HÁ QUEM AINDA SE ILUDA

Esta forma de pensar faz parte do problema, não da solução (simplesmente, porque não há solução):

End the University as We Know It

GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).

Widespread hiring freezes and layoffs have brought these problems into sharp relief now. But our graduate system has been in crisis for decades, and the seeds of this crisis go as far back as the formation of modern universities. Kant, in his 1798 work “The Conflict of the Faculties,” wrote that universities should “handle the entire content of learning by mass production, so to speak, by a division of labor, so that for every branch of the sciences there would be a public teacher or professor appointed as its trustee.”

Unfortunately this mass-production university model has led to separation where there ought to be collaboration and to ever-increasing specialization. In my own religion department, for example, we have 10 faculty members, working in eight subfields, with little overlap. And as departments fragment, research and publication become more and more about less and less. Each academic becomes the trustee not of a branch of the sciences, but of limited knowledge that all too often is irrelevant for genuinely important problems. A colleague recently boasted to me that his best student was doing his dissertation on how the medieval theologian Duns Scotus used citations.

The emphasis on narrow scholarship also encourages an educational system that has become a process of cloning. Faculty members cultivate those students whose futures they envision as identical to their own pasts, even though their tenures will stand in the way of these students having futures as full professors.

The dirty secret of higher education is that without underpaid graduate students to help in laboratories and with teaching, universities couldn’t conduct research or even instruct their growing undergraduate populations. That’s one of the main reasons we still encourage people to enroll in doctoral programs. It is simply cheaper to provide graduate students with modest stipends and adjuncts with as little as $5,000 a course — with no benefits — than it is to hire full-time professors.

In other words, young people enroll in graduate programs, work hard for subsistence pay and assume huge debt burdens, all because of the illusory promise of faculty appointments. But their economical presence, coupled with the intransigence of tenure, ensures that there will always be too many candidates for too few openings. The other obstacle to change is that colleges and universities are self-regulating or, in academic parlance, governed by peer review. While trustees and administrations theoretically have some oversight responsibility, in practice, departments operate independently. To complicate matters further, once a faculty member has been granted tenure he is functionally autonomous. Many academics who cry out for the regulation of financial markets vehemently oppose it in their own departments.

If American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured. The long process to make higher learning more agile, adaptive and imaginative can begin with six major steps:

1. Restructure the curriculum, beginning with graduate programs and proceeding as quickly as possible to undergraduate programs. The division-of-labor model of separate departments is obsolete and must be replaced with a curriculum structured like a web or complex adaptive network. Responsible teaching and scholarship must become cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural.

Just a few weeks ago, I attended a meeting of political scientists who had gathered to discuss why international relations theory had never considered the role of religion in society. Given the state of the world today, this is a significant oversight. There can be no adequate understanding of the most important issues we face when disciplines are cloistered from one another and operate on their own premises.

It would be far more effective to bring together people working on questions of religion, politics, history, economics, anthropology, sociology, literature, art, religion and philosophy to engage in comparative analysis of common problems. As the curriculum is restructured, fields of inquiry and methods of investigation will be transformed.

2. Abolish permanent departments, even for undergraduate education, and create problem-focused programs. These constantly evolving programs would have sunset clauses, and every seven years each one should be evaluated and either abolished, continued or significantly changed. It is possible to imagine a broad range of topics around which such zones of inquiry could be organized: Mind, Body, Law, Information, Networks, Language, Space, Time, Media, Money, Life and Water.

Consider, for example, a Water program. In the coming decades, water will become a more pressing problem than oil, and the quantity, quality and distribution of water will pose significant scientific, technological and ecological difficulties as well as serious political and economic challenges. These vexing practical problems cannot be adequately addressed without also considering important philosophical, religious and ethical issues. After all, beliefs shape practices as much as practices shape beliefs.

A Water program would bring together people in the humanities, arts, social and natural sciences with representatives from professional schools like medicine, law, business, engineering, social work, theology and architecture. Through the intersection of multiple perspectives and approaches, new theoretical insights will develop and unexpected practical solutions will emerge.

3. Increase collaboration among institutions. All institutions do not need to do all things and technology makes it possible for schools to form partnerships to share students and faculty. Institutions will be able to expand while contracting. Let one college have a strong department in French, for example, and the other a strong department in German; through teleconferencing and the Internet both subjects can be taught at both places with half the staff. With these tools, I have already team-taught semester-long seminars in real time at the Universities of Helsinki and Melbourne.

4. Transform the traditional dissertation. In the arts and humanities, where looming cutbacks will be most devastating, there is no longer a market for books modeled on the medieval dissertation, with more footnotes than text. As financial pressures on university presses continue to mount, publication of dissertations, and with it scholarly certification, is almost impossible. (The average university press print run of a dissertation that has been converted into a book is less than 500, and sales are usually considerably lower.) For many years, I have taught undergraduate courses in which students do not write traditional papers but develop analytic treatments in formats from hypertext and Web sites to films and video games. Graduate students should likewise be encouraged to produce “theses” in alternative formats.

