À atenção de todos os tristes que andam neste momento a fazer candidaturas a projectos FCT

O American Way of Science

Luís Fernandes

O apelo à internacionalização dos cientistas equivale, na prática, à submissão ao sistema científico anglo-americano É comum ver hoje designadas as nossas sociedades como “sociedades do conhecimento”.

A produção e a difusão de saber científico são aspectos-chave do funcionamento deste tipo de sociedades, o que confere às suas comunidades científicas um papel estratégico. É por isso que, com regularidade, os governos reafirmam ritualmente o seu investimento na sociedade do conhecimento em geral – veja-se o caso recente do já famoso computador Magalhães – e no sector científico em particular.

Ora, a Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia tornou públicas, no final do ano passado, as classificações dos centros de investigação que financia.

Não pretendemos pôr em causa a necessidade de avaliar as estruturas da investigação científica ou, sequer, colocar em causa a idoneidade e a isenção do processo que foi levado a cabo. Visa-se, apenas, reflectir sobre o modo como tende a ajuizar-se hoje o trabalho de quem se dedica profissionalmente à ciência, procurando mostrar como este juízo responde a um sistema de regras, nem sempre claramente explicitadas, que relevam de factores extracientíficos.

O nosso ângulo de análise é elaborado a partir das ciências sociais e humanas, admitindo por isso que, para outros sectores da divisão das ciências, as questões possam não ser colocadas, em relação a alguns aspectos, do mesmo modo.

As investigações norte-americana e inglesa têm vindo a adquirir progressiva influência no sistema científico internacional, convertendo-se numa verdadeira dominação. É próprio dos sistemas de dominação um traço etnocentrista: são melhores do que os outros, como o demonstra o facto de dominarem, e, portanto, consideram-se, por uma espécie de direito natural, investidos da incumbência de ditarem aos outros um conjunto de regras. E é próprio dos dominados acabarem por incorporar essas regras, de tal modo que passam a achar que são naturalmente suas.

No caso vertente, elas ditam aquilo que deve ser investigado, o formato em que devem decorrer os certames de especialistas, em que órgãos da comunicação da ciência devem ser publicados os resultados e em que língua os investigadores devem expressar-se – o que decorre naturalmente do idioma dos países desses órgãos. As línguas inglesa e, em menor grau, francesa são os instrumentos de afirmação da hegemonia.

Sabemos como os sistemas de controlo apostam na vigilância das linguagens e das línguas – a hegemonia exprime-se numa linguagem positivista e na língua inglesa. Todo o sistema de dominação que não se impõe pela força, mas pela subtileza, tende progressivamente a ser incorporado como natural.

É por isso que as gerações de investigadores mais jovens, aculturadas no circuito de congressos internacionais e nos circuitos virtuais da net, onde o inglês é o veículo, não sentem isto como dominação, mas como proficiência – é-se tanto mais competitivo e, portanto, num sistema marcado por uma competição desenfreada, tanto melhor cientista quanto mais e melhor se falar e escrever em linguagem positivista e em língua inglesa.

Note-se que ainda há poucas décadas esta ditadura da língua pendia para o francês. E sabemos dos esforços que a França faz para se manter como língua internacional da ciência, numa consciência clara da perda de influência que a sua desvalorização acarreta – porque uma língua não é só um veículo, é um sistema de pensamento, é constitutiva de uma cultura. Enfim, o sistema internacional são meia dúzia de países, uma linguagem e duas línguas.

Para os avaliadores da FCT, não conta publicar um artigo numa revista brasileira ou espanhola? E polaca ou grega? Os polacos ou os gregos não conseguem fazer uma revista científica que valha pontos?

Quando fazemos investigação solicitada e financiada por instituições portuguesas, devemos escrever os relatórios em inglês? E, se a problemática for pouco interessante para os norte-americanos, por razões da nossa especificidade sociocultural, não podendo publicá-la nesses países, esta investigação não vale pontos? Publicá-la aqui não serve para nada? Então a produção de saber não deve ser utilizada pela comunidade a que diz respeito? Não visa agir na nossa realidade próxima? E, se publicar aqui não vale nada, como pode algum dia chegar-se a ter uma boa revista científica?

Portanto, o justo apelo que é feito aos cientistas para se internacionalizarem – o que, nas regras do jogo científico, é não só sensato como indispensável – equivale, na prática, à submissão ao sistema científico anglo-americano.

Publicando nas revistas que, neste sistema, são consideradas de qualidade, estamos internacionalizados. E são estas que lemos, são estas que pomos os nossos alunos a ler e é nestas que alguns deles algum dia publicarão – fechando-se assim o círculo da dominação, que a reforça e, no limite, a hegemoniza, tornando-a indiscutida e indiscutível.

Foi este o mecanismo pelo qual uma série de países alimentou o sistema financeiro liderado pelos EUA convertido em tentativa de hegemonia neoliberal e cujo círculo acaba de romper-se. Se esta dominação se verificasse a outros níveis, desqualificando tudo o que se passasse noutras latitudes que não a do eixo anglo-americano e, em menor escala, francófono, esses países seriam acusados de imperialistas e de praticarem a discriminação.

Como podem pessoas que pertencem à nossa cúpula intelectual, como são os membros da comunidade científica, não se darem conta de que estão a ser alinhados por uma mão adestradora que é, em particular no caso das ciências sociais e humanas, exterior à sua lógica de produção e difusão do conhecimento?

Como não se dão conta de que estão a ser infantilizados em interrogatórios de senhores que vêm, por meia dúzia de dias, ao nosso país constituir um júri desfasado da nossa realidade e incapaz de ler, sequer, o melhor da nossa produção porque este não está, as mais das vezes, nas línguas deles? Que fazemos do pensamento crítico, que devíamos ter tão treinado? Como somos tão complexos e críticos para umas coisas e tão simplórios e amorfos para outras?

Fiquemo-nos, para já, com estas questões, enquanto não chega o próximo júri internacional convidado pela FCT e não nos ajoelhamos de novo, prontos para o exame de consciência científica…

Investigador

in Público – Opinião 27.01.2009

ÚLTIMA LIÇÃO

I’m Leaving

By John Smith

Inside Higher Ed, 31 de Outubro de 2008

The withdrawal of the last Russian regiment in Afghanistan

I distinctly recall the first day of graduate school. Some of my classmates knew the field’s top-tier journals, the term “anonymous peer reviewing,” and each professor’s research area of expertise. I was a neophyte with raw, analytical skills, no publications, a healthy ego and a desire to teach at a small, liberal arts college, much like my alma mater. I soon learned my discipline – the jargon, the journals and the gossip.

I honed my writing skills, and, more important, my thinking skills. Yet for all the merits of graduate school, even the premier one from which I was graduated, I left disappointed and ambivalent about the process. I took some classes with engaged, brilliant and dedicated professors, but I also attended more than a few seminars with detached scholars who thought of students as distractions from their labs and research. They were famous, but they could not teach, even their own research.

Like many other graduate students, I slogged through the bad, and made the most of the good. I got the job at the liberal arts college, where I received tenure, and even served as a department chair (a burden, not an honor, I tell you). I now want out.

Why? Because I fear that I have become the archetypical professor whom I did not want to become.

Don’t get me wrong. I still prepare my lectures and judging from the teacher evaluations, I know that I make students better thinkers. The classroom give-and-take produces a high that cannot be easily described or imitated. Even more, I love doing research. Sitting with pen and book in hand, or typing after months of textual analysis, is a rare joy. You mean I get paid to think? About ideas that inspire me? And I can read other research it, and dissect its merits? This gig is too good to be true.

Bingo.

After too many years at this job (I am in my mid-40s), I have grown to question higher education in ways that cannot be rectified by a new syllabus, or a sabbatical, or, heaven forbid, a conference roundtable. No, my troubles with this treasured profession are both broad and deep, and they begin with a fervent belief that most of today’s college students, especially those that come to college straight from high school, are unnecessarily coddled. Professors and administrators seek to “nurture” and “engage” and they are doing so at the expense of teaching. The result: a discernable and precipitous decline in the quality of college students. More of them come to campus with dreadful study habits. Too few of them read for pleasure. Too many drink and smoke excessively. They are terribly ill-prepared for four years of hard work, and most dangerously, they do not think that college should be arduous. Instead they perceive college as an overnight recreation center in which they exercise, eat, and in between playing extracurricular sports, they carry books around. If a professor is lucky, the books are being skimmed hours before class.

How do I know that my concerns are not unique to my employer, or my classroom? My students are brutally honest – they tell me with candor and without shame that their peers think of college as a four year cruise without a destination.

No doubt these students deserve some blame for their lethargy, but some culpability lies with their professors, and the administrators who ostensibly but unsuccessfully provide vision and direction. Today’s faculty and administrators capitulate to students’ demands in innumerable ways. They hold classes outside on sunny days, not really caring if there is no blackboard, or if the students are admiring each other instead of the texts to be dissected. They encourage students to think of college as a “comfortable” and “supportive” community, not as a means to acquire necessary skills. Far too many of my colleagues are dialing in – showing up late, popping in videos during class, assigning group projects, or sitting in a circle and asking students how they feel. Why they have abandoned classroom rigor is something that only they can answer. But one answer is simple – students flock to these popular classes, probably because they cater to the students’ worst sensibilities. Homework is minimal, or sometimes optional. Surprise quizzes are considered unfair. Late assignments are not failed. Some grades are even negotiable.

Such a pedagogy runs counter to the school, undergraduate and graduate training that I received, but it is openly embraced by nervous administrators who encourage faculty members to be innovative, experimental and experiential. They speak openly about pandering to student demands, but opt not to use the word “pander,” employing instead the curious and the trendy phrase “student empowerment.” I prefer to empower them with reading skills. But such a mission is considered old-fashioned. Maybe I should attend a seminar (don’t worry, the college will pay for it) titled “Technology in the classroom” or “Innovative pedagogies in the 21st century.” I pass.

