an infrastructure that supports both teaching and research. In raising the status of scholarly service it is to be hoped that this will not result in any further loss of esteem for work that is not related to disciplinary interests. The new challenges that academics and their institutions face, such as retention, increasing cultural diversity among the student population, and ‘servicing’ the burgeoning demands on academics to research and publish, also point to the need for more and not less academic citizenship. Moreover, most academics do not operate purely on the basis of a rational calculation of personal ‘profitability’ (Knight and Trowler, 2000). Despite the pressures and obligations they face, academics do not always do the rational thing. They still find space for service in their professional lives. Writing about the characteristics of the academic community over thirty years ago, Nisbet (1971) argued that one of these was a strong sense of honor. According to Nisbet, the essence of honor ‘cannot be, by the very nature of the attribute, measured or compensated by money or material reward’ (Nisbet, 1971: 53). Ultimately, service is about taking seriously the obligations of citizenship in the academic community. Many lecturers and professors see themselves as honor-bound to fulfill their obligations as citizens of the academic and wider community. As one of my respondents commented, ‘   If I was in it purely for the rewards I wouldn’t be an academic in the first place.’

176 Recovering academic citizenship

Conclusion This final section of the book has been concerned with how to ‘recover’ academic citizenship. I have argued that this demands commitment on behalf of academics, especially those in positions of power and authority, to re-value the service role. The conditions of modern higher education do not make this an easy task. Here, institutions need to be prepared to review the way they currently recognize and reward service work to insure that academics are provided with a rational, as well as a moral, motive for being good academic citizens. If a new compact is to be forged between universities and society, it will depend on ensuring that institutional rhetoric is matched by a new appreciation of the service role.

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Index

academic citizenship 5, 6, 15–17, 112, 126–7; and benevolence 124–6; challenges 161–9; and citizenship education 13–15; and civic crisis 11–13; and collegiality 122–4, 166–7; and community involvement 24–6; definition of 113–14; developing skills of 172–4; and engagement 115–18; evidencing 170–2; future hopes 174–6; and guardianship 118–20; impoverishment of 3; and institutional service 165–6; and loyalty 120–2; and political literacy 17–21; and public service 161–3; recovery of 131, 160–76; roots of 27–45; service to discipline/profession 163–5; and social/moral responsibility 21–3; and student service 167–9; virtuous 114–26; worldwide view of 126–7 active citizens 7, 14 administration 62–3 Ainley, P. 21 Alderman, H. 127 Altbach, P. G. 2, 6 Anderson, R. D. 33 Annette, J. 26, 48, 162 Argyris, C. and Schon, D. 108 Aristotle 172 Arnold, Thomas 35–6 Arthur, J. 35, 134

Ashby, E. 35, 36, 39, 48 Asmar, C. 141 Astin, A. W. and Chang, M. J. 134 autonomous tradition 4, 27, 39–41, 44, 46–7, 50–1, 57 Awards for University Teaching (Australia) 52 Aziz, S. et al. 155 Bai, L. 140 Ball, S. J. 131, 173 Barefoot, B. O. 137 Barnes, S. V. 23, 36, 37 Barnett, R. 16, 118; and Coate, K. 145 Barrow, R. 117, 155, 156 Barton, L. and Rowland, S. 121, 148, 162 Bassnett, S. 124, 154, 157 Battistoni, R. M. 48 Bauman, Z. 160 Becher, T. 24, 56, 58, 62, 107, 121 Beck, U. 6, 160 Bender, T. 49 benevolence: commitment to 125–6; definition 124–5; and maintaining student service 125; and neglectfulness 126; and service responsibility 125; and servility 126 Benjamin, E. 21, 69 Bennett, J. B. 135, 154, 159 Bentley, T. 142 Boland, J. et al. 26

