I attended a national conference recently with some of the country’s leading members of higher education. Generally speaking, people seemed to feel pretty good about themselves, their shared problems, and their current initiatives to combat them. There was a foundational belief even in the value of modern-day universities in meeting and serving societal demands, as change agents and pivotal respondents to complex and wicked problems. Any questioning of this orthodoxy represented a broader community failure to comprehend the vast tradition and importance underpinning the higher education system. Not that direct fault was ever cast, or any significant blame assumed.
In sum, it was a festival for the converted – a gathering en-masse to reinforce a collective value proposition. An echo chamber. Real-world people and problems be damned. This was as much as a feel-good fest as a pity-fest. There seemed to be little doubt about the importance of universities and their generous contributions through teaching and creative scholarship, despite declining trends in the sector worldwide and our collective inability to reverse them.
We ate a lot of ‘word salad’ throughout the conference. Innovation was frequently brought up, with no tangible meaning or definition. I learned that universities are doing it, translating it, and disseminating it. Nobody would fully describe its value, how we might be actively teaching the next generation of students in any programmatic way. It was presented as the university’s raison d’être, a thing of high esteem, seemingly incapable of measurement or definition. A unicorn to be preserved and protected at all costs.
Knowledge creation was another meal. We ate this one heartily. I learned that this is a university’s primary business, best exemplified through graduate students as our next generation of researchers. Knowledge, we were told, is a commodity. Universities offer experience. And that experience is our gift to the world. Exactly how it might be wrapped and gifted, nobody knows. It just is. Enjoy.
I’m obviously being more than a little sarcastic. But I can’t hide my cynicism. There’s a fundamental problem with gatherings of this nature, which theoretically should exist to solve the identified problems. Not just for the sake of talk. I’m not denying the talent, experience, and expertise in the room; what I’m saying is that it’s never fully harnessed or leveraged to address the actual situation, which in this case is more than urgent. This is a real shame, and a dangerous game to play at others’ expense.
As attendees return to their home institutions, provinces, and territories, I can’t help but ponder the wasted opportunity. There’s power in the collective, and wisdom at its core. There are solutions waiting to be unearthed, with action desperately needing to be taken. But in the absence of courage and brutal honesty about the problems that every university and college is currently facing in this country and beyond, real progress will be scarce.