Grade inflation is rampant. Students think of a “B minus” as an F. I constantly get criticized for grading too harshly, even though I find my mean grade point average has risen over the past decade. A “C” to today’s student is unfathomable. “Professor, I am on scholarship. How can you give me a C?” I remind them that I do not “give’” grades, but such semantics are lost on the student who yearns for an A at any cost. I tell them that I got Bs and Cs and I never complained, because I knew I deserved them. They do not believe me. (Maybe I should post my undergraduate and graduate transcripts on my office door?)

Grades did not matter to me because I believed in the superiority of my professor’s judgment. I recall questioning a professor’s grade – once and only once, only after I showed the assignment and his comments to a senior who lived down the hall. She advised me to speak to the professor. I did. The professor had made a simple calculating mistake, and apologized for his error. We remain friends to this day.

Today’s students are not questioning the logic behind the grades; They are questioning why their grades in my class are lower than in their other classes. Down the hall, those same students can get an A- by putting in three hours of work a week. How do I know? The students tell me, candidly, and without shame or the slightest pangs of guilt. To them, this disparity just doesn’t seem fair, and is the fault of the tougher grader.

Higher education for too many undergraduates at too many liberal arts colleges has become a puffy sofa nestled with down pillows. For a few bucks and in a few hours, students can take a test and learn that they are language disabled, or mathematically disabled, or for a few bucks more, both. Students increasingly ask me during advising sessions if a class is tough or hard, or if the professor assigns a lot of reading, because they need to “lighten their load.” “I want to take a class with Professor So-And-So. I have a lot on my mind, and I don’t want to stress out.” “Don’t worry,” I say, “you won’t.”

This comfy zone of mediocrity extends beyond the classroom. “Student life” largely serves to debilitate the notion of a genuine, deliberative, academic community. Rather than fuel cerebral discussions with activities for the mind, resident advisors and their adult supervisors plan activities that redefine anti-intellectualism. There is Sensitivity Day, Tolerance Day, and Wear [insert color here] Day, and a host of other events that are aimed at “inspiring.” Dorm life is supposed to be cool, fun and engaging. For me, it was simply a place to sleep.

My faculty colleagues rarely complain about their daily lives, or about the state of higher education. To the contrary, they feed the mindset that all students are exceptional by awarding high grades, honors and special prizes to the intellectually inferior. These faculty also yearn to be comfortable. How? By immersing themselves in trivial pursuits, like how many members should serve in the faculty senate, or whether serving on the Education Policy Committee should be determined by a simple majority, or a run-off election.

Intellectual sparring (dare I use the term) about ideas – among students and faculty – has been replaced by one-sided, partisan drivel (for example, Obama = admirable. McCain = terrible and, for the record, I will be voting for Obama). While it would be easy to blame a liberal bias among faculty for this groupthink, it should be noted that this simple world of good and bad pervades the world around us. On radio, television and the Internet, ideological pundits scream at one another with vitriol and fervor. My partisan colleagues are universally National Public Radio listeners. They do not hear the other side, so it is easy to demonize the other side. Their students are listening, and sadly think of conservatism in its many forms as horrific. Worse still, they now conflate liberal passion and advocacy with justice, and by default, analytic rigor and reason. They do not weigh evidence, or take note of pro, cons, costs or benefits. Doing so would be to admit that there are merits to positions they do not hold. To acknowledge that their ideology is imperfect is the first step towards compromise, or in their overused, precious phrase, “selling out.”

Their idealism, of course, is a work in progress. Nonprofit employment is admirable, but doing the same work for a for-profit corporation (with health care and retirement benefits) is deemed suspicious. Yet when college is completed, too many graduates have trouble finding work. The economy is rough, and even rougher for math-disabled, language-disabled, ideologically-driven, emotive students who do not read for pleasure. Should they take, say, an accounting course, or Shakespeare, either of which would test or push their comfort zones? Their hearts say yes, but the problem is that these classes meet early in the morning (Shakespeare at 8:30 am? C’mon!), when hangovers are to be nursed and sleepy minds are not to be awakened. Besides, rumor is that the Shakespeare professor is a tough grader.

Working at a small college is no easy task. We professors oftentimes work without research assistants. We have heavy teaching loads, and we grade our own assignments. Endowments are low, and so too are salaries and research funding. But hard work need not be depressing, and rather than become depressed, I have learned after almost 20 years that I am woefully ill-suited for today’s classroom.

Will I miss some of my colleagues? Sure. They have a remarkable ability to enjoy their craft, but I have great difficulty believing that I am making a significant difference in the lives of my students. Are my peers aware students are skimming the reading? Yes. They have figured out that getting emotionally invested in the student body is both taxing and fruitless. Instead they enjoy their autonomy and the bucolic campus life without a second thought, or with a deeply imbued cognitive dissonance that I have not yet embraced.

I will not miss all of them. Simply put, too many are intellectually lazy. Many of my colleagues think of the day they receive tenure as the last official day they have to produce research. They consider research as a burden, not as a labor of love that complements teaching.

As for the students, I know that I’ll miss the good ones. Any good professor treasures the joy of seeing in a student’s eyes the “ah-ha – now I get it” moment. It cannot be replicated, nor can it be easily described. It is sadly ever increasingly rare. In fact I think I am doing a genuine service to the better students by leaving. I cannot in good conscience dumb down a lecture, knowing full well that the gifted and talented have read four chapters beyond the syllabus, and that they are not being sufficiently challenged.

I am ready to move on – perhaps for a career where deadlines are honored, ideas are exchanged and gimmicks and fads are routinely avoided because they distract from advancing the mission of gaining and sharing knowledge. Yes, it is time to find another line of work, where I can enjoy the fruits of my labor, even if I realize that the grass is grayer, if not greener, elsewhere.

John Smith is the pseudonym of a professor at a liberal arts college. He asked to remain anonymous because he is continuing to teach while he is job-hunting and doesn’t want his comments to reflect on his institution.

[via Que Universidade?]

MAUS AERES

 

La science des quotas

André Gunthert, 7 Novembro 2008

Avec Valérie Pecresse arrive la science mise en quotas. Installée dans ses murs en mars 2007, l’agence pour l’évaluation de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur (AERES) a commencé ses travaux. Son site web montre de beaux locaux refaits à neuf dans un hôtel parisien chic. D’une main, le gouvernement fait miroiter des promesses de primes, de l’autre, il fait pleuvoir formulaires et demandes de rapport sur les chercheurs et les institutions. L’un des principaux instruments de cette politique du chiffre est un classement des revues scientifiques, à partir duquel on pourra étalonner chercheurs et laboratoires. Las, la publication prématurée d’une première liste au mois d’août a suscité la fronde des savants. Alors que le rôle des évaluateurs suppose une rigueur au-dessus de tout soupçon, les incohérences et les absences de cette nomenclature ont réveillé toutes les inquiétudes et constitué une bien piètre entrée en matière. Les articles et les protestations se multiplient, et une pétition demande le «retrait complet et définitif de la “liste des revues” de l’AERES».

Bref, on est ici dans du Sarkozy pur jus. De l’affichage et des moulinets de bras par devant, des outils inconsistants et beaucoup d’arrières-pensées par derrière. Le président de la République, on le sait, a la foi du charbonnier pour les indicateurs chiffrés. Mais il est plus facile de mettre en courbes des officiers de police que des experts de la mesure. Premiers utilisateurs des instruments statistiques, les savants sont bien placés pour savoir que ces images, plutôt que de traduire fidèlement la réalité, servent à choisir comment on veut la montrer (voir illustration).

Non que les chercheurs refusent de voir leur travail soumis à évaluation. Celle-ci est en effet leur condition quotidienne, lorsqu’ils soumettent un article à une revue ou un projet de recherche à un organisme. Mais la vision quantifiée de l’AERES n’a rien à voir avec cette expertise. La liste des revues les classe en trois rangs: A, B et C. Mais au lieu que le rang A donne un compte réel des meilleures publications internationales, on lui a fixé arbitrairement un quota de 25%. On comprend bien que la logique à l’oeuvre est strictement comptable. Le gouvernement-des-caisses-vides étant dans l’incapacité notoire de revaloriser le salaire des chercheurs (dont toutes les études s’accordent à dire qu’il est scandaleusement bas), il va répartir des lots de consolation aux plus méritants pour pouvoir afficher une politique de la recherche agressive. L’AERES en ses beaux locaux n’est qu’un outil pour camoufler la misère de la science.

Evaluer un chercheur à partir de ses lieux de publication est évidemment d’une grande bêtise. C’est un peu comme si on appréciait les qualités d’un conducteur en prenant pour critère la marque de sa voiture. Perdrai-je d’un coup mon acuité intellectuelle en publiant dans Romantisme (inconnu) plutôt que dans Les Annales (A)? Suis-je un meilleur savant quand je parais dans La Revue de synthèse (B) plutôt que dans Photographies (inconnu)? En réalité, la seule manière d’évaluer les travaux d’un chercheur, c’est de les lire. C’est aussi ce qu’admet implicitement l’AERES: sa méthode revient à utiliser le travail des comités de lecture, qui eux, ont procédé à cet examen. Le classement des revues n’est rien d’autre qu’un principe du coucou – une méta-expertise qui se défausse de l’évaluation réelle, et avoue simultanément l’impossibilité de s’acquitter de cette tâche.

On jugera du sérieux des outils de l’AERES en constatant qu’ils ne permettent pas de me définir comme “enseignant-chercheur publiant” (sic), au sens strict spécifié par l’agence (2 publications scientifiques de rang A au cours des quatre dernières années). Cela, non parce que je n’ai publié aucun article intéressant dans la période, mais parce que la plupart de mes lieux de publication ne sont pas recensés par la liste officielle (les chercheurs ont appris après sa mise en ligne que celle-ci était encore en cours de révision – ce qui fait du coup s’interroger sur la signification d’une publication incomplète). Dois-je modifier ma pratique de la recherche? Ne serait-ce pas plutôt à l’AERES d’admettre son incapacité à prendre en compte mon travail? L’agence chargée de l’évaluation devrait y prendre garde: avant les évalués, l’évaluation juge les évaluateurs.

