Universities opening Canadians – and themselves – to larger worlds
For the first time in 100 years, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada invited students to participate in its membership meetings in Montreal. As one of the ten students who attended this centennial celebration in late October, I was not sure what to make of this change. Was it strictly a public relations stunt by the presidents of Canada’s universities and colleges, or did it signal something else? Were we, along with other invitees from civil society, brought to Montreal in a sincere attempt by the AUCC to bring greater transparency, inclusiveness, and legitimacy to their national plans, or did we just represent boxes to be ticked off a centennial to-do list?
With an opening address titled “Opening Us to Larger Worlds,” AUCC chair Stephen J. Toope, President and Vice-Chancellor of UBC, made a passionate, thoughtful, and comprehensive call for a new national narrative for higher education. While acknowledging the importance of parochial pulls and the clashes between and within universities over receding public funds, Toope enthusiastically urged his membership to look beyond such limiting horizons. “Our story is not about competition,” he said. “It’s about contribution.” From this pivot point, he rolled out a powerful public-service strategy that aimed at, among other things, shaking the wider public’s narrow and crippling perception of Canadian universities as just another “special interest group.” Peppering his speech with words and phrases like “responsibility,” “deeper purpose,” the “well-being of Canadians,” “advancement of knowledge,” and making a “positive difference,” Toope argued that the 21st-century answer to “What good are universities?” was their capacity to “open us to larger worlds.”
To some this will sound like a clever re-branding exercise. Others might say that it reads like a fairytale. To reconfigure universities so they are, for instance, more directly and thoroughly engaged in the educational experiences of grade-schoolers, or in the cultivating of greater private sector partnerships requires a fundamental and radical transformation. The very way Canadian universities understand how knowledge is produced, transmitted, and consumed would need to be reformed. A humble recognition of the social diffuseness of knowledge and its global circulation would need to be integrated into curriculum, research, and administration. This new academy then would be and appear a more socially permeable, engaged, and relevant institution. It would be more democratic. Some spires may remain ivory within this vast and varied educational complex, but they would have been erased of much of the condescension they once housed.
At the same time, in order for this to work, the larger Canadian community would need to alter its attitude and its understanding of higher education. Furthermore, internally, the relationships between knowledge disciplines, academic freedom, administration, and social “utility” would have to be renegotiated without eviscerating the traditionally dynamic, innovative, and creative tensions already there. Telling a good story is one thing, and no small thing, but truly changing the story and living it is another. That said, many of these changes, particularly those involving knowledge production, transmission, and use, seem to be occurring “organically.” Electronically formed social networks and a greater ecological awareness have infiltrated virtually all corners of our universities. The general trajectory of this integration is toward transparency and openness, at least for now. So perhaps part of what makes Toope’s pitch sound plausible is that it echoes these deeper structural changes.
What also tells me it has a chance to actually gain social traction and, simultaneously, gives me hope, is the way this new national narrative is taking shape. It is through conversation. It is through a conversation that does not simply tolerate or reluctantly include students and others in wider civil society, but actively and seriously seeks out their voice. More than that, I left the centennial meeting with the sense that most AUCC members were really listening. From talking informally to the other students who attended, I heard similar impressions. Here then, in practice, was the AUCC displaying both willingness and an empathetic capacity to open itself to larger worlds. Of course, for this to work, those attitudes must be sustained and reciprocated by others entering this new national conversational space. Will this happen? I cannot be certain, but I do see reasons to be optimistic. And I do know that if this “smart and caring nation” is to get the kind of education it needs and deserves, this is the kind of story we all need to live.
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