Thirty years ago, Dr. Peter March, Dr. Robert Ansel and
myself sketched in some detail the Professional Society of Academics (PSA)
model and then tried to raise awareness for it. This is a model that does not
rely on university and college employment for the public provision of academic
services (i.e., teaching, researching and community servicing). There is no
model like it, standing as the only comprehensive challenge to our inherited model
of institutional employers and academic employees. Since that time, PSA has
been further developed and disseminated. This blog is a record of both.
As philosophers, we are not expert in fields that (ought to)
contribute to the construction of an alternative model for the provision of
higher education (HE). Suppose you are one such established or aspiring expert,
looking for a fresh thesis topic, an unspoken hypothesis, then this post might
be for you.
There is in this professional model the opportunity to explore a new area of research, call it: Alternative higher education models (AHEM). I recognize that calling for alternatives, change, reform, or revolution in the sector is obscenely common and deplorably misleading. None, I repeat, none of it references an alternative to the HEI model. All light filters through this institutional lens, and what a kaleidoscope it presents. This must be acknowledged, if alternative, change, reform, or revolution is to gain footing. Anything less is relegated to a footnote of the HEI model.
But never mind the bashing. This post is about something intellectual, something academic: possibility.
Research Into Alternative Models for Higher Education
As the only fiddler in town, research on HE dances to the
tune of the HEI model, from its history to its hubris, from its finance to its fascism,
from its content to its conflicts. This is natural. There is no debate,
discourse, or dialogue that does not assume the HEI model as the goldleaf of a
Byzantine painting, as natural as the heavens.
PSA opens a new area of research, one not bound by the HEI
model. Yes, PSA can help shed light on features of the university and college model that assumption has shaded. But, like searching for a more just legal system, or a more economical
medical system, PSA is a theory that can contribute to the correction or
mitigation of a longstanding social problem – the deleterious effects of the
HEI model on the social pillar of HE.
This area of research does not aim to tease out nuances of
the HEI model that inform observations and recommendations related to
university and college employers. That literature is mountainous, on a Martian
scale. Think of AHEM more along the lines of the relationship between applied
and theoretical physics, with something like PSA housed in the Perimeter Institute, not the University of Waterloo physics department. The
aim is to side-step the existing model, not work within it, modify it, mold it,
or mollify it. Higher education institutions, universities and colleges, these
legal beings, are persona non grata in AHEM, which is not the same as closing
the door on a universitas in HE. On the contrary, that’s exactly what
PSA offers – which can be loosely translated as, solidarity, for the unionphiles.
So, groundbreaking research, with potential socially conscious, activist implications. These days the latter is highly publishable, while the former has always proven to be a bit of puddy in the hands of the financial backers, institutional employers and faculty employees of the HEI model – presenting yet another (activist) reason to consider research in AHEM.
Some starter research questions that engage concomitant
academic fields:
RQ1: How might researching (or publishing) change if it were
conducted within a model like PSA, under the protection and direction of a
legislated professional society of academics?
RQ2: How do the professional and institutional models legally
relate?
RQ3: How do professional and union (labor) representation
relate (in the case of presidents, academics, teaching/research assistants, secretaries,
grounds-keepers and candle-stick makers)?
RQ4: How can PSA be corrupted from within by its members, or
from without?
RQ5: Has the professional service model been overlooked by elements
of the academy in their stewardship of HE (e.g., the American Association of University
Professors or the slue of labor unions, including the AAUP version)?
RQ6: How much would it cost to operate a legislated, professional,
independent, solo academic practice in history, psychology, economics, biology,
law, physics, business, engineering, architecture, sociology, etc., in Paris, Ottawa, London, Quito, Germany, Washington, D.C, etc.?
RQ7: How can the professional service model respond to the use
of technology in the provision of academic services?
RQ8: What role, if any, is played by HEI-employment-bound
notions like academic freedom, shared governance, and tenure in a professional service
model for HE?
RQ9: What could the finances of the professional model look like,
given the funding/revenue sources available to the HEI model and those that
might be unique to something like PSA?
RQ10: Does a professional service model like PSA invite violation of rights and freedoms?
Conclusion
I’m not the sort of academic that the HEI model aims to
architect. For instance, I’ve published nothing in academic journals on PSA, and I probably won't. I’m no expert on much that needs to inform a meta-model for HE. I am not a good
writer, or a good speaker, or leader, or many of the things I need to be to
properly address this idea, this possible area of research.
I am retired. I offer PSA with no strings attached. I am here to help. If I harm, then say so and, where appropriate, explain or source an
explanation as to why: 1) some version of a professional model (like PSA) is
not viable or 2) that even if viable, it is not desirable. Without such a substantiated denial of PSA, I
must continue, as lame as I am.
This post does not address accounts of how, "PSA ain’t
never gonna happen cuz Oxford is…government won’t…academics are…industry owns…" These are not principal concerns in the academic pursuit of a possibility; or the
introduction of an area of research, doubling as presentation and promotion of PSA.
Maybe you think something like the professional model is not recommended for HE on some principled grounds. Again, this is not principal to the intellectual
project sketched by this post. Here the question is academic, not personal, moral, political,
practical, or ecclesiastical. The intellectual value here is the pursuit of
possibility, which often takes time to bear fruit and must never be dismissed
based on the assumption of tradition.
No comments:
Post a Comment