5. Expand the range of professional options for graduate students. Most graduate students will never hold the kind of job for which they are being trained. It is, therefore, necessary to help them prepare for work in fields other than higher education. The exposure to new approaches and different cultures and the consideration of real-life issues will prepare students for jobs at businesses and nonprofit organizations. Moreover, the knowledge and skills they will cultivate in the new universities will enable them to adapt to a constantly changing world.

6. Impose mandatory retirement and abolish tenure. Initially intended to protect academic freedom, tenure has resulted in institutions with little turnover and professors impervious to change. After all, once tenure has been granted, there is no leverage to encourage a professor to continue to develop professionally or to require him or her to assume responsibilities like administration and student advising. Tenure should be replaced with seven-year contracts, which, like the programs in which faculty teach, can be terminated or renewed. This policy would enable colleges and universities to reward researchers, scholars and teachers who continue to evolve and remain productive while also making room for young people with new ideas and skills.

For many years, I have told students, “Do not do what I do; rather, take whatever I have to offer and do with it what I could never imagine doing and then come back and tell me about it.” My hope is that colleges and universities will be shaken out of their complacency and will open academia to a future we cannot conceive.

Mark C. Taylor, the chairman of the religion department at Columbia, is the author of the forthcoming Field Notes From Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 27, 2009, on page A23 of the New York edition.

MERECE UM MOMENTO DE ATENÇÃO

Ken Robinson: “Os certificados universitários não servem para nada”

ISCTE: A EXCELÊNCIA DO JARDIM DE INFÂNCIA

Salvemos o zombie

Now we’re getting somewhere

The Centre for International Communication Research (CICR) the Media Industries Research Centre (MIRC) and the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds are inviting you to a 

Conference on Porn Cultures: Regulation, Political Economy, and Technology

Funded by the British Academy

Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th of June in Leeds.

The pornography industry is an under-researched culture industry. Its links to mainstream media and to the sex industry are intensifying. The mainstreaming of certain aspects of the industry in global popular culture raises questions about the adequacy, efficiency or appropriateness of existing policy. Other aspects of the industry, such as its labour conditions, its geographies of production and consumption practices associated with it have largely fallen under the radar of scholarly analysis, while much more attention has been paid to the potential for emancipatory uses of aspects of sexually explicit cultural expression. Meanwhile, technological aspects of the industry’s operation are challenging our assumptions about ‘choice’ ‘privacy’ and ‘freedom’. With the proliferation of the pornographic product embedded in everyday life now more than ever before existing and new questions require our urgent attention about human rights, migrants, workers and communication rights, media literacy, media ecology and the public sphere, global production and consumption cultures as well as underlying politics of gender, class and ‘race’.

This conference aims to bring together scholars, policymakers and activists to discuss the global pornography complex. It is the second of two conferences organised within the British Academy funded projectSocialisation of the global sexually explicit imagery: challenges to regulation and research. The project has given birth to an international Porn Cultures and Policy Network, which involves scholars from a number of countries, engaged in comparative studies with an emphasis on policy. We are inviting colleagues to take part in this debate and colleagues who would be interested in working with the existing network to join us. Information on this and our first conference can be found on http://sgsei.wordpress.com.

Please send your 200 word abstract, along with a 50-word bio and contact details to Steven McDermott (cssem@leeds.ac.uk) by March 15th or earlier.

There will be a small fee to cover catering and room facilities. Please let us know if you require an earlier decision regarding your paper. If you would like to discuss a panel/round-table proposal and /or your paper please contact Katharine Sarikakis (K.Sarikakis@leeds.ac.uk).

The Gloomy Parade

On est pas la pour se faire assommer. On est venu pour voir le défilé…

 

Réforme des universités et de la recherche : des discours aux actes 

Par : 

Bruno Chaudret, chimiste, membre de l’Académie des sciences, directeur de recherche, Albert Fert, physicien, prix Nobel 2007, professeur, Yves Laszlo, mathématicien, professeur, Denis Mazeaud, juriste, professeur.

Depuis des mois, le gouvernement proclame sa volonté de réformer le système de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche pour le hisser au meilleur niveau mondial.

De nombreux représentants de la communauté scientifique, parmi lesquels des signataires de ce texte, ont manifesté un grand intérêt pour ce projet et ont proposé de nombreuses pistes de réflexion. Le ministère les a pieusement écoutés pour ensuite ne tenir aucun compte de leurs suggestions et remarques. Et les orientations finalement retenues, souvent en contradiction avec le but affiché, sont extrêmement préoccupantes.