Index 195 Bourner, T. et al. 40 Bowie, N. et al. 89 Boyer, E. L. 4, 33, 47, 51, 52, 53, 54–5, 56, 116 Bramley, W. 131, 134, 138, 140 Braxton, J. M. and Bayer, A. E. 19 Brock, M. 117, 118 Bron, A. 115 Brown, S. 25, 135, 139 Burgan, M. 15, 21, 25, 120 Burgess, T. 42 Burnhill, P. and McPherson, A. F. 33, 37 Burton, C. 79, 123 Butler, N. M. 46, 50, 51, 85 Cambridge University 17–18, 20, 22; see also Oxbridge tradition Campus Compact (USA) 162–3 Carnwell, R. 142; and Baker, S. 142 Carter, I. 33, 37 Charfauros, K. H. and Tierney, W. G. 167 Christie, H. et al. 132, 136, 137 citizenship education: civil, political, social 14; introduction of 14; rise of 15; and students as active citizens 14–15 City University, London 102–3, 108 civic tradition 4, 27; and access, participation, social justice 33; and commitment to service 30; and community service 32; decline in 36–7; development of 30; and duty 66; and land-grant universities 34; loss of confidence in 36; medieval period 29–30; and needs of industry 32; and opening up of higher education 32–3; and public funding 29; and religious education 31–2; and Scottish universities 33; US service tradition 33–4; Victorian benefactors 31–2 Clark, B. R. 40 Clark, John Bates 49 Clegg, S. 139 Coles, R. 5, 13, 66, 75, 89

collegiality 22–3, 146–7, 166–7; and academic self-governance 148; apprenticeship metaphor 150; and cliquishness 123, 147; definition 122; and equal status 149; and graduate teaching assistants/part-time staff 149–51; hollowed 167; inclusive 149–51; and new managerialism 148–9; as oligarchy 147–9; and professorial stereotypes 124; and remoteness 123–4; use of term 122–3; and virtue 65–6 Collins, G. 145 community involvement 17, 24; and academic/civic society relationship 25–6; convergent/divergent 24; disciplinary/tribe 24; and epistemological fragmentation 25; and identity 24–5; and outsourcing of activities 25; specialized 24 consultancy 76, 82, 85–6, 90–1, 117, 162 Council on Civil Society (US) 14 Court, S. 4, 168 Crick Advisory Group 14, 16 critical companionship 7 Cronje, M. et al. 51 Crosland, Anthony 38 Crowther, J. et al. 89 culture 107–10, 170–2 Cummings, W. K. 2, 4 customer service 63–5 Davies, R. and Elias, P. 136 Davies, S. W. and Glaister, K. W. 43 Deal, T. and Kennedy, A. 107 Dearing Report (1997, UK) 41, 47, 50, 110, 138, 173 Dearlove, J. 36, 149 Deedes, W. F. 12, 13 Deem, R. 148; et al. 22, 87, 165 Delamont, S. and Atkinson, P. 167 Delanty, G. 36, 39, 57 Dewey, J. 15 Dill, D. 165, 166, 167 Dunbabin, J. 30

196 Index Earwater, J. 35, 125, 131, 144 East, R. 139 Eco, U. 117 Edinburgh University 33 Edith Cowan University (Australia) 100–2, 104 Ehrlich, T. 89 Eliasson, M. et al. 167 engagement: academic level 115–16; and academicism 116–17; and commitment 115–16; definition 115; and external/consultancy activities 117; institutional level 115; and public recognition 118; and reaching the wider public 116–17; and vice of simplification 117 English Colleges of Advanced Technology 37 entrepreneurial service 83–6 Evans, G. 18, 152 Fengyan, W. 127 Franklin, Benjamin 34 Friedman, A. and Phillips, M. Fryer, R. H. 41, 84 Furedi, F. 137, 140, 142

168

Gascoigne Lally, C. 48 Gibbons, M. et al. 57, 115, 164 Gibbs, G. 133 Gibson, I. 163 Gilligan, C. 123 Gilson, E. 127 Giroux, H. 89 Glassick, C. E. et al. 49, 52, 54 globalization 28–9, 68, 165–6 good citizen 36, 87; and civic disengagement 11–13; and duties of citizenship 12–13; as dynamic/shifting concept 12; and European citizenship 13; and patriotism 13; reasons for breakdown 12; and voter turn-out 12 Goodlad, S. 116, 121 Goodman, P. 18, 19

