Like most academics these days, I spend a lot of time filling in online forms. Mostly, this is just an annoyance but occasionally I get something out of it. A recent survey in which the higher-ups tried to get an idea of how the workforce was feeling, asked the question “Do you think of the University as We or They?”.
Unsurprisingly given my reference to “higher-ups”, my answer was “They”. But giving the answer reminded me that, not so long ago, it would have been “We”. In its idealized form, a university was a self-governing community, with a well-understood teaching and research mission (which did not require a Mission Statement). All but the most senior management jobs were done by academics taking turns before returning to their real jobs. Administrative staff did essential work, largely independently, but didn’t conceive themselves as part of management.
The reality was inevitably less egalitarian and communitarian than this picture suggests, in all sorts of ways. Senior professors had too much power and inevitably, some of them abused it. And, given the times, lots of bad behaviour was tolerated that would not be now.
For good and ill, this has all been swept away, at least in Australia. Multiple layers of management are filled by people who have either left the academic life behind them or were never part of it. The university in this view, is not a community but a business enterprise, even if its ownership structure is rather opaque.
The reality is that of an ordinary workplace in which, most of the time, the interests of bosses and workers are in conflict (though, as in any workplace, there is a shared interest in the survival of the business). Senior managers see themselves as such and compare themselves to their corporate peers. Administrative job titles are those of the corporate sector (Chief Financial Officer and so on)>
Yet, as the question implies, there is a still a feeling that the university should be a We, and not merely in the sense of workers being willing to sing the company song. My own version of this is to think of the current regime as being temporary occupiers, from whom We will be liberated in due course. But others may take a more positive view – I’d be interested in commetnnts
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
David 09.15.24 at 2:22 am
Funny, I just posted a comment on this subject to Henry’s piece on the O’Brian novels, which had made me wonder if maybe university leaders don’t wrestle with the nature of their authority enough these days. Before last April I might have said “we,” but then my students got riot-copped: https://crookedtimber.org/2024/09/08/patrick-obrian-is-a-great-conservative-writer/#comment-835521
Matt 09.15.24 at 2:58 am
My own version of this is to think of the current regime as being temporary occupiers, from whom We will be liberated in due course.
I very much hope you’re right, but I fear that the real trend in Australia is to try to turn the university into and “it”, and mostly replace the teaching staff with recordings. See the news out of the “new” University of Adelaide:
The newly amalgamated Adelaide University has become the first Group of Eight institution in Australia to ditch face-to-face lectures, in a move condemned as accelerating the “death of campus life”… the new university wrote “most students” would no longer attend face-to-face lectures, which from 2026 would gradually be replaced by “rich digital learning activities”. “These activities will deliver an equivalent learning volume to traditional lectures and will form a common baseline for digital learning across courses, providing a consistent experience for students,” the university wrote.
The “rich digital learning activities” will be, no doubt, recordings and/or AI. Updates to recordings will be done by AI, with “learning” done in increasingly tic-toc sized bits. (I wish I was making this up, but it’s been the goal at places I’ve worked and do work.) The people who might be asked about “we” or “them” will largely be eliminated, some faster, some slower.
This talk of “volume of learning” and “common baseline” is super common bureaucratic academic speak in Australia, in my experience, and is a great example of how both students and staff are seen – very much as “units” to be dealt with. The discussion around foreign students fills me with similar dread, no matter which side of the discussion is talking. I see very little from anyone in the government that makes me feel any real hope on the issue. But maybe you’ll be right! I certainly hope so. It’s good that the Union at Adelaide is pushing back, but I’m not super optimistic for them.
J-D 09.15.24 at 5:40 am
I have not been asked this question, but if I were my response would not be ‘We’ and would not be ‘They’. My response would be:
‘Are you serious? What do you think you’re playing at? Do you feel comfortable taking a paycheque for this kind of thing? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Are people who know you aware of what you do for a living? How do you sleep at night?’
The fact that somebody thought it was worthwhile conducting a survey like this is itself evidence that there was no point conducting the survey. After all, suppose for a moment the result was that 100% of staff said ‘They’. What would the people receiving that response do about it?
John Q 09.15.24 at 6:06 am
“, suppose for a moment the result was that 100% of staff said ‘They’. What would the people receiving that response do about it?”
The default response is “beatings will continue until morale improves”
Neville Morley 09.15.24 at 7:33 am
The optimistic view is that significant elements of the origins of the university as a community of scholars do persist, embedded in its institutional structures as well as its public identity, and so could be a basis for a brighter future. The pessimistic view is that these traditions and values are cynically invoked as a means of getting the staff to identify with the university and so work harder without making a fuss.
engels 09.15.24 at 9:03 am
“, suppose for a moment the result was that 100% of staff said ‘They’. What would the people receiving that response do about it?”