Ainsi, alors que l’objectif affiché est l’excellence de nos universités et de notre recherche, alors que Mme Pécresse a proclamé sa volonté de porter nos meilleurs établissements aux premiers rangs du fameux classement de Shanghai, comment comprendre que les réductions d’effectifs annoncées touchent notamment les universités les mieux placées dans ce classement ?

Le ministère réplique que ces suppressions de postes pourront être compensées par la possibilité de moduler la charge d’enseignement des universitaires en fonction de leur activité de recherche, possibilité qu’introduit un récent projet de décret. Une modulation des services, dans son principe, pourrait avoir l’intérêt de réduire la lourdeur de la charge d’enseignement qui handicape l’activité de recherche de nombreux universitaires, notamment vis-àvis de certains collègues étrangers. Mais ses modalités de mise en oeuvre en font une mesure dangereuse, hypocrite et contre-productive.

La modulation envisagée est dangereuse : elle dépend du seul pouvoir du président d’université et de son conseil d’administration, nullement liés par l’avis seulement consultatif du Conseil National des Universités. Cet organe représentatif, chargé de l’évaluation des universitaires, tire pourtant sa légitimité de son indépendance à l’égard du pouvoir central (ministère) et des pouvoirs locaux (président et conseils d’université) ainsi que de sa composition, qui garantit une évaluation des universitaires par des pairs compétents, ce qui est indispensable à toute évaluation impartiale et équitable. En le confinant à un rôle subalterne et en conférant des pouvoirs exorbitants aux présidents d’université, la réforme porte gravement atteinte au principe d’indépendance des universitaires. Or ce principe est consacré dans tous les pays dotés d’universités performantes, tout simplement parce que l’indépendance est indispensable à une recherche créative et à un enseignement de qualité. « L’université est une communauté de chercheurs scientifiques libres de suivre leurs idées dans n’importe quel domaine du savoir » a dit un président de l’université Rockfeller, célèbre université privée américaine. Loin d’améliorer la qualité de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur, la réforme projetée aboutira ainsi au « clientélisme » et au « localisme » si souvent dénoncés par le ministère.

La modulation envisagée est également hypocrite. Alors qu’on la présente comme un moyen d’améliorer la qualité de la recherche, on doit craindre qu’elle soit seulement un moyen d’alourdir la charge d’enseignement des universitaires. Comment le ministère peut-il supprimer des postes dans de très bonnes universités et soutenir, en même temps, que la modulation servira à alléger les charges d’enseignement de la majorité d’excellents chercheurs de ces universités ? L’érosion du potentiel d’enseignement empêchera de facto la modulation à la baisse et imposera la modulation à la hausse, quel que soit le niveau des Universités et des universitaires.

Et cette modulation s’avèrera ainsi finalement contre-productive. A l’inverse de la volonté affichée par le ministère, cette mesure, si elle aboutit donc à alourdir la charge d’enseignement, affaiblira durablement le potentiel de recherche des universitaires. Le souci de ne pas gaspiller l’argent des contribuables est légitime et nécessaire. Encore faut-il que ces économies s’avèrent productives. A l’heure où l’économie réelle a besoin d’investissements d’avenir aux dires mêmes du président de la République, la politique à courtevue de coupes claires sans discernement dans la recherche et l’enseignement supérieur est suicidaire.

Et là ne résident pas les seules contradictions.

Premier exemple, les « chaires organisme-université ». Ces postes, destinés à attirer les jeunes chercheurs les plus brillants, offrent une meilleure rémunération, des crédits de recherche et un service d’enseignement allégé pendant 5 ou 10 ans. L’idée, si elle ne doit pas cacher la « misère universitaire française », était assurément séduisante. Mais sa mise en oeuvre est désastreuse. Dans la configuration actuelle, en effet, chaque chaire, avec ses crédits de recherche budgétisés avec les salaires, coûte presque autant que deux postes d’enseignant-chercheur ou de chercheur : à budget constant, chaque chaire « consomme » donc deux postes ou presque et conduit ainsi à diminuer le nombre global de postes disponibles. Et le ministère a refusé tous les modes de financement alternatifs, même ceux n’entraînant pas d’augmentation du budget de l’enseignement supérieur. Cette diminution des postes disponibles réduira le nombre global de brillants chercheurs recrutés et ira donc à l’encontre du but recherché : attirer ou retenir les meilleurs. Une bonne idée potentielle a ainsi été travestie en « une idée astucieuse pour rendre des postes à Bercy ».