Gooler, D. D. 48, 117 Gordon, G. 64 Gosling, D. 70 Gouldner, A. 162 Gourley, B. 115 graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) 149–51 Gray, H. 62 Grey, C. and French, R. 90 guardianship: definition 118; and discipline-based groups 119; and egoism 119–20; gatekeeper role 119; as network of support 118–19; and sectarianism 119 Gunasekara, C. 162 Haldane, R. 32 Halsey, A. H. 25, 34, 40, 148; and Trow, M. A. 35, 118, 165 Hand, J. E. 12 Hannan, A. and Silver, H. 81, 82, 107 Hanson, J. 15, 142 Hardy, Thomas 32–3 Hargreaves, A. 66 Harman, G. 38, 152, 154 Harris, N. et al. 168 Harrison, Samuel 31 Healey, N. M. 49 Herzberg, F. 76, 77 Higgins, R. et al. 136 Higher Education Academy (UK) 81, 174 Higher Education Active Community Fund (UK) 162 Hillier, Y. and Vielba, C. 174 Humboldt, Wilhelm Von 39 Humphreys, N. 139, 145 Imperial College, London 84 Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE) 81, 173, 174 Institute of American Values 14 institutional service 165–6 integrated learning 66–7, 69 interrelational service 86–7

Index 197 Jackson, N. and Ward, R. 139 James Cook University (Australia) 103–4 Jenkins, A. et al. 52, 108, 143 John Hopkins University 39 Johnson, G. 121 Johnston, S. and McCormack, C. 167 Jones, A. 32, 33, 34, 141 Kant, Immanuel 39 Karabell, Z. 4 Katz, S. N. 164 Kempner, K. and Taylor, C. 14 Kennedy, B. D. 8, 16, 50, 113 Kerr, C. 34 Keynes, John Maynard 49 Kinser, K. 137, 165 Knight, P. T. 7, 47; and Trowler, P. R. 19, 151, 175 Kogan, M. et al. 4 Kreber, C. 89 Land, R. 107, 162, 172 Lapworth, S. 147, 148 Layer, G. 22 leadership see professors Lee, N. 49 Lewes, G. H. 114 Lewis, L. S. and Altbach, P. G. 18 Li, J. 141, 169 Lindsay, R. et al. 143 Lingard, B. 155 Little, B. 141 Lodge, Henry Cabot 48 London University 36 Loughborough University (UK) 109–10 loyalty: cynicism concerning 121; definition 120–1; and departmentalism 121–2; and management/governance roles 120; and parochialism 122 Lynton, E. and Elman, S. 53, 55, 66

MacFarlane, A. 40 Macfarlane, B. 64, 112, 115; and Lomas, L. 88 McInnes, C. 15, 133 McNay, I. 19, 22, 109, 126 Malcolm, J. and Zukas, M. 173 Manchester University 37–8 Marginson, S. 28–9, 142 Marquand, D. 12, 29 Marshall, T. H. and Bottomore, T. 14 Marton, F. and Saljo, R. 136 Mason, Sir Josiah 31 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 84 Massy, F. W. et al. 17, 26, 119, 150, 151, 167 Maurrasse, D. J. 107 Megone, C. 158 Megroz, R. L. 33 Middlehurst, R. 19, 24, 148, 151, 157 Midwestern State University (USA) 95–6, 104 Minogue, K. R. 49 Moberley, W. 27 Mohan, J. 163 Moodie, G. C. and Eustace, R. 147, 148, 150 Morgan, A. 163 Morley, L. and Walsh, V. 160 Morrill Act (1862, USA) 34 motivation 5, 75–6; and call of service 76–9; and career progression 77; and career survival 78; and consultancy 82; and entrepreneurial service 83–6; and external examining 81, 82; and fellowship 78; and gender 79; and hygiene factors 76–8; and interrelational service 86–7; and job insecurity 78–9; and peer review 81–2; and personal/professional development 77, 80–3; positive/negative reasons 76; and professional identity 78; and self-identity 82–3; and

198 Index self-regarding/other-regarding 79–80; and student development 77; and taxonomy of service 79–90; and transformational service 87–90 Mowat, C. L. 146 National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) (UK) 52 Nelson, C. and Watt, S. 21, 85, 150 Newman, John Henry 35, 36 Nisbet, R. 175 Nixon, J. 24; and Wellington, J. 116 Ottewill, R. 169; and Macfarlane, B. 167; and Maier, P. 140 Oxbridge tradition 4, 27, 147–8; and anti-industrial culture 36, 38; characteristics of 35; dominance of 36–7; fictional view of 37; influence of 41–2; model of 34; and moral tutor 35; and polytechnics/colleges of advanced technology 38–9; and provincial universities 36–7; and public school system 35; and quasi-monastic life 35, 37; and service to God and country 35–6; and student–teacher relationship 35 Oxford University 17–18, 20, 22; see also Oxbridge tradition Palfreyman, D. 18 Park, C. 149; and Ramos, M. 149, 150 Parker, J. 24 Pashley, B. W. 134 Paton, R. 109, 170 Peel, D. 7, 164 personal/professional development 77, 80–3 personal tutors 133–6; and attitudes to higher education 139–40; conceptions of 140; contextual pressures 142–3; developing 143–4; and feedback 136; and

