A conversation recently with someone unfamiliar with UCC included the question where the source of power was-perhaps unsurprising as academic institutions can be particularly opaque to the uninitiated. I was of course unable to say, and asked merely that if they found it they let me know. As I have been someone who often felt that as soon as I was on a committee the decisions happened at the pre-meeting, I am not often surprised at an inability to discover where an actual decision is taken. This may frighten those who think college heads have power, (and reassure others who hope they do not), but it illustrates a general point that the really interesting meetings and decisions are often not in the obvious fora but elsewhere. In fact that realisation -when I noticed the small attendance at College Assembly meetings- was in part the inspiration behind this blog-and reflects a fact which I should have known from my own research, which is that what is really interesting and significant happens on the margins-the periphery. I have always used this to argue for and examine the centrality of emergency legisaltion in the criminal process, so I should not have been surprised that in my role as college head the headiest and most insightful experiences would be outside regular stuctures.
And so to some of the interesting 'off site' meetings i.e. outside structures and so possibly invisible if you were that martian looking for the source of power and decision:
the College 'forfas' rountable discussion on research themes where real intellectual robustness and creativity was displayed by all present in an exciting clash of ideas at times-which did lead somewhere in terms of identification of themes for that process (however flawed);
the College school recruitment committees with staff expressing great and innovative ideas about promoting our courses & in particular the BA;
and roundtable discussions regarding the MA in Irish Studies where I am learning a lot and those participating are showing great patience (with me) as well as good humour and energy in planning that academic programme.
In the institution itself it is also true that the 'big ideas' will be on the margins: -between disciplines perhaps in small isolated offices or emergent in conversations over coffee between scientists and arts/humanities people, and that it is these that will change our education and research. Rarely will the oft mentioned 'innovation' happen in a committe or indeed a structured meeting. The one exception and occasion when ideas that challenge and will change our world emerge in a structured way -and not infrequently but with great regularity- is in the lecture theatre and class room, and they were perhaps my best and favourite moments of this term, when occasionally I saw my students exited by ideas, and literally bursting to articulate them. Like all academics it is that which keeps me going-that is where the real action and power on campus lies. Everything else we do whether as college heads or elsewhere should be to support that learning process. It is those revolutions of thought that will change our worlds, and so that is where the true power is and should be on campus.
There is no single "source of power"; like any other organisation, there are several - the power to keep the show on the road, which lies with a limited number of mid-level administrative staff, the official power structures, which are often a waste of time in endless meetings, the power to innovate, which lives (hides?) on the fringes, the power of the University Management Team, which is a bit like the power of the helm on the Titantic, able to turn the ship, but not very quickly. In all of these, any university is no different to any other large organisation.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest power relationship is between academics and students. Our students come to us from a secondary system which systematically limits their power in the interests of classroom management and social control. In theory, we try to develope them from recyclers of notes in exams into critical thinkers, but in practice, we don't often succeed.
The lecture-exam format reinforces this power relationship - it is easy to keep control and keep the show on the road with this pedagogy. There is a view that power is zero sum game, and changing pedagogic approaches to empower students means academics lose some power - and some academics are very insecure about that. There is always a fear that if you fiddle with 'the way things are done' things might go wrong and the university doesn't like that. Changing the power relationship, shifting the power from teaching to learning, is a risk, and we live in a very risk averse culture. Innovating in pedagogic approaches and in course structures risks doing things which might not work, and therefore we need to be more realistic in our assessment of risks - something we're not very good at, as we can see from the current economic mess we walked into! Still, they say you teach best what you most need to learn, and perhaps that should be our mission.
Dear Caroline, to be honest I think a Facebook page would reach a wider audience and pack a bigger punch.. best Piaras
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