In their Desperation to be Woke, Universities are Losing their Way
The term multiversity was coined by respected University of California president Clark Kerr in a famous 1963 lecture. Kerr’s vision was originally received as a prophetic acknowledgement of a splendid technocratic future. But Kerr believed himself to be misunderstood. He was never so sure that the multiversity, inevitable as it seemed to be, was a great idea. In later writings he pointed out some of its flaws, flaws which have led to a huge changes to the university as it has existed for almost a thousand years. The multiversity is now indistinguishable from a business, a business that largely lost sight of its proper function.
Kerr listed the often-conflicting tasks of university presidents in this new age. Three stand out:
- “a seeker of truth where the truth may not hurt too much”
- “to keep the peace”
- “service to society”
Number 1 often loses out to Number 2 and Number 3 justifies almost any activity, truth-seeking or not. These tendencies have come to fruition in the modern research university where clarity of vision has dimmed as the enterprise has expanded. UCL is an example.
A Modern Multiversity
University College London is not a college but a university, a very large one, in fact. It is the largest ‘college’ in the University of London, rated one to three as a U.K. research university and between eight and 16 in the world rankings, depending on who’s counting. Its tag line is “London’s Global University”. Its student body numbers over 40,000. Its problems are shared by many large U.S. research universities. Appropriately, the new President of UCL, Michael Spence, an Australian, has wide interests, from theology to intellectual property theory.
UCL is embarking on a Five-Year Plan and in March 2022, President Spence invited alumni to help, with a memo entitled “How can UCL remain a world-leading university in a rapidly changing world?” As an alumnus, I feel obliged to respond.
UCL is a vast organisation embracing multiple more or less independent entities. Coming up with a mission statement is a formidable undertaking. Nevertheless, UCL is a university and should presumably adhere to core intellectual values. In order to find out if it does, let’s look at Paper 1, “2022-2027 Strategic plan. Introduction: Vision, Mission and Values,” one of five that are up for discussion. I will just discuss Part one, “Our vision and mission”, and “Our values”. The section begins:
Vision
Our distinctive approach to research, education and innovation will further inspire our community of staff, students and partners to transform how the world is understood, how knowledge is created and shared and the way that global problems are solved [emphasis mine].
Well, at least it’s short, but it reads as if written not by an intelligent human being, but by a bot programmed to string together fashionable words (boldfaced) in grammatical sequence. UCL is apparently “distinctive”, but how or even why distinctiveness is important not clear – but, never fear, it “will inspire” not to mention “transform.” The statement actually says almost nothing and what it does say is not obviously related to the functions of a real university. Suggested alternative:
Vision: Our purpose is the search for truth, verifiable in the case of science, but always a subject of rational debate, i.e. Wissenschaft.
Incidentally, the word truth does not occur at all in the 4,300-word Vision, Mission and Values statement. So much for Veritas.
Next is:
Mission
London’s Global University: a diverse intellectual community, engaged with the wider world and committed to changing it for the better; recognised for our radical and critical thinking and its widespread influence; with an outstanding ability to integrate our education, research, innovation and enterprise for the long-term benefit of humanity.
The buzzwords now become global. Does UCL really know why or even where it exists? “Committed to changing [the world]”, why? Isn’t that what the politico-legal system is for? For “better”, what is “better”? Define or discuss. “Widespread influence” – well, new ideas have influence but influence should not part of a university’s mission. Why should a university seek to influence anything beyond the world of ideas (see politico-legal above)? “Radical and critical thinking”: critical, yes, but radical, why? What’s so good about radical? At least part of a university’s purpose surely is to pass on an intellectual tradition, i.e., to be conservative rather than radical – and, above all, truth. “[A]n outstanding ability” — sez who, not ourselves, surely? Evidently modesty is not one of our “values” (see also “Vision” above). “Long-term benefit of humanity”? Indeed, scholarly and scientific work may benefit humanity, at least in the long term, but is that why we do it? Knowledge should be an intrinsic not an instrumental good for a university. No sign of that here.
Suggested alternative:
Mission
To be a university that is faithful to its values, selects its faculty and students for excellence of intellect and character, and pursues both teaching and research with equal vigour.
Values
The final section of Part one, on Values, is the longest and most confused. Evidently UCL had an internal controversy in 2020 about decision making to which this section is in part a reaction. Earlier, it accepted the resignation of a Nobelist honorary professor because indignant feminists complained about a lighthearted, but probably true, statement in a conference talk: that women in a predominately male research lab can lead to emotional problems.
Perhaps for these reasons, accountability is emphasised:
The first of the four clusters [of values] being honest and transparent in our dealings with one another and the broader community. This entails a strong sense of collective and personal responsibility and accountability to each other, and to the communities that we serve.
So, be decent and responsible, which should be true for everyone, always, not special to a university or UCL. And does a university serve a community or an ideal?