internationalization of student population 141; modular structures 135; moral 35; and negative aspects of research 134–5; and non-completion of courses 136; and part-time staff 135; and progress files 139; revival of role 138–42; specialist support 136–8, 145; and student employability 138–9; and teaching/research distinction 143; and use of ICT/e-learning 141–2; valuing of 144 PEW National Commission on Civic Renewal (US) 14 Piercy, N. F. 124 Pincoffs, E. 127 Piper, D. W. 167 Podgorecki, A. 119 political literacy 16; and academic democracy 18; and academic freedom 21; and decision-making 17–18; decline in collegial governance 19–20; and gentleman amateur 19; and hierarchy/collegiality balance 19; international aspect 18–19; and leadership 19; and management careers 19; and political disenfranchisement 18; and role of academic staff 20–1; and self-governance 17–18 polytechnics 38–9 Pratt, J. 34, 38, 42; and Burgess, T. 38, 49 Pring, R. 115 professors: atomism of 154; and changing professoriate 153–5; and decision-making 153; divisions within 153; as heads of department 152; and inter-generational equity 158–9; managerial/research divisiveness 154–5; as managers 151–2; as moral leader 156–8; negative aspects 154; and promotion 153–4; public role of 155–6; and status 152; title given as reward 153

Index 199 Professors of the Year program (USA) 52 Public Administration Select Commission (USA) 14 public service: concerns over 162; curriculum level 162–3; and economic contribution to society 161–2; holistic perspective 162; and research quality 163; and single honors degree 163 Putnam, R. 12 Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)

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Reeves, W. P. 13 Reid, C. 89 research 6, 39–41, 42, 48, 68, 166; controversies concerning 57; and link with society 50–1; pure/applied 56; and student dissatisfaction 134–5; and teaching–research debate 67–8 Research Assessment Exercise (UK) 163 reward/recognition schemes 5, 52, 69, 92; barriers to 106; challenges 110–11; and dominance of teaching/research 109; and effect of culture on 107–10; efficacy of 109; and evidence-based teaching 106; formal/informal 105; institutional case studies 93–103; and measurement of service 105–6; nomenclature 93; perceptions of academic staff 104–7; three-dimensional vision 110; trends 103–4; visible elements 108–9 Rhoads, R. A. and Howard, J. P. F. 171 Rhodes, F. H. T. 116, 150 Richards, J. 117 Ringer, F. 38 Ritzer, G. 64 Robbins 25, 133 Robbins Report (1963, UK) 132–3 Robinson, S. 2, 30 Roosevelt, Theodore 48 Russell, C. 20 Ryle, G. 127

Sanderson, M. 31 Sandmann, L. R. et al. 53 scholarship 4–5, 175; and academic drift 49–50; and academic good citizenship 52–3; academic/practical concerns remoteness 49; and application, integration, teaching 53–4; civic ideal 48; and community of practice 55; dark/light side of service 56–7; definitions of 51–2; and engagement 53; and knowledge acquisition 56; and leadership/pastoral support 54; moral dimension 55; and possession of a doctorate 48–9; and pure/applied research 56; re-classification of 54; as research 48; and scholarly expertise 52–3; and service activities 53–5; tension with service 49–50 Scott, P. 30, 40, 41, 49, 147, 148 Scott, S. V. 64 service: and academic drift 49–50; and accountability/performativity 68; autonomous tradition 39–41; business influence on 2, 73–4; as catch-all term 53; centrality of 7; and changing nature of workforce 69; civic tradition 29–34; and commitment/values 2–3; concept/definition 2; differences in interpretation 42; and global economy 28–9, 68; historical perspective 28, 29–30; importance of 3; individual level 48; internal/external difference 47–8; interpretations of 46–7, 62–7; and ivory tower attitudes 50; and lack of status 69–72; link with scholarship 47–58; macro-level 58; as moral obligation 8; as multifaceted 43–5; Oxbridge tradition 34–9; and performance measurement 68–9; public/private interests 28–9; pyramid 72–3; and research/teaching 6; rewards for 70; and service

