|
To
a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practised civil disobedience.
Martin
Luther King, American pastor
and civil rights leader (1929-1968)
|
|
Academics
around the world should be engaging much more forcefully in the search for social
justice, says Brenda Gourley, vice-chancellor of the University of Natal in South
Africa*
You
often lament the gap between the academic world and pressing social realities.
You certainly feel that in Africa. I’m living at the epicentre of an HIV/AIDS epidemic:
the province of KwaZulu Natal has the highest rate of infection in the world. In
this context, AIDS becomes a human rights issue. I don’t know that universities are
engaging enough in addressing such issues on public platforms at a time when social
justice is so manifestly not part of our world. Yet it is our social responsibility
to do so. Whether you call it academic freedom or university autonomy, academics
are a kind of independent estate which should be providing intellectual leadership,
all the more so in these very difficult times. Not doing so can only be regarded
as an ethical failure. I also worry, however, about a creeping anti-intellectualism
that undervalues the reflective impulse in favour of a tough-minded and often short-sighted
pragmatism.
How can the university go about addressing poverty and inequality?
In the late 1980s, we took the bull by the horns and started a “Strategic Initiatives”
dialogue during which we engaged with many different communities in the country by
asking how the university could accommodate their concerns and play a role in the
transition from apartheid to democracy. This helped us to anticipate and to talk
with a wide range of people, some of whom we saw as part of a government-in-waiting.
Take the example of our agricultural faculty. For years it focused on training commercial
farmers. Today, it has broadened its focus to include small-scale farming, food security
and poverty alleviation, and the faculty has lost none of its standing. There are
other issues with which the university should be intensely engaging. Law faculties,
for example, should be taking the lead in framing AIDS as a human rights issue.
Fears are often voiced about academic freedom being undermined by economic pressures.
Do you experience this in your daily work?
I have confidence in our ability to draw the line and to walk away from whatever
is going to compromise our integrity. All over the world the public purse is being
stretched to accommodate rising numbers of students in higher education. I have spent
a large amount of my time trying to secure funding. I put funders on the line just
as I put academics on the line. With regard to medical and social research on HIV/AIDS,
a field in which we are very active, I appeal to the moral conscience of funders.
I remind them we are all living in the midst of one of the greatest catastrophes
that has befallen humankind.
Does the university have to be organized differently to play an effective role
in society?
I argue vigorously for universities to actively try and make their borders more
permeable, more porous. We cannot pretend to know everything, or to represent all
society’s constituents and interests. Yet they are all important to intellectual
life and to an understanding of what universities can contribute. Partnerships are
essential to this understanding.
Not only with the corporate world however.
By no means. We’ve had remarkable partnerships with community organizations dating
back to the apartheid era when we housed 84 NGOs on our campus. This was extremely
beneficial for the university: we were exposed to a wide range of social issues,
notably demand from NGOs for support in conceiving and managing projects. NGOs are
the fastest growing movement in the world and universities are not doing enough to
create education for future leaders in this field. To meet demand, we recently created
a Centre for Civil Society which focuses on NGO-related study. I’ve also pushed very
hard to get a compulsory community service component integrated into our degree programme.
It’s a very powerful learning tool but also a very effective way of getting things
done on the ground because you can harness so many students to the collective effort.
Do think there is a need for an international instrument on academic freedom,
as has been proposed?
Yes. We’ve seen terrible infringements on academic freedom in Africa and elsewhere.
If other academics don’t speak up about these violations, who will? None of us can
be complacent in any way about the dangers of such violations.
*
Professor Gourley is also Vice-Chancellor elect of the Open University in the United
Kingdom. |