L’AERES adosse son activité à un argument apparemment solide: celui de la promotion de l’excellence. Associé à l’accumulation d’autant d’erreurs, la répétition ad nauseam de ce discours a de quoi laisser perplexe. Mais il témoigne surtout d’un contresens sur la nature de la recherche. On peut organiser une compétition pour déterminer quels sont les meilleurs athlètes et les ranger par ordre d’arrivée sur un podium. Un sportif qui court le 100 mètres en plus de 11 secondes est exclu d’un tel concours – et un amateur qui l’effectue en plus de 12 n’est pas digne de chausser les crampons. Mais dans les sciences, aucun résultat de recherche n’est a priori plus profitable qu’un autre. Une modeste observation effectuée par un étudiant de première année peut être tout aussi intéressante que celle produite par un chercheur confirmé. On peut toujours récompenser tel spécialiste d’une discipline médiatique, mais la véritable utilité de la science est de maintenir des milliers de micro-communautés de par le monde, dont certaines ne comptent que quelques dizaines de membres, attachées à faire vivre et prospérer la moindre bribe de la curiosité humaine. Tel est est le sens du mot “recherche” – activité dont le principe est de ne se prévoir aucune fin ni limitation.

S’il y a de faux savants et de fausses découvertes, il n’y a pas de mauvaise science ni de recherches subalternes. Entonné par des ignorants, le discours de l’excellence va au rebours des traits les plus récents et les plus innovants de la pratique scientifique. Ce que l’on voit se mettre en place aujourd’hui sur les blogs des chercheurs du monde entier est une “garage science” bouillonnante et rapide, d’une redoutable efficacité. Dans ses tentatives de reconstitution du palmarès du concours général, l’AERES est on ne peut plus éloigné de l’agenda réel de la science qui se fait. L’évaluation à la française a-t-elle un avenir? Le moins qu’on puisse dire est qu’elle n’a pour l’instant pas convaincu.

EXCELLENCE IN STUPIDITY

WORKING PAPER (Presented at the EASA 2008 Conference, Lubljana)

#PROVISIONAL DRAFT – Not to be cited without permission of the authors#

«Excellence in Stupidity. Auto-ethnography of two Portuguese Anthropology Departments during Implementation of Bologna Process»

Ana Isabel Afonso, Manuel João Ramos, Carlos Mendes
Drawings Manuel João Ramos

 

Introductory Note

Not since the writings of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl have anthropologists let themselves worry much about the place of ilogicality in human collective thought. In fact, even their own logical failures have frequently passed unnoticed, or have tended to be brushed aside as irrelevant shortcomings of otherwise sound arguments (Gomes da Silva, 2003).

The lack of attention given by post-war anthropological discourses to collective stupidity and to logical paradoxes – itself not a sign of deep analytical intelligence – derives, possibly, from the pressing need to formulate exalting harmonic views of groupal intelligence in societies that had been historically catalogued in negative terms (within the evolutionist framework of the nineteenth century, which had somewhat lingered in the colonial anthropology of the first half of the twentieth century).

The levi-straussian (and boasian) utopianist obsession regarding la pensée sauvage has pervaded anthropological tradition in such way that, even when most of that heritage was shaken by post-colonial and post-modernist viewpoints, its core concepts were never seriously questioned. The idea that a deus ex machina hiding behind human social actions from which order and intelligence flows unstoppably has proven its attractability and overpowering strength, even in the face of researches into violence, deterioration, and

 culture loss. Moreover, criticism of this model in the context of inquiries on human collective cognition – which, as in the case of Jack Goody’s research about orality and literacy -hasn’t risen from a dismissive attitude, anchored in the spiritual resurrection of the likes of James George Frazer and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, and the old evolutionist apparatus.

Anthropology is not solely to blame for this state of affairs. As Alain Roger (2008) aptly notes, stupidity and imbecility (connerie, dumheit) have historically received little attention from Western philosophers. This much had actually also been noticed by Robert Musil (1937), in his brief essay on the matter. Writers, by vocation, psychologists, by trade, and (unadmitedly) historians, because they have to deal with the sequential effects of idiotic decisions in human societies, seem to have the ones more systematically concerned with the issues of irrationality, ilogicality and plain stupidity.

Considering the hypothesis that an anthropology of stupidity is of programmatic urgency for the development of a critical, and self-critical, investigation into human collective thought and practices, we argue that researchers should start this endeavour by looking inward, into their academic activities, and into their teaching frameworks. The present paper is but a preliminary effort in that direction – and not a particularly intelligent one, for that matter.

We understand that such task is hard to the point of un-achievability, given not only the weight of the afore-mentioned discursive and postural tradition in anthropology, but also the present situation of academia. Our view is that the University, that has given meaning to the disciplinary propositions from which different strains of anthropological thought were allowed to thrive, is not simply in crisis, but is basically dead.

A University that permits free thought to flow into the classroom and into the literary and scientific productions is today unacceptable, given the business model that is being universally adopted (in Europe under the guise of the so-called Bologna Process). We share with other colleagues the idea that such model is founded on an empty ideology – that of excellence (Readings, 1996) – in which viability, evaluation and accountancy have successfully managed to push critical thought to the background of academic work (Jourde, 2007).

However, since we are in a foreign country, far from the inquisitorial eye of our university administrators and from the denouncing impulses of our pairs, we have allowed ourselves this possibly pointless exercise. We should also point out that we feel fortunate enough that stupidity is so easy to unearth in our country. This may regrettably mean that the results of our brief inquiry may not be directly expandable to other national contexts. Still, the insight of Carlo Cipolla’s second law of human stupidity (Fig.1) that reminds us this peculiar characteristic of Man’s mind is not limited to national borders, genders or social classes, gives us hope that you may translate at least some of elements of our report into your own academic realities.

Fig.1 The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person (in Cipolla, 1987: 3).

Portuguese Academic Context

As a starting point to examine the implementation of the Bologna Process in two Portuguese anthropology departments, as well as the effects those reforms are producing at University level, let us take a glance over some key features of the Portuguese Education System.

This approach is based on the OECD review (commissioned by the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education) and recently published (OECD, 2006).

Low education attainment of the population

Despite massive expansion of education since the revolution in 1974, educational attainment of the adult population in Portugal remains rather low (…). Compared internationally, the number of years of schooling of the working-age populations is among the lowest in the OECD, with Portugal ranking next to Turkey and Mexico.

Also there as been limited progress between one generation and the next, in contrast with what has occurred in another countries, such as Spain, Italy, Greece or Korea (Fig.2).
Low level of post-secondary level attainment

Albeit experiencing a massive expansion of higher education over the last two decades, the level of attainment of the population remains among the lowest in the OECD. Nevertheless, this increase in university enrolment numbers peaked in 2001/2002 and thereafter a slight decline is observed. The main reason for this decrease in student enrolment comes from Portugal demographic development, which like other European countries is experiencing declining birth rates over the last decades. Taking the period 1991-2006, the population in age group 15-17, for instance, has fallen circa 12%.

Apart from this demographic factor, another problem underlined in OECD report is that «…the percentage of cohort that fails to graduate also exhibits the highest rates of school dropouts, from the 9th to the12th year of schooling (…). The dropout rates are among the highest in OECD, while performance of the children who stay in school is one of the weakest, as measured by international literacy assessment (OECD-PISA) (OECD, 2006:13)».

Network of higher education institutions

As regards higher education institutions, the expansionist period, starting during post-revolution era and continuing during last two decades generated a large number of institutions [30 Universities and 130 Polytechnic Schools] catering to a relatively small number of students. With hindsight, as OECD observers report, «until the 1990’s the tertiary system was growing and expanding and there were sufficient candidates for every institution. The decline in the number of candidates has been felt most keenly by private institutions and more recently by public polytechnics and even by some public universities located in interior region» (OECD, 2006: 14, 15).

Expansionism and quality outputs

For a small country like Portugal, with a total population around 10 Million inhabitants, this is certainly a quite dense network of university institutions. Therefore, while enrolment figures have expanded enormously, completion has increased much less, pointing to very high drop out and failure rates. We can list several reasons for these poor results, ranging from the low efficiency of some institutions to the low competences of entering students. Quality also varies across institutions, Universities being more selective than polytechnics and mostly providing better quality teaching. Public universities have been selecting students [through numerus clausus system] and charge moderate fees. They tend to have the best students, either due to the opportunity cost of continuing studies, or because they were those performing the best in secondary schooling.

Access and participation according to age and sex

Until recently, older students are significantly absent from University. Lifelong education is still a relatively underdeveloped area of the Portuguese education system. According to data from 2004/05, the number of students over 25 years of age that entered higher education through special examinations represented only 1.1% of total first year enrolments. With the implementation of Bologna process, we can see that this scenario is changing. Aiming to encourage candidates to higher education, the Government reduced the age criterion to 23 and gave full responsibility to institutions to select their students, abolishing the national exams as a basis for selection.

Accompanying the tendency observed in many OECD countries, also in Portugal women have made significant gains in participation at hi

gher education level. This follows from the higher success rate of female students in compulsory education and in upper secondary education. Nowadays, females are a majority in every degree programme, except the more technological ones (Fig.3).

Anthropology Study Programmes

In this context, when we focus the evolution of the anthropology study programmes in the country, it was only from the late 1970s, after the fall of the authoritarian regime, that the conditions were created for the effective development of specialized university teaching in different fields of the social sciences.

We can trace, then, during this period the appearance of the first specialized degree programmes in Anthropology (social and cultural anthropology), all in Lisbon [UNL, 1977; ISCSP, 1981, ISCTE, 1982].