200 Index learning 48; and squeezing of role of 69; and student as customer 2; types of activities 27, 41–3, 48; understanding of term 61–2; vocational concept 42 service pyramid 70; collegial service 71; discipline/professional service 72; institutional service 71–2; interpretation of 72–3; public service 72; student service 70–1 Shane, S. 84 Shannon, D. M. et al. 149 Shattock, M. L. 151 Shepherd, J. 84 Shils, E. 16, 23, 92, 113, 122, 123, 156, 160 Silver, H. 23, 37, 38 Sim, S. 84 Sinclair, A. 156 Skelton, A. 52, 68, 124, 131, 133, 173 Slosson, E. E. 34 Smith, Adam 49 Smith, D. 29, 39, 41, 48 Smith, R. and Betts, M. 163 Smith-Lever Act (USA) 38 social/moral responsibility 16–17; and the collegium 22–3; commitments 21–2; corporate model 22; and culture 22; and disaggregated university 23; and redundancy/loss of involvement 23; and sense of community/common purpose 23 Squires, G. 24 Stanford University 39 Staniforth, D. and Harland, T. 15 Stewart, J. and Knowles, V. 168–9 Streitz, D. S. and Hunkler, J. A. 150 student service 167–9; and engagement with students 145; and growth of specialist support 136–8; importance/centrality of 131–2; and internationalization of higher education 169; and personal tutor 133–6, 138–42, 143–4; and retention

132–3; and student alienation 6; and student development 88–9; and tutoring/contextual pressures 142–3; and workplace mentoring 168–9 support networks 54, 69, 118–19, 136–8, 145, 165 Sykes, C. J. 48, 56 Talib, A. A. 7 Tam, H. 6 Tapper, T.: and Palfreyman, D. 19, 20, 25, 121, 123; and Salter, B. 148 Taylor, P. G. 136 Teaching Fellowship programs 52 Thomas, L. et al. 140 Thomas, R. and Chickering, A. 23 3M Teaching Fellowships (Canada) 52 Tight, M. 69, 156, 158 Tinto, V. 133 Tjeldvoll, A. 174 transformational service 87–90 Trowler, P. 24, 88, 125; and Bamber, R. 173 Tucker, A. 154 tutorial system see personal tutors Tytherleigh, M. Y. et al. 78 universities: and academic drift 34–5, 36–9, 42; and buying your way out 168; and citizenship responsibilities 16–17; and civic disengagement 17; and commitment to community 30–4; and compact with society 3, 50–1; as enablers 162; and excellence of teaching 52, 68, 173; and fragmentation/specialization of curriculum 163–4; green field 38; historical development 29–34; and importance of character development/pastoral care 36, 41–2; as incubator for independent/rigorous research 57–8; ivory tower attitudes 57; Kantian/Humboldtian ideals 39–40, 44, 46–7; market analogy 139–40; move away from civic

Index 201 principles 36–9; and non-core/administrative roles 15; performativity agenda 173; and pre-eminence of lecture 173; and public/private partnerships 169; and recognition of service/citizenship 175; as research/teaching establishments 1; and role of academic staff in 15, 17–18; and service ethic 1, 3–4, 15–16, 17, 28, 42; and state/research funding 40–1; and student–teacher relationship 35; and third role/third leg 162; and training/certification of lecturers 6 Universities Funding Council 41 University College London 93, 94–5, 104 University Grants Committee (UGC) 41, 148 University of Alabama 93, 97–9 University of Berlin 39 University of Chicago 14 University of Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa) 99 University of Pennsylvania 34 University of Western Sydney (Australia) 96–7 Urry, J. 28

Vaughn, W. 149 Vink, M. 13 virtue 5 voluntary academic work

7

Walker, M. 7, 166 Wallace, D. et al. 169 Walters, S. and Watters, K. 13 Ward, K. 16, 47, 66, 69, 171 Warren, D. and Plumb, E. 52 Warwick University (UK) 106 Watson, D. 121 Wedgwood, M. 41, 50, 162 Weil, S. and Frame, P. 168 Wharton, Joseph 34 Wiener, M. J. 34, 36, 38 Wilkinson, J. 169 Williamson, G. R. 134 Wodd, M. 167 work-based learning 163 Yale University 40 Yorke, M. 133, 135 Zamorski, B.

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