The Academic Citizen

The Virtue of Service in University Life

Bruce Macfarlane

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134247271
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

With increasing focus on excellence in research and teaching, the service role of the individual academic is often neglected. This book calls for greater recognition of this important aspect of academic life, highlighting the importance of mentoring, committee work and pastoral care in the daily running of universities. Drawing from extensive examples from models around the world, The Academic Citizen points to the benefits of effective communication with colleagues in the faculty, across the university and in corresponding faculties across the world, as well as those in maintaining positive associations with the wider world.

Part I
The retreat from citizenship

Chapter 1
The disengaged academic

There are worrying levels of apathy, ignorance and cynicism about public life.

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA, 1998: 8)

The civic crisis

What does it mean to be a ‘good citizen’? This is a question that seems a logical starting point for a book about ‘academic citizenship’. In the classical Greek city states citizenship was the privilege enjoyed by the free rather than the right of all. Citizenship brought with it the right to have say and to vote about matters affecting the city. Today, the right to vote is no longer considered a privilege in a representative democracy. It is widely taken for granted even though the extension of the franchise to women was not completed in Britain until 1928 and considerably later than this in some other western democracies. Exercising the right to vote, hard won by our forebears, might seem a basic requirement for being a ‘good citizen’ in a modern democratic society.

However, we are said to live in an age of civic disengagement evidenced by the decline of voter participation and community volunteering, in old and new democracies alike. Less than 60 percent of the population voted in the UK general election held in June, 2001. This was the lowest figure recorded since the end of World War I. Despite a slightly improved turn-out at the general election of May 2005, a pattern of longer-term decline appears to be now firmly established. Similar trends can be seen elsewhere. In the US too there has been a long-term decline in voter turn-out during the twentieth century.

There have been many analyses of why voter turn-out is falling. Studies often indicate declining levels of trust in politicians or rising levels of apathy about the political process itself (e.g. Baston and Ritchie, 2004). Of course, being a ‘good citizen’ means much more than just turning up to vote every four or five years. It is also about an ongoing commitment to participate and engage with others in society. Falling levels of civic engagement in community and in charitable and religious organizations are symptomatic of a decline in ‘civic’ society. While the numbers of nonprofit-making organizations may have grown substantially over the past few decades, people increasingly engage with them by donating money rather than participating in meetings and other activities. In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam (2000) shows that Americans today are less engaged in virtually all aspects of social and community life than they were in 1960.

There are many other popular explanations offered for civic disengagement. These include the breakdown of the nuclear family, the mobility of labor, fear of crime, the pressures of modern working practices, the growth of technology resulting in a 24-hour consumer society and the mass media providing people with many alternative ways of spending their leisure time. Others put the blame on the free market politics of the 1980s and 1990s ‘designed to root out the culture of service and citizenship which had become part of the social fabric’ (Marquand, 2004: 2). This, according to Marquand, promoted a more selfish and consumer-oriented society that destroyed the historic balance between the public and the private created during Victorian times. Others, writing from a different side of the political spectrum, agree that there has been a ‘devaluation’ of public service (Deedes, 2004). This means that public servants, such as politicians, are no longer held in such high regard.

It also needs to be acknowledged, though, that what it means to be a ‘good citizen’ is a dynamic and shifting rather than static concept. In a book entitled Good Citizenship published at the close of the nineteenth century, a range of obligations are explored both familiar and unfamiliar to the modern reader (Hand, 1899). Familiar themes include the need to obey the civil law and the importance of seeking progress on a range of social issues. Other duties of citizenship identified in the volume are very much of their time. One such example is the duty of Britain to its empire based on a perception that imperialism had rightly triumphed and brought benefits for both colonists and indigenous races (Reeves, 1899). The sacrifices made by colonial subjects of the British Empire were witnessed in both World War I and II. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, citizenship was strongly associated with displays of individual and collective patriotism to the nation state (Vink, 2004). Despite the slaughter in the trenches of World War I, conscription to the British armed forces was not introduced until March, 1916. Helping to pay for the war was a further expression of patriotic duty for those unable to serve. For example, it is estimated that Stanley Baldwin, who later became British Prime Minister, donated 20 percent of his total private wealth toward the repayment of the war loan (Deedes, 2004). During the 1939–1945 conflict, the purchase of government (or war) bonds was seen primarily, on both sides of the Atlantic, as an obligation of any good citizen rather than a financial investment (Coles, 1993). After World War II, through until the early 1960s, young British men continued to be ‘called up’ for a two-year stint of ‘national service’.

In a time of transition, it is still perhaps too early to say whether notions of European citizenship are largely symbolic or genuinely ‘postnational’ (Vink, 2004). In this contemporary context, citizenship is still associated with displays of individual and collective patriotism, but it has also been re-constructed under the influence of powerful social movements such as environmentalism and feminism (Walters and Watters, 2001). This means that citizenship is connected closely with a range of other acts and activities such as voting in elections, recycling household waste and working for local and charitable groups. While many might welcome a weakening connection between citizenship and military service, it is important to consider what has happened to our sense of communal obligation.