Our experience of students and lectures in two of the largest departments of Anthropology in the country – UNL and ISCTE – from these first steps to the ethnographic present – will allow us to reflect on some recent trends and transformations, with the privileged and dangerous view of being inevitably inside and part of the scene. We agree with Spradley when he says that «the more you know about a situation as a common observer, the more difficult it is to study it as an ethnographer» (Spradley, 1980: 61).

Since the inception of the first Anthropology programmes, years of expansion would follow, that were to be found mainly at two levels: demographic (students and staff); curricular (new study programmes; creation of masters’ degree in Anthropology).

The demographic expansion was reflected, first of all, on the increasing number of candidates that during the 80’s and 90’s applied for an anthropology programme. While the first years of UNL and ISCTE departments gather 25-30 students per year, the numerus clausus of both programmes rapidly increased to 60-70. Therefore, not only the number of candidates increased during this period, but also did the number of places offered in each of these anthropology departments.

Accompanying this movement, new staff (lectures, invited specialists, administrative) found a job at University and the first graduates had great chances of initiating a university career in the recently created departments. As we have initially referred, this situation has completely changed, and nowadays, the number of applicant students is in accentuated retraction and University Departments have long ago stabilised their staff quotas.

Similar expansionist trends characterises the history of curricular implementation and restructuring, attaining its pick with Bologna process, as we will illustrate below:

New anthropology programmes were offered in other public and private Universities [Coimbra, Oporto, Miranda do Douro, Lusófona]. Also anthropology courses were integrated in several Social Sciences programmes [Universidade da Beira Interior; Universidade do Minho, UTAD, Instituto Piaget, Escola Superior de Comunicação Social, etc] and new masters degree were offered by the main Universities [UNL, ISCTE, Universidade de Coimbra, Universidade do Minho, Universidade Católica, etc].

However, after those initial years of expansion, anthropology teaching has been forced to adapt, on one hand, to a massive rise in the number of students and, on the other hand, to severe restrictions as regards new academic posts (with many retired professors not being substituted and guest professors having their contracts ceased).

This situation led to what we could call an unusual restructuring obsession as the main feature that characterises recent history of our anthropology departments, having dominated great part of local scientific debates and synergies. Sterile quarrels and individual strategies were made visible throughout these turbulent years, with important repercussion either in academic life or in the curricula profile.

Just to give an example, in the department of anthropology at UNL, the anthropology degree programme changed five times between 1981 and 2006 [this last one according to Bologna Process], with the last three reforms concentrating in the last period of 10 years]. At ISCTE, although experiencing several attempts to restructure the curriculum, all of them were fruitless, except the one that took place under Bologna process.

Bologna process – 2006

Bologna process sudden became a slogan, echoing in almost every higher education institution one or two years before its implementation in 2006. It was clearly a top-down reform, whose proponent had no name, but was been assimilate to a profile of a collective European agreement that sounded like a plate of pasta. Nonetheless, Bologna advocates argue that it represents a unique opportunity to bring excellence to Portuguese Universities.

How was then brought this excellence in the case of anthropology teaching? For the Social Sciences, a commission of representatives was created that was supposed to produce a memorandum with position of the social sciences national group towards the undergoing Bologna reform. But neither the commission was recognised as representing anybody, nor anybody would recognize himself in the anodyne documents produced by the commission.

Besides this, the debate took place within the departments; where the main concepts that structured Bologna process was reduce to bizarre formulas and unusual abbreviations – Expressions like”3+1″ or “4+1″ or even “3+1+1″; “ECTS”; “SW”; “DP” [and others...] were used and abused, most part of the time totally empty of significance (Fig.4).

And after hours of discussions around “3+2″; “4+1″; the inevitable decision was already on the table – Social Sciences degree programmes, that according to Portuguese education tradition lasted 4 years, would be reduced to only three, followed by a two-year master degree. No matter what arguments pro or against could be adduce. Tuning, uniformising, measuring [everything: work of the student, hours of formal teaching, number of project written pages; duration of formal exams, informal evaluation, pages to be read...] were the main action verbs that dominated academic discourse at that time.

Then the nightmare of formularies to fulfil began. Every detail of the academic year should be anticipated, planned according to specific objectives and expected competencies, reduced to texts with defined limits of characters, measured in particular units of time, classified according to a grid previous exhibited and, of course, all supported by European comparability.

To assure the excellence of the Reform, new commissions would born – at the to

p, the ECTS commission, for example, was charged of assuring that every course didn’t overpass 6 ECTS, and that an undergraduate degree programme would totalize 180 ECTS.

Recently institutionalized, anthropology teaching resulted from a mix of francophone tradition, plus the input of American top bookshelves in the most popular bookshops, with most curricular changes (or proposals of changes) relying on the hands of department members under immediate circumstances.

The first consequence was paradigmatic of the inconsistent practices and discourses that affected the process of decision-making – the compression of degrees implied, in very practical terms, that some courses would have to drop out, while others would have to be revised to adapt to Bologna formats. Curiously, in our departments what would drop out and what would be maintained was never a scientific or pedagogic concern. In the lack of consensus and truly scientific arguments to support the debate around what needed to be restructured, it would be the number of fingers raised pro or against inconsistent renewal proposals that prevailed.
Thus, it was in the middle of turbulent and simultaneously empty discussions and erratic reasoning that new curricula began to emerge. “Foundation of” or “Introductory” courses of whatever classic domains of anthropology were seen as old fashion so, they would either drop out or be dismissed from “compulsory” to “optional” courses. Then, new courses have been proposed, with a thematic profile [a simple "comma" or preposition "and" in-between, would link no matter what convenient subject gatherings]. Once again, the absence of consensus and scientific justification reflected in the vacuity and erratic solutions for the newborn courses that compound the emergent study programmes.

All this “excellence” was accomplished under what could be called the Bologna process fallacies (Fig.5):

1st fallacy: modern study programmes are now “student-oriented”…

If it was difficult to find consensus and scientific criterion between academics, imagi

ne if the students took part in the discussions and innumerably meetings that occurred during restructuring process…

And what exactly was meant by the required “student-orientation”? Was it that it would be build by the student? Or should it be build according to what academics think was the point of view of the student? Or else, was it the result of a survey about students’ expectations towards the different courses? And in the base of all hypothesis whose student are we talking about? Even so, considering the time gap between an eventual survey and the application of the results, the student whose expectations were being surveyed had certainly already left university…

Besides this, was also propagating that it is the work of students that matters and not the “passive” transmission of knowledge by the lecturer…Thus, giving a formal lecture becomes obsolete and old-fashioned. Actually, the “good” teacher is rather the one who never prepares a lecture to deliver, but just listens to students “active” transmission of their “mature” knowledge, through individual or small group presentations that occur in class seminars, most of the time with total absence of their own colleagues participation (Fig.6).

2nd fallacy: mobility and ECTS

Related with the idea of student-oriented programmes comes the fallacy of flexibility and mobility through the European credit transfer system that, in our case, rapidly ceased to be a transfer system to become the system. Each course would represent a specific number of credits and the sum of a specific amount of credits will originate a diploma (180 ECTS = 1st cycle; 120 ECTS = Master; 240 ECTS = PhD…).

Nevertheless, if there is a different understanding of how to attribute credits to courses, a student might see his/her diplomas in danger if the total amounts of the credits realized do not reach exactly the pre-established quantitative plafond, or even if they overpass its limits. This situation, actually, has the great probability of occurring when we think in terms of different institutions or different countries. Paradoxically the system was conceived precisely to allow that differences between institutions (national and international) do not affect potential student mobility…

3rd fallacy: employability

Under the noble principle of “employability”, Universities were expected to promote dialogue with civil society (especially with enterprises and potential employers) in order to restructure their study programmes to produce employable students.

The political idea of professionalizing implies, then, that we substitute a disciplinary teaching by a specialized one, which ideally means that study programmes adapt to market punctual necessities and expectations. Nothing more mismatching than this third fallacy, very easily deconstructed. How is it possible that the University can be able to form their students according to punctual exigencies with some years in advance? Considering that a minimum of 5 years would be need, from the first needs assessment to the implementation of new study programmes, do we expect that the enterprises and future employers would be able to anticipate in 5 years, or even more, their own needs? (Fig.6).

Most of the time the tendency has been to interpret what academics think are the “market needs”, according to ephemeral fashions, that in anthropology had generated a sort of patchwork of different thematic courses, inevitably delivered at a very elementary level in order to capture a vast public. The paradox of this pseudo-specialization is a complete fragmentation of disciplinary teaching, trivialized and simplified, and delivered in a time record.

Semestralisation of the courses, compression of degrees and shortage in the number of project and thesis’ pages being the immediate expressions of this acceleration. However, what are the gains towards excellence? We all know that knowledge transmission requires time and it is very true that knowledge is not something that we can simplify to attract audiences…

Bologna advocates leave the idea that everything should be simplified, adequate to the competences and expectations of the students, or in other words, generalised or superficially approached. With these objectives, new study programmes profiles will incorporate what is intended to be worth and useful and exclude what is not. In short time, the study programmes that are becoming less attractive and popular risking to be defined as “non-employable” and soon extinct. Thus, under the leitmotif of employability and simplification there is a tendency to drop out “old fashion”, “useless” disciplines, such as philosophy (what for?), medieval history (who is interested in?) or linguistics (who cares?)…

Final remarks

Through this brief impressionist view, we may conclude with Carlo Cipolla (1987) that stupidity is as prevalent in the University as it is in any other social institution. Thus, anthropologists dealing with the university “reform” should not underestimate that inconsistent practices and discourses disturb widespread assumptions that institutions are nurture by reason. With hindsight, we have taken some features of the Bologna process in two Portuguese anthropology depart

ments as an illustration of the ways erratic reasoning that might affect decision-making.

