Universities: sinking or finding new purpose?

I just had dinner with some friends who recently visited UC Berkeley, where they both used to work - he has a big-shot prof, she as a well-respected administrator.   Both had lived (and he used to teach) in Africa. Both knew the critical importance of education to sustainable development, and to shaping the values of good citizenry, both in the West and in Africa. Their faces were grim.

'Its bad,' she said. 'Real bad. These cuts are the worse that they've been for a long time. They are cutting staff all over, everyone is taking a pay cut. The people on the top are taking a bigger pay cut. Many are on unpaid leave. I don't know how they will make it through this recession/depression.'

'They won't,' he said.'They've paid less than their competitors for years; people stayed because the intellectual atmosphere was one of the best in the world. But people won't stay forever in these conditions, and new researchers will go somewhere else. And once you loose the people, the reputation will fall, and once the reputation falls, it will be almost impossible to build it back up again.'

And this is UC Berkeley we are talking about - what was once considered one of the best Universities in the world. Some say it still is. But if my friends are right - and they have a tendency to be right - that might be changing. I'll blame the California legislature - which is having notoriously difficult times balancing its budget, and higher education is taking a hit - including the raising of student fees which are already higher than what many young and smart Californians are comfortable paying for.

But the problems besetting higher education are not unique to California. Across the country - and indeed, across the world - Universities are strapped for money. And many are being challenged to reassess their purpose. The combination is leading to new links with businesses - which can have detremental effects on research - such as cutting linguistics departments which are no longer seen as 'useful', as happened recently at the University of Sussex in the UK, or having commercial interests shape university research, sometimes at the cost of pursuing research that may be more beneficial for society than for immediate commercial gain.

Yet this re-engagement with business is at least an engagement with some of society. I don't always approve of too much mixing of academia and the market, but I also don't approve of the ivory tower getting too far removed from the real world. And that's been a sad truth of Universities - that much of the research, from biology to classical studies, is removed from society. It too rarely provides a place for young people to learn skills in critical thinking or civic engagement - the truly critical skills for sustainable development, regardless of ones society.

Might there be a potential silver lining here? For in addition to twining with business, Universities are considering their responsibility towards civic society. Examples range from MIT's new program on 'joint fact finding' which pairs citizens and scientists together and, in the UK, the University of Brighton is engaging with the local community in a way that is truly transforming sustainable development for each side. The push to reconsider the purpose of education is a good trend - though I hope that the public realizes that if a (potentially revamped) education system isn't funded, hopes for sustainable development, as well as the continuation of certain organizations, sink.