Citizenship education

The perception of civic disengagement has provoked a ‘moral panic’ (Cohen, 1972) inasmuch that politicians and the mass media have focused, in particular, on falling turn-out among young voters as a public expression of youth alienation (Maitles, 2000). Many conferences, committees and national commissions charged with explaining and offering potential solutions to this phenomenon have followed in the wake of this attention. The US Pew National Commission on Civic Renewal and the Council on Civil Society, co-sponsored by the University of Chicago and the Institute of American Values, reported their concerns at the end of the 1990s. In the UK, despite the recommendation of the Public Administration Select Commission following the poor voter turn-out at the 2001 general election, a proposed ‘Rewarding Democracy Commission’ failed to gain sufficient support in the House of Commons.

The introduction of citizenship education in English schools is a reaction, at least in part, to concerns raised about youth alienation from democratic processes. This has stemmed, again in part, from angst about the low levels of voter participation by young citizens in the 18–24 age bracket, in particular. In 2002, following the recommendations of an Advisory Group under the Chairmanship of Sir Bernard Crick, citizenship education became a statutory element of the UK national school curriculum. In defining the elements of a citizenship education, the Crick report drew on a rich literature and tradition. In the ancient Greek and Roman city states citizenship meant ‘involvement in public affairs by those that had the rights of citizens: to take part in public debate and, directly or indirectly, in shaping the laws and decisions of a state’ (QCA, 1998: 9). While early Greek and Roman societies provide a model of citizenship, in many respects it is one ill-suited to the inclusive ideals of modern democratic society.

Today, citizenship is a more inclusive concept rather than excluding members of society such as women and slaves as it did in ancient Greek society. The Crick report further cites T. H. Marshall’s work on citizenship (Marshall and Bottomore, 1992). Marshall identified three elements of citizenship as the civil, the political and the social, a model influential on the Crick Advisory Group. It determined that political literacy, community involvement and social and moral responsibility should form the core of the citizenship curriculum designed to help secondary school pupils become ‘active, informed, critical and responsible citizens’ (QCA, 1998: 9). English school pupils from the age of 5 through to 11 would also learn about citizenship in combination with personal, social and health education.

Calls for university students to become more ‘active’ citizens have also grown in the wake of the introduction of citizenship education in English schools. Kempner and Taylor (1998: 301) are representative of a number of academics arguing that universities should re-focus their attentions:

We propose higher education, and community colleges in particular, be evaluated not solely on their functional merits, but on their value in promoting what Dewey (1966) called, an ‘active citizenry’.

The rise of citizenship education in response to the perceived crisis in civic engagement has begun to generate a good deal of academic attention. There are now journals, conferences, research centers and societies devoted to the furtherance of work in the area. However, it is ironic that while academics, such as Kempner and Taylor (1998), have called for students to be encouraged to participate more fully as members of a democratic society, the citizenship responsibilities of the academic community have tended to be overlooked. Attention has been focused on the education of children and young adults rather than those doing the educating.

The academic citizen?

The role of university academic staff, particularly in a UK context, is rarely expressed in terms of their citizenship or ‘service’ role. It is more usually understood in terms of the dual claims of teaching and research. Academics, it is said, are employed for their knowledge of their discipline or profession, their ability to further that knowledge through research and to help students learn through their teaching activities. Anything they do apart from this is sometimes referred to as ‘administration’ and carries negative connotations (Staniforth and Harland, 1999). Such activities are often perceived as ‘non-core’ (McInnes, 1996) and are regarded as an unwelcome and dysfunctional distraction from research and teaching. According to a major twenty-year study, interest in administration and committee work declined sharply between 1977 and 1997 among both academic leaders, such as deans and heads of department, and front-line academic staff (Hanson, 2003).

However, ‘service’ consists of much more than administrative and committee work. It also refers to activities like counseling students, mentoring junior or less experienced colleagues, developing links with employers or community groups, interacting with professional groups or contributing to a university committee or working party. Service activities are essential in keeping academic communities and the universities they work in going and connected to the world around them (Burgan, 1998). They directly support teaching and research activities through service work such as teaching observation, mentoring, reviewing of academic papers and the organization of conferences (see Chapter 4). Yet, in the conceptualization of academic life the role of service has been, by in large, overlooked or trivialized as little more than ‘administration’ rather than essential to the preservation of community life.

There are those who argue that academic staff should exercise citizenship responsibilities in relation to their own academic community and the wider world which universities serve (Kennedy, 1997; Shils, 1997; Ward, 2003). However, there has been little attention paid to the direct link between the concept of citizenship and the responsibilities of academic staff. Mapping the ways in which the principles of citizenship apply to academics would seem especially pertinent, given that many within the higher education community are involved, either directly or indirectly, in inculcating students with a respect for elements of our ‘common culture’ (NCIHE, 1997). A preparedness to tolerate and respect the views of others is one of these elements (Barnett, 1990).