While “Bologna advocates ” sustain that it represents a unique opportunity to bring “excellence” to Portuguese universities, on the contrary, we argue that we are dealing with a progressive simplification, resulting in an accelerated de-characterization of academic work, that is being politically appropriated with severe effects in teaching and research.

According to new standards, in fact, as Annika and Susan underline, university is not expecting to produce meaning but to become more business like. This raises troubling questions about the changing concept of University, but most scholars in Portugal failed to address them, instead adopting a submissive attitude towards undergoing changes. With the aim of enhancing “competence”, “quality” and “excellence” in higher education, a reform was top-down imposed, burocratically implemented, acritically accepted and almost not reflected.

This leads us to question the end of the University as a place where creative thought is produced and encouraged. In other words, we have always taken with suspicion that excellence would ever been mass-produced, uniformly spread through blind rules or developed according to job market. As Jean-Fabien Spitz so vividly remarks in University: La grande illusion when addressing to recent French reform in higher education: «Freedom is sine qua non condition of all innovative thought. Political authorities, who will not accept this with all their obsession of control and uniformity, are about to sterilise research after having already destroyed teaching…» (Jourde, 2007: 114).

Just to conclude, answering Annika and Susan challenges, we as anthropologists have dealt (and will deal) with some difficulties in the exploration of the nature of the changes that follow Bologna process in our own departments, as our descriptions and observations are far from being neutral. For that reason, we could only produce impressionistic views, framed by our own selective memory and experiences.

Nevertheless, we think that anthropologists that take necessary distance are very well equipped to study this sort of phenomenon. Such distance could be achieved, for instance, within the framework of European exchange programmes (like Erasmus-Socrates). Actually, those programmes could be used as a privileged opportunity for students and teachers, that are studying or teaching abroad, engage in participant observation at the departments they are visiting.

Such ethnographic studies will certainly contribute to our better understanding of the dynamics through which European academic life is passing, as well as to the strategies that are being used in order to respond to political pressures. In this case, no doubt remains about the usefulness of anthropological knowledge.

REFERENCES:

CIPOLLA, Carlo [illustrations by James Donnelly] (1987) «The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity», Whole Earth Review. Spring (pp. 2 – 7).GOMES DA SILVA, José Carlos (2003) O Discurso Contra Si Próprio, Lisboa: Assírio & Alvim.

JOURDE, Pierre (orgs.) (2007) Université: La Grande Illusion. Paris: L’Esprit des Péninsules.
MUSIL, ROBERT (1937) Über die Dummheit. Vienna: Bergmann-Fischer.
OECD (2006) Reviews of National Policies for Education – Tertiary Education in Portugal, [EDU/EC(2006)25]. Online document.
READINGS, Bill (1996) The University in Ruins. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
ROGER, Alain (2008) Bréviaire de la bêtise. Paris: Gallimard
SPRADLEY, James (1980) Participant Observation. New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

1) that reminds us this peculiar characteristic of Man’s mind is not limited to national borders, genders or social classes, gives us hope that you may translate at least some of elements of our report into your own academic realities.

 

 

DUMBING DOWN

Faz tudo parte da mesma picadora.

Great minds think (too much) alike 

Digital Libraries: Is the web narrowing scientists’ expertise?

 

Give me the broader prospective, please

ONLINE databases of scientific journals have made life easier for scientists as well as publishers. No more ambling down to the library, searching through the musty stacks and queuing up for the photocopier. Instead, a few clicks of a mouse can bring forth the desired papers and maybe others that the reader did not know of—the “long tail” of information that the web makes available.

Well, that is how it is supposed to work, but does it? James Evans, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, decided to investigate. His conclusion, published in this week’s Science, is that the opposite is happening. He has found that as more journals become available online, fewer articles are being cited in the reference lists of the research papers published within them. Moreover, those articles that do get a mention tend to have been recently published themselves. Far from growing longer, the long tail is being docked.

Dr Evans based his analysis on data from citation indexes compiled by Thomson Scientific (part of Thomson Reuters). In a world in which researchers must publish or perish, such indexes are the firing squads. They record how often one article is cited as a source by others, and thus measure a paper’s influence. Those used by Dr Evans cover 6,000 of the most prominent academic journals, some going back to 1945. By cross-referring these to a database called Fulltext Sources Online, he was able to work out when each of these journals became available on the web—and whether a journal had posted back-issues electronically as well. The result was a set of 34m research papers, which he was able to mine in search of his answers.

For each research paper he looked at, he calculated the average age of the articles cited as references. He then calculated, for each of those cited articles, the number of back-issues of the journal it had been published in which were available on the web at the time when it was cited, and averaged that too. Finally, he looked for correlations between the two averages.

What he discovered was that, for every additional year of back-issues of a journal available online, the average age of the articles cited from that journal fell by a month. He also found a fall, once a journal was online, in the number of papers in it that got any citations at all. Indeed, he predicts that for the average journal today, five extra years’ worth of online availability will cause a precipitous drop in the number of articles receiving one or more citations—from 600 to 200 a year. Rather than measuring the length of the tail, then, it seems that modern science is actually focusing on a tiny bit of it.

Why this should be so remains unclear. It does not seem to have anything to do with economics. The same effect applied whether or not a journal had to be paid for. One explanation could be that indexing works by titles and authors alone, as happened with printed journals, forced readers to cast at least a cursory glance at work not immediately related to their own—or even that the mere act of flicking through a paper volume may have thrown up unexpected gems. This may have led people to make broader comparisons and to integrate more past results into their research.

It is not yet clear whether this change is for good or ill. Electronic searching means that no relevant paper is likely to go unread, but narrowing the definition of “relevance” risks reducing the cross-fertilisation of ideas that sometimes leads to big, unexpected advances. As a wag once put it, an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until, eventually, he knows everything about nothing. It would be ironic if that is the sort of expertise that the world wide web is creating.

The Economist, 17 Jul 2008

DOS ALHOS E DOS BUGALHOS

MEASURING MORTARBOARDS

A new sort of higher education guide for very discerning customers

WORKING out exactly what students and taxpayers get for the money they spend on universities is a tricky business. Now the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based think-tank for rich countries, is planning to make the task a bit easier, by producing the first international comparison of how successfully universities teach.

That marks a breakthrough. At the moment, just two institutions make annual attempts to compare universities round the world. Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University has been doing it since 2003, and the Times Higher Education Supplement, a British weekly, started a similar exercise in 2004. But both these indices, which are closely watched by participants in a fickle and fast-expanding global education market (see chart), reflect “inputs” such as the number and quality of staff, as well as how many prizes they win and how many articles they publish. The new idea is to look at the end result—how much knowledge is really being imparted.

“Rather than assuming that because a university spends more it must be better, or using other proxy measures for quality, we will look at learning outcomes,” explains Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s head of education research. Just as the OECD assesses primary and secondary education by testing randomly chosen groups of youngsters from each country in reading and mathematics, it will sample university students to see what they have learned. Once enough universities are taking part, it may publish league tables showing where each country stands, just as it now does for compulsory education. That may produce a fairer assessment than the two established rankings, though the British one does try to broaden its inquiry by taking opinions from academics and employers.

There is much to be said for the OECD’s approach. Of course a Nobel laureate’s view on where to study may be worth hearing, but dons may be so busy writing and researching that they spend little or no time teaching—a big weakness at America’s famous universities. And changes in methodology can bring startling shifts. The high-flying London School of Economics, for example, tumbled from 17th to 59th in the British rankings published last week, primarily because it got less credit than in previous years for the impressive number of foreign students it had managed to attract.

The OECD plan awaits approval from an education ministers’ meeting in January. The first rankings are planned by 2010. They will be of interest not just as a guide for shoppers in the global market, but also as indicators of performance in domestic markets. They will help academics wondering whether to stay put or switch jobs, students choosing where to spend their time and money, and ambitious university bosses who want a sharper competitive edge for their institution.

The task the OECD has set itself is formidable. In many subjects, such as literature and history, the syllabus varies hugely from one country, and even one campus, to another. But OECD researchers think that problem can be overcome by concentrating on the transferable skills that employers value, such as critical thinking and analysis, and testing subject knowledge only in fields like economics and engineering, with a big common core.

Moreover, says Mr Schleicher, it is a job worth doing. Today’s rankings, he believes, do not help governments assess whether they get a return on the money they give universities to teach their undergraduates. Students overlook second-rank institutions in favour of big names, even though the less grand may be better at teaching. Worst of all, ranking by reputation allows famous places to coast along, while making life hard for feisty upstarts. “We will not be reflecting a university’s history,” says Mr Schleicher, “but asking: what is a global employer looking for?” A fair question, even if not every single student’s destiny is to work for a multinational firm.

 

Nov 15th 2007 
From The Economist print edition

LA MODERNISATION GUIDANT LE PEUPLE

Chronique des ravages annoncés de la “modernisation” universitaire en Europe

Par Alain Trautmann, le 25 avril 2008 [SLR - Sauvons la recherche]

 

Ce texte est une incitation à lire un livre récent et très riche d’informations, qui place la “réforme” en cours de notre système d’enseignement supérieur de de recherche dans un contexte international. Je prolonge le compte-rendu (volontairement très incomplet) de ce livre par les réflexions qu’on peut tirer de sa lecture et plus généralement de la situation actuelle.

Pour la plupart des français, y compris des personnes les plus concernées [1], il parait très difficile de prévoir quelles seront les conséquences des outils mis en place par les derniers gouvernements pour modifier en profondeur les systèmes d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche (ESR) en France. Successivement : l’ANR (2005), la loi dite “Pacte pour la recherche ” (2006), l’AERES et la LRU [2], (2007), le tout s’incrivant dans un discours européen : processus de Bologne (1999) et de Lisbonne (2000).