Mandatory training on respecting managers’ pronouns
J-D 09.15.24 at 9:27 am
Actually, now that I think about it, what I would expect based on my past experience is that if a survey produced very bad results, it would not be reported, but after a discreet lapse of time a different survey would be conducted.
The Black Adder, Episode 4, ‘The Queen Of Spain’s Beard’
John Q 09.15.24 at 10:38 am
Engels wins the thread !
Ingrid Robeyns 09.15.24 at 12:35 pm
I fear this is universal, John, since it is the result of the neoliberal turn (in this case to the public sector) — and are their countries that have not been affected? And it’s very telling that they ask this question.
Presumably there wouldn’t be enough space of this, but my answer would be:
– at the lowest level, it’s luckily still ‘we’;
– at the next lowest level, it’s a mixture of ‘we’ and ‘they’,
– but as soon as you talk about the level of the Dean’s office and the management at the Faculty, and above, it is very firmly they – although it should be “we” – but THEY are indeed running it as if the university is theirs.
For CT readers who can read Dutch, a few years ago I co-published a pamflet on how the [Dutch] University (and the systems around it, such as the legal framework and HE funding) should be reformed, which echoes some of the things John writes about here: https://www.boom.nl/filosofie/100-9121_40-stellingen-over-de-wetenschap
There’s an Open Access file available there too: https://www.boom.nl/media/26/40_stellingen_open_acces(1).pdf?_ga=2.238924928.1256724170.1726403495-851839345.1726403495
Tim Holmes 09.15.24 at 4:35 pm
I’m not sure it’s a good idea to provide free intelligence to organisations that don’t ultimately care about your interests. I would only do so if you think you’ll get something out of it, ideally in coordination with others.
nastywoman 09.15.24 at 6:59 pm
‘Engels wins the thread !’v-
NOT
if we post:
WE LOVE TAYLOR SWIFT!
PatinIowa 09.15.24 at 7:41 pm
“You.”
Kevin A. Carson 09.15.24 at 9:24 pm
“They” should be the default for any institution — state, church, corporation, university — which is unaccountable to those subject to its authority.
Adam Hammond 09.15.24 at 11:39 pm
Thirty years ago most Americans said ‘we’ about the decisions that our government made. It was rare among nations, and linked to our tenacious ‘exceptionalism’ – One nation, united. Bringing that to an end was (part of) the stated vision of Osama bin Laden, and he lived to see it realized.
I still say ‘we’ about my University, sometimes, as it grants a bit more weight to my criticisms. I don’t really believe it anymore. What a gloomy post!
oldster 09.16.24 at 1:27 am
Fifty years ago most Americans said ‘we’ about the decisions that our government made. It was rare among nations, and linked to our tenacious ‘exceptionalism’ – One nation, united. Bringing that to an end was (part of) the stated vision of Ronald Reagan, and he lived to see it realized.
In the roll-call of American-hating terrorists, Osama bin Laden lags far behind Reagan, Trump, and Gingrich.
Helen 09.16.24 at 1:40 am
A few years back I was asked a somewhat similar question at ‘leadership’ training: do you work for X university or do you work at X university.
John Q 09.16.24 at 5:17 am
Oldster/Adam The best claim for originating this division goes to Pat Buchanan who alleged told Nixon that, with the Southern strategy “If we tear the country in half, we can pick up the bigger half.”
wacko 09.16.24 at 6:36 am
They may want to introduce better initiation rituals. Also, name their university something similar to Cosa Nostra.
notGoodenough 09.16.24 at 7:52 am
To me, it seems that one of the things about treating something as a business is that the primary (and, arguably, only) priority becomes “making money”, with “providing goods and/or services” being merely the means to that end (and, quite possibly, a means which – should it prove inefficient and unnecessary – may be dispensed with). This is, I would suggest, as true for Education as it has been for Water, Energy, and Transportation (and likely will be for Healthcare when the NHS is inevitably chopped up and the profitable parts sold off). This is not to say that any of these areas have been perfect – far from it! Even setting aside the tricky problems of navigating hierarchies of power (especially within a capitalist system), arguments over what the end goals should be, and the inevitable issues which come from managing complex systems within even more complex systems, I doubt there are many who would argue there has never been room for improvement. But my personal view was that what would help improve Higher Education would be universal access (that is, both opportunity and means to pursue) on the basis of being a public good, something which seems rather at odds with commodification.
