Universities risk being ¡°torn apart¡± by diverging views?on whether?their role?is to be creators and disseminators of knowledge, or producers of ideological and occupational foot-soldiers.

Science diplomat Peter Gluckman told the THE Campus Live ANZ event, at the University of Canterbury, that a ¡°tension¡± between two conceptualisations of the academy had emerged over the past five years.

¡°Are universities fundamentally institutions [devoted to] classical definitions of research, teaching and knowledge projection? Or are they engines of social engineering? Different parts of the political spectrum have different views of those two perspectives, which do not need to be entirely orthogonal to each other ¨C but are positioned as being orthogonal to each other.

¡°We¡¯ve seen universities torn apart over this in the northern hemisphere, and it¡¯s still potentially the case here. The fragility of social licence for universities is far greater than people realise in a world that¡¯s becoming more populist-driven in different ways, both from the left and from the right.¡±

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Gluckman?said university leaders needed to be ¡°very sensitive in how they project their institution against these two perceptions of what universities are for¡±.

The conference heard that universities were being pressed to ¡°speak¡± at inappropriate times. Swinburne University vice-chancellor Pascale Quester said this had been ¡°brought to the fore¡± during Australia¡¯s 2023 debate over the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.

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Quester said she had come under pressure from students, staff and colleagues to take a public stand in favour of the proposal, and suffered an ¡°incredible backlash¡± for declining.

¡°I was not willing¡­to sign off on a view by my university. I didn¡¯t think that was my place, nor the place of my university, other than to be the broker of respectful conversation. The students didn¡¯t want a polite conversation. The staff didn¡¯t want a polite conversation. The union didn¡¯t want a polite conversation. They wanted one position, and they wanted to be represented with the might of the university.¡±

Damon Salesa, vice-chancellor of Auckland University of Technology, said academic leaders around the world were being forced to spend more and more of their time on what would be termed ¡°political management¡± in other industries. As a consequence, they had become less focused on the core educational tasks of universities.

Salesa said a ¡°real contestation¡± was developing between a view that education was about personal development and growth, and a more ¡°functional¡± conceptualisation of education as ¡°skills-based assessment¡±.

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¡°That is a grave risk to¡­the broader remit of university that will undermine [its] social licence. That key phrase in New Zealand ¨C the critic and conscience of society ¨C has to be something that we protect very deeply.¡±

University of Canberra vice-chancellor Bill Shorten said traditional ideas of university also carried risk in the face of shifting generational views about the ¡°prestige-driven narratives¡± of higher education.

¡°The Zs and the millennials¡­feel economic disempowerment in their daily lives, and so the idea of spending money at a uni ¨C they question the value of it. We complain about the lack of government funding. But the punters out there ¨C people ¨C they look at the uni sector and say, ¡®these people aren¡¯t talking to me¡¯.

¡°Think about how many adults need to come back to university, who see images of kids drinking cappuccino [and] playing frisbee on the lawn. They¡¯re thinking, ¡®that¡¯s not me¡¯. The challenge is, what do we do that the community can understand? We need to make a case to the community about how they fit into our vision.¡±

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com