Un ouvrage collectif remarquable, intitulé “Les ravages de la “modernisation” universitaire en Europe”, dirigé par Christophe Charle et Charles Soulié, animateurs du collectif ARESER [3] donne des indications extrêmement éclairantes sur ces questions, en analysant les processus en cours dans six pays européens (Allemagne, Espagne, France, Grande-Bretagne, Grèce, Italie) ainsi qu’au Japon. Tous ceux qui s’intéressent à ces questions devraient se procurer ce livre [4]. Pour mieux comprendre ce qui en train de se jouer en France et en Europe, je propose une réflexion largement inspirée de ce livre, en commençant par une série de faits développés par Christian Galan dans le chapitre consacré au Japon.

Jusqu’en 2004, le Japon comptait 700 établissements d’enseignement supérieur, ou daigaku (municipaux, départementaux ou nationaux). Les ¾ étaient privés, ¼ public. Il n’y a pas de bac au Japon. L’entrée dans une université dépendait d’un concours d’entrée très difficile, qui demandait des années de préparation besogneuse. 70% d’une classe d’âge va dans un daigaku, et y passe ensuite au minimum 4 ans d’études moins exigeantes que dans la phase précédente (qui pourrait évoquer des “classe préparatoires”). Il y a quasiment 100% de réussite au bout des 4 ans de daigaku [5]. Les frais de scolarité en 2001 s’élevaient à 4800 € dans les établissements publics, et 10 500 dans les établissements privés (mais pour certains, 3 fois plus).

Le “Big Bang” a lieu le 1er avril 2004 [6] : 1) Privatisation de toutes les universités nationales, qui perdent leur caractère national, deviennent des “entités administratives autonomes”, cependant que leurs enseignants perdent tous leur statut de fonctionnaire. 2) Création d’une trentaine de COE (centers of excellence) [7] 3) Mise de l’ensemble des universités au service de l’économie. 4) Désengagement financier de l’Etat par rapport à l’enseignement supérieur de masse.

Il existe une série de points communs aux réformes de l’ESR nippone et française. Dans nos deux pays, ces réformes ne viennent pas de l’intérieur du système éducatif, mais de l’extérieur. La réforme est facilitée par le fait que les universitaires sont d’accord sur le fait que le système doit être amélioré. Cependant, on ne demande pas leur avis aux professionnels du secteur, et même s’ils le donnent spontanément (Etats Généraux de la Recherche, en 2004 en France), l’administration et le gouvernement n’en tiennent aucun compte, sur le fond. Au Japon comme en France, les seules personnes concernées qui donnent un avis positif clair (sans aucune consultation des instances universitaires existantes) sont les présidents d’universités, principaux bénéficiaires de la réforme au sein de la communauté universitaire.

Il est frappant de constater la similitude incroyable des discours justifiant la réforme, et les solutions proposées, pour deux pays qui ont au départ des systèmes éducatifs très différents, donc avec des problèmes forcément différents, au moins en partie. En outre, dans les deux cas, une série d’incohérences majeures est frappante, entre les problèmes dont on annonce qu’ils vont être résolus, et la réalité des solutions. La raison profonde de ces incohérences est que la “réforme” ne vise pas à corriger le système existant mais à le détruire pour le remplacer de toutes pièces par un nouveau modèle, cohérent, lui, avec un modèle de société libérale permettant d’étendre les domaines et les opportunités de gain du secteur privé, ce qui doit passer par une destruction des services publics, en s’inscrivant dans la logique de l’OMC, du GATS, du FMI, de l’OCDE [8], de la Commission Européenne, etc… En particulier, il ne faut plus que le coût de l’enseignement de masse repose sur le budget de l’Etat, mais sur le budget privé, c’est-à-dire notamment sur celui des familles. A cette occasion, des entreprises privées pourront y trouver un domaine d’activité lucrative.

L’autonomie des universités en matière d’orientation des activités pédagogiques et de recherche est présentée comme un des objectifs de la réforme. Ceci est répété, matraqué par le discours gouvernemental (avec une fonction de leurre complet) et repris dans celui des présidents d’universités (qui ont peut-être l’espoir que cela soit vrai). Au Japon, on sait maintenant qu’un des effets majeurs de la réforme de 2004 a au contraire été de rendre l’ensemble des universités –qui, chacune, joue sa survie- encore plus “dociles” qu’auparavant aux desiderata du gouvernement. Ce dernier, en concentrant les budgets de recherche sur quelques “universités d’excellence”, contraint ces dernières, pour obtenir des financements plus importants, à se conformer absolument aux lignes tracées au niveau ministériel.

La seule véritable autonomie qui est laissée aux universités, ou plus précisément à leurs équipes dirigeantes, est celle d’une gestion entrepreneuriale. Il leur faut en particulier, pour équilibrer leur budget, augmenter les revenus, ce qui passe systématiquement par une augmentation absolument inévitable des droits d’inscription [9], ainsi que par une chasse aux financements privés (avec démarchage très actif, et passage d’accords avec des entreprises). Il faut également diminuer les coûts, notamment par un appel croissant à des enseignants sur des contrats courts (3 à 5 ans), la précarité de l’emploi étant un outil majeur pour exercer une pression sur les salaires.

Pour la réforme des universités, la France marche très clairement sur la voie ouverte par le Japon il y a quelques années. C’est pourquoi, C. Galan conclut son article par un terrible constat qui pourrait être prophétique : “On peut considérer que l’Université française et l’Université de l’Europe continentale sont mortes au Japon le 1er avril 2004″.

Pour poursuivre cette réflexion on peut considérer que la révolution libérale (terme plus exact que celui de réforme) imposée au système d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche est basée sur quelques principes.

L’économie de la connaissance signifie non seulement que l’économie dépend plus que jamais de la production de connaissances, mais surtout que la production de connaissances doit relever de l’économie, autrement dit, que la science est sommée de se justifier d’un point de vue économique. [10]

Selon le dogme libéral, un pays peut mettre des moyens publics éventuellement importants dans la recherche, dans la mesure où cette dernière est grosse de promesses d’applications rentables, qui puissent contribuer au bon classement du pays dans la compétition internationale [11]. En revanche l’enseignement supérieur de masse doit être privatisé, laissé à la charge des individus et des familles. Seule une fraction très minoritaire de l’enseignement supérieur peut être financé par des moyens publics, afin de fournir les élites de chercheurs nécessaires à encadrer les activités de recherche futures, et de permettre aux élites du pays de s’auto-reproduire.

La logique de l’excellence revient à justifier et à mettre en place un système dual, ou fracturé, selon plusieurs lignes. D’un côté, quelques très grandes universités riches, puissantes, regroupées, destinées à l’élite et aux élites, de l’autre une majorité de petites universités survivant tant bien que mal, coupées de la recherche, destinée à la masse ou aux masses. Autre type de fracture : d’un côté des chercheurs d’élite, group leaders très bien payés, de l’autre des petites mains anonymes travaillant dans l’ombre pour ces group leaders, et courant de contrat en contrat pour survivre. D’un côté des présidents d’universités ayant des fonctions et des salaires de chefs d’entreprises puissants (c’est déjà le cas en Angleterre, cela viendra chez nous), de l’autre la masse des personnels, sur contrats précaires pour une part croissante d’entre eux. La culture de l’excellence ne vise donc pas à tirer l’ensemble du système vers le haut, mais à le couper en deux, pour bien distinguer les maîtres des esclaves, pour isoler la partie saine de celle laissée à l’abandon (malade ?). On a là comme un écho d’autres fractures majeures, entre les pays du Nord et ceux du Sud, entre ceux qui sont dans le système et ceux qui en sont exclus. Entre ceux qui ont des papiers et vivent ouvertement, et les sans-papiers qui doivent restés cachés. Ce qui est proposé par les gouvernements aux personnels de l’ESR est de participer volontairement à l’aggravation (car elle existe déjà) de ce type de fracture, dans leur domaine.

Autre principe mis en œuvre : la dérégulation permet aux lois du marché de s’appliquer sans contrainte, avec une concurrence libre et non faussée. Ce marché dérégulé serait source de richesse, de croissance, et donc la solution à tous les problèmes ! C’est la dérégulation qui nous mènerait au meilleur des mondes possibles [12]. Il faudrait donc, selon les principes de l’OMC et du GATS, “ouvrir” les services publics (comme l’éducation ou la santé) à la concurrence, c’est-à-dire faire en sorte qu’éducation ou santé ne soient plus des services publics, mais des entités “autonomes” placées dans des conditions telles que l’Etat puisse contrôler plus étroitement que jamais leur activité, tout en limitant au maximum les fonds qu’il devra y consacrer [13].

Dans la période actuelle, un des traits provisoires de cette compétition (et qui va durer un certain nombre d’années), c’est la volonté d’attirer un marché étudiant oriental (Chine, Inde, pays pétroliers du Proche-Orient) prometteur et en pleine expansion. Les étudiants riches de ces pays, en payant des frais de scolarité maximum, contribuent de façon de plus en plus significative au financement des universités d’élite, en Grande Bretagne en particulier [14]. C’est ce qu’on appelle “conférer une valeur à l’exportation dans le domaine de l’enseignement supérieur” [15].

La mise en place de ce projet libéral s’appuie sur le NMP (Nouveau Management Public), combinaison paradoxale de rhétorique libre-échangiste et de pratiques de contrôle quasi totalitaire [16]. Le NMP visera à faire respecter une saine gestion, qui permettra une diminution continue du ratio étudiant/enseignant , et une décomposition/fracture du corps enseignant entre un petit cœur de titulaires et une périphérie de vacataires. Il faut pour cela exercer une pression constante pour l’augmentation des revenus (des frais de scolarité) et la diminution des coûts, qui devient un objectif à part entière, appliqué aux salaires et aux moyens mis à disposition des personnels concernés.