And then on academic freedom:
[T]he one thing that all understandings of academic freedom have in common, and that must be maintained… is a strong bias towards maximising the autonomy of the researcher and teacher to determine, to pursue, and to promote their own intellectual agenda, and to do so free of unwarranted institutional or government interference.
Translation: We’ll be nice to you, academics, but we will not be too specific about how. No mention of the distinction between facts, which are the real business of the university, and the values/emotion and political activism often attached to them, which are not. Much of the rest of this section seems to be redundant repetitions of these sentiments plus the usual hyperbole and allusions to the 2020 inquiry:
Universities have a history of promising extraordinary things to the communities with whom they work: It is essential that we are absolutely clear with staff, students, alumni, donors, and external organisations about what we can and cannot deliver as an organisation of limited resources and competing priorities, even when pressure exists to deliver the impossible. The demands on universities are growing, and we must be able to say with clarity both what we can, and what we cannot, achieve.
All this sounds like agonised introspections of administrators trying to resolve conflicts, rather than anything to do with the values of a university. And do universities– should they – “promise extraordinary things”?
The last part of “Values” is a combination of wokeness and crypto-Marxism.
Sample quote: “Openness and inclusion.”
The first is the absolute priority of ensuring that our staff and student body (not least our academic and professional leadership group) [leaders?] is as diverse as possible… a duty to promote equality, both within and without the UCL community….This means…that all students of equivalent ability should be equally able to succeed, and that the so-called ‘awarding gap’ for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME [BIPOC]) students must finally be removed.
All must have prizes, and all must be equal, especially BAMEs. Yet a university has always been an elite organisation. Not everyone wants, or is able to profit from a university education. A commitment to equality (as opposed to equality of opportunity) subverts that objective. And why must leaders be “diverse” as opposed to merely excellent?
Sample quote: “Care and respect.”
[T]he university would be unable to achieve its academic mission without the contribution of its professional staff, who must enjoy a parity of esteem for the vital contribution that they make to our success. They must be accorded respect and parity of esteem for their professional skills, just as academic staff are for theirs.
Esteem must surely be earned not awarded. All this used to be covered by exhortations like ‘be polite’ and ‘don’t be rude to others’. But neither ‘rude’ nor ‘impolite’ is to be found in this document (or many others like it). The word polite does occur in the first paragraph, but only as a slur: “The university was to be… both open to all the world, and concerned at least as much with ‘useful knowledge’ as with ‘polite learning’.” So much for knowledge for its own sake.
One of two cited references is to the work of the delightfully named Chantal Mouffe who’s Wikipedia entry gives a hint as to where this section is coming from: “She is best known for her contribution to the development… of the so-called Essex School of discourse analysis, a type of post-Marxist political inquiry drawing on Gramsci, post-structuralism and theories of identity, and redefining Leftist politics in terms of radical democracy.” Perhaps ‘polite’ = ‘bourgeois’ for Mme. Mouffe?
Sample quote: “Rigour and innovation.”
Our work will only have impact if we engage and if we reduce the barriers to cooperation… One particular challenge here is in the balance of work addressing the complex problems of our communities, which is almost always cross-discplinary [sic]…
Cooperation is often good but often either irrelevant or simply annoying (Isaac Newton, q.v.). Is it right for a university to recommend it for all? And is addressing community problems a prime purpose of a university? This section concludes:
The four clusters of value that seem to be emerging as important for our work are thus:
• Integrity and mutual accountability
• Openness and inclusion
• Care and respect
• Rigour and innovation
In short: be honest and responsible, be politically correct, be polite, be a good scholar, be novel but tough. In short, values that work for any institution from a university to a Chevrolet dealership. Nothing about truth or the separation of fact and value. “Inclusion” is favored over colour-blindness.
Conclusion
It is hard to know just what to make of this document. It avoids ideas basic to a university, like truth, excellence and the intrinsic value of knowledge. It is jargon-filled and rambling almost as if the intent is not to transmit information but to hide it. Bromides abound. The obvious conclusion is that the document is a muddle because the real purposes of the multiversity have very little to do with traditional academic values.
This document and many others like it was written not by scholars, but by successful bureaucrats, using tactics that work in any large organisation: keep your ear to the ground and your finger to the wind. No matter how awkward the resulting posture, you can be sure to offend no one and gain a reputation for soundness. Abiding adherence to principle is rarely to be found in a system so organised.
In practice, the multiversity has become a rootless business enterprise in which the core departments, the sciences and humanities, are subordinate to what used to be the periphery: the professional schools of law, medicine, engineering and business. All of these serve different functions, have different missions and different values. It is no wonder that any attempt to unify them leads to a stumbling convergence on values that apply in effect to any organisation whatever.
John Staddon is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology, and Professor of Biology and Neurobiology, Emeritus at Duke University.