Deuxième exemple, la réorganisation de la structuration de la recherche. La France doit nombre de ses succès scientifiques aux organismes (CNRS notamment) qui garantissent la cohérence de l’effort national de recherche. La recherche universitaire est particulièrement performante dans les laboratoires dits mixtes, associant en partenariat l’organisme de recherche avec une université ou une entreprise. Il est surprenant d’entendre le président de la République annoncer le 22 janvier la transformation totale du CNRS en agence de moyens, ce qui serait la fin de cette fructueuse mixité, au mépris du plan stratégique de l’organisme pourtant accepté par l’Etat il y a 6 mois. Ce dans un discours où il célèbre l’un de nous, qui effectue sa recherche dans un laboratoire… mixte ! S’il importe de moderniser les Organismes, c’est en instituant un partenariat équilibré avec l’Université. Il faut aussi donner des moyens réels aux Organismes. Or, la réorganisation du CNRS en Instituts s’accompagne de nouvelles missions (notamment le développement de projets transdisciplinaires nationaux) pour lesquelles des moyens supplémentaires n’ont pas été déployés, ce qui handicape sa capacité de soutien aux laboratoires. Sans parler de la baisse du nombre de ses recrutements, dont la qualité est pourtant reconnue, ni du risque d’éclatement pur et simple de l’organisme qui sonnerait le glas d’une vision nationale pluridisciplinaire de la science française.

Troisième exemple, la politique de financement des projets de recherche. Le gouvernement connaît les dangers d’un excès de financement de projets à court terme ou trop ciblés, aux dépens des dotations annuelles des laboratoires et des financements de projets libres (dits blancs). Pourtant, la part réelle des dotations annuelles dans le budget des laboratoires diminue tandis que l’augmentation réelle des projets blancs est dérisoire à l’aune des standards internationaux. La ministre elle-même avait pourtant reconnu la nécessité d’en augmenter significativement la part.

Les enseignants-chercheurs sont, quelle que soit leur affinité politique, largement opposés à la réforme actuellement engagée, incohérente et mal pensée. La gravité de la situation et la stérilité des discussions avec le ministère contraignent le milieu à des actions de protestation inhabituelles dans une atmosphère explosive : appel de la conférence des présidents d’université au président de la République, rétention de notes, signature de pétitions, appel à la grève… Certains envisagent la cessation des responsabilités collectives qu’ils assument.

Nous en appelons au Gouvernement pour une réforme respectueuse des libertés universitaires et soucieuse réellement de la qualité de la recherche française. Madame la ministre, Messieurs les conseillers, la recherche et l’enseignement supérieur valent mieux que des mesures incohérentes et contraires à l’ambition affichée : la performance !

Allons enfants du CNRS

 

Um comunicado proveniente do Álamo:

Le discours du Président de la République prononcé le 22 Janvier 2009 présente explicitement la perspective de disparition du CNRS. Une réaction collective, nationale et puissante de notre communauté s’impose.

Les personnels de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur de la région PACA se sont réunis en Assemblée Générale le 28 Janvier 2009 à la faculté Saint-Charles à Marseille. L’ordre du jour de cette assemblée était l’organisation d’une réponse de lutte à la volonté de destruction du CNRS conjointement à la mise en place de la LRU dans les Universités. L’assemblée générale, qui a réuni 150 personnes, souligne la cohérence des attaques du gouvernement sur l’ensemble du système de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur français et affirme la nécessité de la convergence des luttes.

L’AG revendique à sa majorité moins une voix contre et une abstention :

• que le CNRS puisse vivre et poursuivre ses activités dans les contours structurels et opérationnels actuels. Le CNRS doit en particulier être maintenu dans son rôle d’opérateur de recherche national et couvrant l’ensemble du champ scientifique
• que le CNRS dans ses structures actuelles reste souverain dans la gestion des emplois et carrières de tous ses personnels (chercheurs et ITA)

Dans ce cadre, l’AG appelle l’ensemble des personnels des Universités et des EPST ainsi que les doctorants et les personnels précaires :

• à rejoindre le mouvement de la Coordination Nationale des Universités
• à multiplier dans les prochains jours les Assemblées Générales à tous les niveaux (labos, délégations régionales, etc.) pour refuser la perspective de destruction du CNRS
• à converger vers une initiative nationale (type meeting) à mettre en place rapidement

De plus, nous appelons à fixer un ultimatum au gouvernement au delà duquel, si des engagements clairs n’étaient pas pris :
• nous démissionnerons de l’ensemble de nos responsabilités administratives et mandats. Cette démission concernera l’ensemble des personnels (Directeurs d’Unités, élus CAP, CTP,  membres du Comité National, élus dans des Conseils d’Universités, représentants d’instances, etc.)
• nous fermerons les laboratoires

Signataires
———–
AG régionale des personnels, Directeurs d’Unités présents, SLR, SLU, SNCS, SNESUP, SNTRS-CGT, FERCSUP-CGT, SUD-Recherche, SUD-Education

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

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.

 

 

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.

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