C’est sans doute depuis 1989 que ce type d’idéologie a commencé à se mettre en place, puis à enfler et s’imposer comme une évidence indiscutable (ceux qui veulent en discuter étant nécessairement des esprits conservateurs, favorables au statu quo, opposés à La Réforme). La chute du Mur en 1989, c’est symboliquement la preuve manifeste de la supériorité économique et politique du libéralisme américain sur le communisme soviétique. C’est à partir de là que va déferler sur le monde le credo libéral vers le paradis promis par la dérégulation totale du marché, en ouvrant notamment des secteurs auxquels il n’avait pas accès jusque là.

La vague du discours libéral, fort de ses fausses évidences, déferlera facilement sur des vastes plages d’indifférences diverses. Indifférence de la partie la plus exposée de la population (les étudiants, les doctorants, post-doctorants et les personnels précaires), trop occupée à simplement survivre et à ne pas se faire éjecter du système. Indifférence d’une grande partie des personnels, complètement désorientés par la rapidité des changements qui leur sont imposés sans consultation, et par le fait que ce qui est proposé est incompréhensible (mais, on l’a vu, pour détruire un système sans faire de vagues, il ne faut pas dire qu’on le détruit mais qu’on le réforme, il ne faut pas rendre compréhensible la signification des changements opérés). Indifférence bienveillante, et même intérêt, de ceux des personnels qui espèrent pouvoir tirer leur épingle du jeu, en se situant dans le cœur protégé, dans la partie “saine”, “excellente”. Intérêt indiscutable, pour ces changements, de la part de ceux qui sont certains d’être du bon côté, d’être les bénéficiaires de la manne, qu’ils soient présidents d’universités gagnantes [17] ou organisateurs de pôles d’excellence. Les mêmes se doivent d’être indifférents aux conséquences de ce changement sur l’efficacité de l’ensemble du système. Pour les responsables politiques, il y a un intérêt évident pour une nouvelle organisation qui permet le désengagement financier de l’Etat tout en accroissant (via le NMP et les instances d’évaluation multiples cernant de toutes part les acteurs de l’ESR) sa capacité d’intervention jusque dans le micro-management des activités d’ESR. Les mêmes doivent évidemment se moquer éperdument des conséquences de la destruction de ce bien public qu’était, avec ses défauts, le système d’ESR existant (conséquences sur le niveau d’éducation et de culture de l’ensemble de la population, conséquences sur la capacité de maintenir à terme une recherche fondamentale, des experts scientifiques indépendants des pouvoirs politique et économiques etc….). De ce point de vue, il est absolument logique que l’amélioration de l’accès des couches populaires à l’enseignement supérieur ne soit JAMAIS un critère positif pour l’évaluation des performances des universités. L’indifférence face à cette déferlante touche aussi l’opposition politique, en tous cas l’opposition qui se sent proche du pouvoir (proche de s’emparer de ce dernier, et proche du pouvoir en place) et soucieuse d’apparaître crédible aux yeux de la fraction de la population susceptible de changer de camp. Préférant utiliser son énergie à des querelles de pouvoir interne à cette opposition qu’à travailler à faire des analyses de fond, trop souvent indifférente aux difficultés profondes de la population et aux évolutions à long terme, elle aussi laisse le libre passage à la déferlante libérale.

C’est aux professionnels de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche de s’opposer à cette vague. C’est à eux d’ouvrir les yeux, d’observer ce qui se passe dans d’autres pays, de chercher à en comprendre les causes profondes et générales, à défaut d’être naturelles, de déterminer s’ils les approuvent ou non. Ils sont les mieux placés pour comprendre puis expliquer comment la déferlante libérale peut détruire un système d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche précieux pour tout le pays, comme elle peut détruire le système d’enseignement secondaire ou de santé, par des mécanismes assez semblables. De la même façon qu’un ébéniste, Compagnon du Tour de France, peut être fier du chef-d’œuvre qu’il a réalisé, et n’admettrait pas que l’on abîme ses outils ou le résultat de son travail, c’est aux professionnels de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche de dire qu’ils sont fiers d’être chercheurs, enseignants chercheurs, ingénieurs, fiers de contribuer à l’avancement et à la transmission des connaissances, qu’ils sont prêts à travailler à l’amélioration de ce système, et qu’ils s’opposeront à sa destruction.

Alain Trautmann, le 25 avril 2008

[1] Etudiants, chercheurs, enseignants-chercheurs et leurs collègues ingénieurs et administratifs

[2] Agence Nationale pour la Recherche, Agence d’Evaluation pour la Recherche et l’Enseignement Supérieur, Loi de Responsabilité des Universités.

[3] Association de réflexion sur les enseignements supérieurs et la recherche

[4] 23 €, chez votre libraire, édité chez Syllepse, www.syllepse.net.

[5] De la même façon qu’en France, pratiquement tous les élèves de Maths Spé peuvent “intégrer” une école d’ingénieur, prestigieuse pour certaines, beaucoup moins pour d’autres.

[6] Au moment même où, en France, Chirac remerciait Luc Ferry et Claudie Haigneré et disait à François Fillon de donner satisfaction aux chercheurs, en apparence, cependant que Sarkozy préparait les choses sérieuses en travaillant sur le dossier de l’ANR

[7] Rappel : la population du Japon en 2007 est de 127 M habitants, soit deux fois celle de la France.

[8] Organisation Mondiale du Commerce, General Agreement on Trade in Services (AGCS en français), Fonds Monétaire International, Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques.

[9] C’est exactement ce qui se passé aussi aux USA, où les droits d’inscription ne cessent d’augmenter, ou bien encore en Angleterre. Il y a quelques années, les frais d’insciption y étaient très faibles. En 1998 le gouvernement de Tony Blair a fixé un plafond (souvent atteint) de 1000 £ (1320 €) par an pour les droits d’inscription en 1er cycle. Depuis 2006, une nouvelle loi (toujours votée sous Tony Blair) autorise les universités à faire payer des frais de scolarité allant de 1150 £ minimum à 3000 £ maximum ( 1500 – 4000 €) par an pour les étudiants de 1er cycle. “Par ailleurs les bourses ont été supprimées, remplacées par des prêts à taux préférentiel. Ainsi, les étudiants qui obtiennent leur licence sont souvent lourdement endettés, ce qui est loin d’être neutre en terme d’accès à l’enseignement supérieur” (Cécile Deer, La Grande-Bretagne à la croisée des chemins : entre volonté politique et logique économique, In Les ravages de la “modernisation” universitaire en Europe.). En France, il est absolument inévitable que ces frais de scolarité augmentent, et cela sera d’autant plus facile à faire passer que ce seront les universités autonomes qui en assumeront la responsabilité, et non pas le gouvernement.

[10] “L’économie de la connaissance”, le nouveau management public et les politiques de l’enseignement supérieur dans l’union européenne. Chris Lorenz. (Op cit. p33).

[11] Ce ne peut être évidemment le cas de recherches en scences humaines et sociales. Ainsi, en Allemagne, sur 17 réseaux d’excellence retenus, un seul relève des humanités et sciences socilaes (op. cit., p104)

[12] Sans hésiter, le cas échéant à en appeler aux “libéraux de gauche”, avec le slogan soixante-huitard “Il est interdit d’interdire”. Par exemple, il est interdit d’interdire au renard l’accès au poulailler. Ou bien : il est interdit d’interdire aux plus riches agriculteurs du Nord, bénéficiant de subventions majeures, l’accès aux marchés des pays du Sud, même si cela étrangle les agriculteurs du Sud, ni mécanisés, ni subventionnés. Marché libre über alles.

[13] Cette façon de fonctionner, commune aux pays européens, paraît étrange aux américains. Ainsi, on peut lire dans un article de the Economist de 2005 une critique de ce système, pour l’Allemagne :”The German government –both regional and central- tries to micromanage every aspect of academic life” (Jürgen Schriewer, op cit., p97)

[14] Voir Cécile Deer, La Grande-Bretagne à la croisée des chemins : entre volonté politique et logique économique, op. cit.

[15] Chris Lorenz, op. cit. p39

[16] Chris Lorenz, op. cit. p45

[17] Au Japon, on parle ouvertement d’universités gagnantes et d’universités perdantes (op cit, p243) pour annoncer clairement la différence entre les universités d’excellence et celles destinées aux masses.

 

O MERCADO ÚNICO DA BANALIDADE

No MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE:

O Processo de Bolonha e o futuro da universidade

João P. Almeida Fernandes, Alexandre Bettencourt, Christopher Bochmann

A recente e controversa aprovação pela Assembleia da República do Regime Jurídico das Instituições do Ensino Superior (RJIES) é apenas o primeiro passo de um processo que pretende instituir em Portugal um novo modelo de universidade, que também se generaliza na Europa. Ao RJIES deverão seguir-se disposições relativas à avaliação e um novo Estatuto da Carreira Docente.

Estas disposições convergem na adopção ou imposição à universidade europeia de um modelo organizacional que, pesa embora a aceitação acrítica que tem tido, corresponde a uma visão particular da instituição universitária, do seu passado e o do seu papel no futuro, que é altamente discutível – e tem sido, sobretudo, insuficientemente discutida antes de adoptada.

Clicar para continuar a ler

PARA BEM ENTENDER A CRISE DA UNIVERSIDADE

THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY

by Carlo M. Cipolla

1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

2. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. The corollary of the Law is that: A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

Whole Earth Review. Spring 1987 p 2 – 7

Ler o texto completo AQUI ou ALI

EXEMPLOS A SEGUIR

Repress U: How to Build a Homeland Security Campus in Seven Steps
by Michael Gould-Wartofsky

Free speech zones. Taser guns. Hidden cameras. Data mining. A new security curriculum. Private security contractors… Welcome to the new homeland security campus

From Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned their attention to “violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism” – as it was recently dubbed in a House of Representatives bill of the same name – have set out to reconquer that traditional hotbed of radicalization, the university.
Building a homeland-security campus and bringing the university to heel is a seven-step mission:

1. Target dissidents: As the warfare state has triggered dissent, the campus has increasingly become a target gallery – with student protesters in the crosshairs. The government’s number one target? Peace and justice organizations.