In exploring the concept of ‘academic citizenship’ there are important implications arising from the application of the Crick committee’s three components of citizenship to university life (Table 1.1). Political literacy implies active participation in decision-making processes within the immediate organizational setting be that a center, unit or department and as a member of a broader higher education institution. Social and moral responsibility demands that academics recognize the need to serve overlapping

Table 1.1 Elements of academic citizenship

communities within and outside the university and fulfill social and moral obligations in relation to these communities. Community involvement points up the importance of putting this commitment into practice through activities such as nurturing students, supporting colleagues, developing the discipline or profession, and communicating with the wider public. These components of academic citizenship require that faculty are knowledgeable (political literacy), possess key values (connected with social and moral responsibility) and are skilled to carry out this commitment (through community involvement).¹

Still, it is important to consider the extent to which this ideal reflects the reality of contemporary academic life. Does the ‘civic disengagement’ thesis in regard to wider society equally apply within the academic community? Are university lecturers less prepared or interested in being good ‘academic citizens’? If so, why has this occurred?

The evidence does suggest that, to some extent, the obligations of academic citizenship have been ‘hollowed out’ (Massy et al., 1994) by a range of forces affecting university faculty in parallel with the civic disengagement of wider society. The reasons for this, together with a more detailed explanation of how the elements of citizenship translate to academic life, will form the basis for the subsequent analysis contained in this chapter.

Political literacy

Service in academic life is fundamentally about citizenship inasmuch that it demands participation as a member of a community of scholars rather than simply the individualized (and perhaps, sometimes selfish) pursuit of research and teaching interests. While devotion to individual scholarly agendas is a common collective interest of academic communities, there is an ancient tradition of self-governance. At root, to be an academic citizen demands active interest in decision-making processes as a member of a university. Here, decision-making takes place at different levels: the department, faculty (or school), and university level.

At the university level, the role of academic staff in decision-making processes has a long tradition in UK universities. At Oxford and Cambridge, founded in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respectively, most academic staff are members of the governing body of the institution known as ‘Congregation’ at Oxford and ‘the Regent House’ at Cambridge. Sovereignty at the college level also lies with academic staff, known as Fellows (Palfreyman, 2001). Most modern UK universities, though, are far removed from being a genuinely self-governing ‘community of scholars’ (Goodman, 1962; Evans, 1999). Academic democracy is more weakly established at the UK universities founded by Acts of Parliament and Royal Charters from the nineteenth century through to the 1960s even though these instruments provided for a substantial proportion of academic staff to be represented on university Councils or Senates. The position of academic staff in the post-1992 universities (or former polytechnics) is less favorable still. These institutions were transformed into universities in 1992 but as Corporations, with Boards of Governors of between 12 and 24 members. Up to 13 of its membership are required to be ‘independent’ with experience of industry, employment or a profession. This ‘stakeholder model’ of university governance largely excludes academic staff, just 2 members from which may join the Board of Governors. Thus, in most UK universities, the vast majority of academic staff have little or no practical role in the governance of the institution.

A similar picture emerges on an international basis, although, formally, the percentage of academic staff represented on university senates is stronger in some national contexts, such as Canada (Jones et al., 2004). Even where faculty are well represented on such forums evidence suggests that senates are increasingly seen as disconnected from the exercise of real power in universities. In a research study of academic staff in 14 countries during the 1990s, it was reported that just 5 percent of staff felt they had any influence in shaping policy at institutional level and over 60 percent considered they had no impact whatsoever (Lewis and Altbach, 1995). In the intervening years it is unlikely that this feeling of political disenfranchisement has reversed.

In a UK context, the decline in self-governing processes has been exacerbated by the fact that two-thirds of universities have been formed since 1960 (Scott, 1995). Much of the expansion that has occurred to satisfy rising student numbers has been met by the post-1992 sector where academic democracy is at its weakest. This, though, does not necessarily imply that academic staff in older, and often more research-intense, universities fully appreciate their comparatively privileged position. In parallel to the disengagement with political processes of citizens in mature Western democracies, Braxton and Bayer (1999) found that staff in US research universities had a weaker commitment to self-governance than their counterparts in less prestigious institutions.

An important shift has taken place in the balance between hierarchy and collegiality within most modern universities. While hierarchical authority has always been present in universities, collegiality no longer plays such a strong balancing role. Hierarchy is about vesting decision-making authority in designated leadership roles, as might be commonly found in many business organizations. By contrast, collegiality works on the basis of members having an equal authority in decision-making processes, the results of which must be respected by all (Becher and Kogan, 1992). At the department and school or faculty level, academic democracy has also been in decline. In this regard, ‘collegiality’ is a word closely as...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Book Summary
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I: The Retreat from Citizenship
• Part II: Service and Citizenship
• Part III: Recovering Academic Citizenship
• Bibliography