While it has been a long time since I was in academia, it struck me that my fellow researchers seemed rather naïve in some ways – with the attitude being a focus on wanting to research and teach without worrying about all that uncomfortable and time-consuming labour of unionisation, negotiation, striking, etc. I’ve never worked in the creative arts, but from discussion with some friends who have I suspect there are parallels – the feeling of “being lucky to work the dream job”, the exploitation of a largely supine workforce who can mostly be called upon to compromise for the sake of the “bigger picture”, and more recently a dawning revitalisation of class awareness as we enter the seedcorn-eating stage of neoliberal capitalism.
Naturally, when a University is a business, the students become customers and the staff become workers – with the relative relationships and attitudes one would expect from that shift in perspective. One should never trust management, HR, etc. to have your best interests at heart, and so one should expect to see that in the “we” vs. “us” conceptualisation.
But I’m sure management will no-doubt take this into account, and come up with some brilliant strategy to help overcome this barrier – possibly they could offer a free pizza party…
Tm 09.16.24 at 7:52 am
To my knowledge, German universities still have powerful legally autonomous self-governing institutions (University Senate). They are corporatist in nature, full professors have most of the power. I don’t know whether that makes the university a better community. Probably not from the point of view of the students and junior faculty. But leadership is mostly in the hands of academics. Advisory boards with external members (often with corporate backgrounds) have recently gotten more influence (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochschulrat_(Deutschland)). The extent varies by state.
Would be interesting to hear from German academics about their experiences. I have no personal insight but my hunch is that the academic Senate members are mostly conservative and opportunistic and willing to cave to external pressure. I wouldn’t trust German senior academics to stand up against right wing culture war pressure for example. But maybe I’m wrong.
oldster 09.16.24 at 12:29 pm
JQ @17:
Yes, that’s right. Though, since Buchanan was a literal member of the “Sons of Confederate Veterans,” one could trace the lineage back to the people who, in Lincoln’s phrase, would “rule or ruin,” who wanted to keep other people enslaved more than they wanted to keep the republic alive.
TPO 09.16.24 at 4:32 pm
JQ @4 —
That’s positively Brechtian!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Lösung
Trader Joe 09.16.24 at 7:09 pm
This has been a sexy question on Wall Street HR surveys for some time (I first remember it post GFC but can’t say exactly when).
Much like Universities, Wall St. Banks have different little fiefdoms such that I can feel a “We” about being on say, the bond trading team, while still feeling “they” about being part of Big-A$$ Bank Inc.
I think I’ve been answering “they” for as long as “they” have asked and can’t see that anything much has been done about it so perhaps that’s the answer they are looking for (can’t let the rank and file get too cozy with the brass).
John Q 09.17.24 at 12:43 am
Trader Joe @23 – that’s very interesting. So the question is part of the neoliberal corporatisation of the university, rather than a response to it.
Timothy Sommers 09.17.24 at 1:34 am
You are correct, Sir. (Pointing at nose.)
When I started at Michigan State and intended to be an academic, I said “we” even as a freshman. I’ve been at a lot of places since then, but by the time I was back at a large Midwestern university, “they” were definitely “they.”
I sometimes think that between running schools “as businesses,” the bloat and composition of administration, grade inflation, and the pandemic’s proof of concept for online courses, universities might really end.
J-D 09.17.24 at 9:37 am
Ridiculous bullshit HR questions spread like viruses. In each case I guess there must be a Patient Zero somewhere, and I suppose sometimes the outbreak might begin in a university, but usually it’ll be somewhere else.
MFB 09.18.24 at 10:47 am
One upon a time, “We” meant us academics, faculty staff and deans, and maybe the Vice-Chancellor, while “They” were the administrators who were forever denying “Us” funds and issuing pointless demands for status reports. Every now and then something happened to bring “We” and “They” together, and some of the “They” were useful people like maintenance, cleaners and protection services and could be considered honorary “We”.
I’m talking about thirty years ago, of course.
When I moved to the University of Potchefstroom I discovered a place where “We” was mandatory, institutional patriotism compulsory, and where faculty were practically expected to sing the company song (we all had to do a course in Christian Higher Education) while virtually every academic was being overworked and underpaid in the interests of the Greater Good which never benefited any one of them except for the ones who successfully raised themselves to managerial levels and thus escaped the trap. The problem seemed obvious to me, but none of the other staff members seemed to notice.
When I moved to Fort Hare, the institution at first seemed collegial, until mismanagement drove it into bankruptcy at which point a new vice-chancellor took over calling on us all to make sacrifices — which meant a huge number of academics being sacked. Many of them were then given jobs doing the new vice-chancellor’s bidding in informal managerial structures at immensely increased salaries. At this point I realised that They had taken over for good.