Dr John Salmon: University's role in changing world

Social research should acknowledge the values that drive it, said Dr John Salmon in this address to the University of Auckland's Commencement Service yesterday

* * *

The place and status of the university is being contested today. We are living and working in a tertiary environment crammed with a range of very different kinds of institutions, all vying for the right to provide education at post-secondary level, all competing for fees and public funding, and all claiming a contribution to the tertiary education of New Zealand and the right to influence New Zealand life.

Over centuries, universities have helped each generation to enter into and provide leadership for the particular society in which they are set. But we face a different situation now. Our contemporary society - that cluster of interactions and expectations and behavioural styles that is often referred to as postmodern - poses considerable challenges to the culture and assumptions of the university as an educational model and social institution.

In this setting, fewer people settle for socialisation into the traditions of society. In any case, the diversity of cultural patterns and group perspectives makes such socialisation an impossible and inappropriate task for any single institution.

And the perspectives of postmodernity challenge in other ways as well: The "uni" in university no longer names the nature of knowledge or study in a fragmented and diverse world. Transmission of information is not what we understand as the essence of education today.

Theory and practice are increasingly understood as inter-connected and reliant on each other. Value and spirit cannot be excluded from data and research. So, what is it to be a university in this setting?

So-called old universities, like Oxford University or the University of Auckland, are finding this challenge especially hard.

A central piece of re-positioning undertaken by universities like the University of Auckland has been to stress the importance of research-based teaching. That has become a defining characteristic of the university amongst other tertiary bodies.

Research-based teaching is a clear and relevant way of claiming a distinctive mark of this kind of institution in the wider contested market-place. In doing so and taking account of the style of society in which we are now operating I suggest there are some key things that warrant careful consideration.

Like many others, I am convinced that values are a part of both research and teaching. It is widely agreed these days that research is not value-free, but reflects the interests and perspectives of those who engage in it and those who promote or fund it. Let's acknowledge what those values are, so that we do not pretend they are not present.

Further, it assists the larger learning process if the value-questions are clearly engaged with along with the research data and their implications.

That is not a matter, I believe, of mixing morals and method and making what are commonly understood as moral judgments about research. Rather, it is a matter of carefully thinking through the range of implications, issues, and priorities associated with any research project and teaching programme, and declaring those and opening them to discussion.

All research, no matter how abstract or theoretical in form, has flow-on effects in practice.

Both individual and social living are affected by our research, even at if at an unseen distance.

A major focus these days is in the economic flow-on, the relevance of particular research areas for business and for economic growth. This readily ends up influencing the kind of research that is fostered and the range of implications drawn from that research.

I would hope we can see further than that. In our teaching function, it seems to me that contemporary society expects exploration of the links between research materials and everyday social living.

This includes the way groups of different backgrounds can learn to live with each other (and the current debate over published cartoons and religious values and sensibilities highlights this) without focusing dominantly on economic values.

I think we owe it to students to expose and explore those links, and not assume that we are being more faithful to university research principles by staying with the data itself, or the theory itself, or the text itself, without considering its place for persons living in and with the complex issues that face us in society today.

None of that is easy. I would want to underline the need for an ongoing reconsideration of what constitutes a university and what constitutes effective and relevant research-based teaching.

It might be that our discipline boundaries provide serious barriers to more effective holistic learning, and that joining historical insights with business skills, or philosophical perspectives with engineering principles, might well enhance the way in which values are being assessed and practical outcomes are being explored.

Relevant university teaching is certainly about ensuring that what we undertake is education, and not simply the passing on of information, not matter how important or well-researched.

It is about looking towards insight and wisdom and the formation of persons who are able to contribute in our world. Research is critical: so is ensuring that research is fostered and used in ways that shape our social relationships and infrastructure and not solely for financial benefit or the needs of business and the economy.

The university thus has the possibility of either contributing to positive social change or building a climate of fear of change. Either way, universities do have influence in society, and need to be held accountable for that influence. This calls for an ongoing two-way critical relationship between the university and all sectors of society.

I would suggest that an outcome might be to see the university as working towards shaping a society that reflects and engages a changing and complex world. Its role, I think, is properly to stimulate reflection, to provoke new thinking, and to lead change toward positive futures in a challenging time.

* Rev Dr John Salmon is an educational philosopher, has lectured in theology and ethics, and is President of the Methodist Church of New Zealand