From 2003 to 2007, an unknown number of them made it into the Pentagon’s “Threat and Local Observation Notice” system (TALON), a secretive domestic spying program ostensibly designed to track direct “potential terrorist threats” to the Department of Defense itself. Last year, via Freedom of Information Act requests, the ACLU uncovered at least 186 specific TALON reports on “anti-military protests” in the U.S. – some listed as “credible threats” – from student groups at the University of California-Santa Cruz, State University of New York, Georgia State University, and New Mexico State University, among other campuses.

At more than a dozen universities and colleges, police officers now double as full-time FBI agents and, according to the Campus Law Enforcement Journal, serve on many of the nation’s 100 Joint Terrorism Task Forces. These dual-purpose officer-agents have knocked on student activists’ doors from North Carolina State to the University of Colorado and, in one case, interrogated an Iraqi-born professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst about his antiwar views.

FBI agents, or their campus stand-ins, don’t have to do all the work themselves. Administrators often do it for them, setting up “free speech zones,” which actually constrain speech, and punishing those who step outside them. Last year, protests were typically forced into “free assembly areas” at the University of Central Florida and Clemson University; while students at Hampton and Pace Universities faced expulsion for handing out antiwar flyers, aka “unauthorized materials.”

2. Lock and load: Many campus police departments are morphing into heavily armed garrisons, equipped with a wide array of weaponry from Taser stun guns and pepper guns to shotguns and semiautomatic rifles. Lock-and-load policies that began in the 1990s under the rubric of “the war on crime” only escalated with the President’s Global War on Terror. Each school shooting – most recently the massacre at Virginia Tech – just adds fuel to the armament flames.
Two-thirds of universities now arm their police, according to the Justice Department. Many of the guns being purchased were previously in the province of military units and SWAT teams. For instance, AR-15 rifles (similar to M-16s) are now in the arsenal of the University of Texas campus police. Last April, City University of New York bought dozens of semiautomatic handguns. Now, states like Nevada are even considering plans to allow university staff to pack heat in a “special reserve officer corps.”

Most of the force used on campus these days, though, comes in “less lethal” form, such as the rubber bullets and pepper pellets increasingly used to contain student demonstrations. Then there is the ubiquitous Taser, the electroshock weapon recently ruled a “form of torture” by the UN. A Taser was used by UCLA police in November 2006 to deliver shock after shock to an Iranian-American student for failing to produce his ID at the Powell Library. Last September, a University of Florida student was Tased after asking pointed questions of Senator John Kerry at a public forum, his plea of “Don’t Tase me, bro” becoming the stuff of pop folklore.

3. Keep an eye (or hundreds of them) focused on campus: Surveillance has become a boom industry nationally – one that now reaches deep into the heart of the American campus. In fact, universities have witnessed explosive growth in the electronic surveillance of students, faculty, and campus workers. On ever more campuses, closed-circuit security cameras can track people’s every move, often from hidden or undisclosed locations, sometimes even into classrooms.

The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators reports that surveillance cameras have now found their way onto at least half of all colleges, their numbers on any given campus doubling, tripling, and in a few cases, rising tenfold since September 11, 2001. Such cameras have proliferated by the hundreds on private campuses, in particular. The University of Pennsylvania, for instance, has more than 400 watching over it, while Harvard and Brown have about 200 each.

Elsewhere, it can be tricky just to find out where the cameras are and what they’re meant to be viewing. The University of Texas, for example, battled student journalists over disclosure and ultimately kept its cameras hidden. Sometimes, though, a camera’s purpose seems obvious. Take the case of Hussein Hussein, a professor in the Department of Animal Biotechnology at the University of Nevada, Reno. In January 2005, the widely respected professor found a hidden camera redirected to monitor his office.

4. Mine student records: Student records have, in recent years, been opened up to all manner of data mining for purposes of investigation, recruitment, or just all-purpose tracking. From 2001 to 2006, in an operation code-named “Project Strike Back,” the Department of Education teamed up with the FBI to scour the records of the 14 million students who applied for federal financial aid each year. The objective? “To identify potential people of interest,” explained an FBI spokesperson cryptically, especially those linked to “potential terrorist activity.”

Strike Back was quietly discontinued in June 2006, days after students at Northwestern University blew its cover. But just one month later, the Education Department’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, in a much-criticized preliminary report, recommended the creation of a federal “unit record” database that would track the activities and studies of college students nationwide. The Department’s Institute of Education Sciences has developed a prototype for such a national database.

It’s not a secret that the Pentagon, for its part, hopes to turn campuses into recruitment centers for its overstretched, overstressed forces. In fact, the Department of Defense (DoD) has built its own database for just this purpose. Known as Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies, this program now tracks 30 million young people, ages 16 to 25. According to a Pentagon spokesperson, the DoD has partnered with private marketing and data mining firms, which, in turn, sell the government reams of information on students and other potential recruits.

5. Track foreign-born students, keep the undocumented out: Under the auspices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been keeping close tabs on foreign students and their dependents through the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). As of October 2007, ICE reported that it was actively following 713,000 internationals on campuses, while keeping more than 4.7 million names in its database.

The database aims to amass and record information on foreign students throughout their stay inside the United States. SEVIS requires thick files on the students from the sponsoring schools, constantly updated with all academic, biographical, and employment records – all of which will be shared with other government agencies. If students fall out of “status” at school – or if the database thinks they have – the Compliance Enforcement Unit of ICE goes into action.

ICE has also done its part to keep the homeland security campus purified of those not born in the homeland. The American Immigration Law Foundation estimates that only one in 20 undocumented immigrants who graduate high school goes on to enroll in a college. Many don’t go because they cannot afford the tuition, but also because they have good reason to be afraid: ICE has deported a number of those who did make it to college, some before they could graduate.

6. Take over the curriculum, the classroom, and the laboratory: Needless to say, not every student is considered a homeland security threat. Quite the opposite. Many students and faculty members are seen as potential assets. To exploit these assets, the Department of Homeland Security has launched its own curriculum under its Office of University Programs (OUP), intended, it says, to “foster a homeland security culture within the academic community.”

The record so far is impressive: DHS has doled out 439 federal fellowships and scholarships since 2003, providing full tuition to students who fit “within the homeland security research enterprise.” Two hundred twenty-seven schools now offer degree or certificate programs in “homeland security,” a curriculum that encompasses over 1,800 courses. Along with OUP, some of the key players in creating the homeland security classroom are the U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) and the Aerospace Defense Command, co-founders of the Homeland Security and Defense Education Consortium.

OUP has also partnered with researchers and laboratories to “align scientific results with homeland security priorities.” In Fiscal Year 2008 alone, $4.9 billion in federal funding will go to homeland security-related research. Grants correspond with 16 research topics selected by DHS, based on presidential directives, legislation, and a smattering of scientific advice.

But wait, there’s more: DHS has founded and funded six of its very own “Centers of Excellence,” research facilities that span dozens of universities from coast to coast. The latest is a Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, the funding for which cleared the House in October. The Center is mandated to assist a National Commission in combating those “adopting or promoting an extremist belief system… to advance political, religious or social change.”

7. Privatize, privatize, privatize: Of course, homeland security is not just a department, nor is it simply a new network of surveillance and data mining – it’s big business. (According to USA Today, global homeland-security-style spending had already reached $59 billion a year in 2006, a six-fold increase over 2000.)

Not surprisingly, then, universities have, in recent years, established unprecedented private-sector partnerships with the corporations that have the most to gain from their research. The Department of Homeland Security’s on-campus National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), for instance, features Lockheed Martin on its advisory board. The Center for Food Protection and Defense relies on an industry working group that includes Wal-Mart and McDonald’s offering “guidance and direction,” according to its chair.

While vast sums of money are flowing in from these corporate sponsors, huge payments are also flowing out into “strategic supplier contracts” with private contractors, as universities permanently outsource security operations to big corporations like Securitas and AlliedBarton. Little of this money actually goes to those guarding the properties, who are often among the most underpaid workers at universities. Instead, it fills the corporate coffers of those with little accountability for conditions on campus.

Meanwhile, some universities have developed intimate relationships with private-security outfits like the notorious Blackwater. Last May, for example, the University of Illinois and its police training institute cut a deal with the firm to share their facilities and training programs with Blackwater operatives. Local journalists later revealed that the director of the campus program at the time was on the Blackwater payroll. In the age of hired education, such collaboration is apparently par for the course.

Following these seven steps over the past six years, the homeland security state and its constituents have come a long way in their drive to remake the American campus in the image of a compound on lockdown. Somewhere, inside the growing homeland security state that is our country, the next seven steps in the process are undoubtedly already being planned out.

Still, the rise of Repress U is not inevitable. The new homeland security campus has proven itself unable to shut out public scrutiny or stamp out resistance to its latest Orwellian advances. Sometimes, such opposition even yields a free-speech zone dismantled, or the Pentagon’s TALON de-clawed, or a Project Strike Back struck down. A rising tide of student protest, led by groups like the new Students for a Democratic Society, has won free-speech victories and reined in repression from Pace and Hampton, where the University dropped its threats of expulsion, to UCLA, where Tasers will no longer be wielded against passive resisters.

Yet, if the tightening grip of the homeland security complex isn’t loosened, the latest towers of higher education will be built not of ivory, but of Kevlar for the over-armored, over-armed campuses of America.

Michael Gould-Wartofsky is a writer from New York City and a recent graduate of the new homeland security campus. He has written for the Nation Online, Z Magazine, Common Dreams, and the Harvard Crimson, where he was a columnist and editor, and his work has also appeared in Poets Against the War (Nation Books). He was a recipient of the New York Times James B. Reston Award for young journalists and Harvard’s James Gordon Bennett Prize for his writing on collective memory.

Published on Thursday, January 10, 2008 by TomDispatch.com
This piece is also appearing in the latest issue of the Nation Magazine.