Title: Reinventing Liberal Higher Education Open University Partnership conference
1(No Transcript)
2Reinventing Liberal Higher EducationOpen
University Partnership conference
- Professor Sir David Watson
- 3 March 2008
Centre for Higher Education Studies
3Outline
- What does HE do? Create capital.
- For whom? The student estate.
- How? Metaphors for learning and teaching in the
modern university. - Reinventing liberal HE. The significance of
the arts and humanities
4Types of intellectual capital
- Human capital (Becker)
- Social capital (Putnam)
- Creative capital (Florida)
- Identity capital (Coté)
- Mental capital (HMG)
- Capital capital
5Analysing intellectual capital
- Mode of production
- Values
- Performance indicators
- Objectives
- Trust and mutuality
6Human capital
- Individual agent
- Economic rationality
- Education duration/qualifications
- Individuality income/productivity
- Calculative trust
7Social capital
- Networks and relationships
- Shared norms and values
- Mutual obligation/civic engagement
- Quality of life
- Normative trust
8Creative capital
- Clusters of creative people
- Diversity and tolerance
- Low entry barriers
- Rates of innovation
- Affective trust
9The US class structure, 1900-1999
Source Florida 2002
10Teaching, learning and the student estate
11Percentage change in enrolments by subject area,
1996/7 to 2005/06
12UK HE student numbers by mode and level, 1979 -
2005
13Percentage of young full-time first degree
entrants from Socio-Economic Classification
classes 4, 5, 6 and 7, 2005/06
14Frand, the information age mind-set (2000)
- Computers arent technology
- Internet better than TV
- Reality no longer real
- Doing rather than knowing
- Nintendo over Logic
- Multitasking way of life
- Typing rather than handwriting
- Staying connected
- Zero tolerance for delays
- Consumer/Creator blurring
15Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
(Simon Schuster 1998).
- Students these days are, in general, nice. I
choose the word carefully. They are not
particularly moral or noble. Such niceness is a
facet of democratic character when times are
good. Neither war nor tyranny nor want has
hardened them or made demands upon them. The
wounds and rivalries caused by class distinction
have disappeared along with any strong sense of
class..Students these days are pleasant,
friendly and if not great-souled, at least not
particularly mean-spirited. Their primary
preoccupation is themselves, understood in the
narrowest sense (82-83).
16Learning teaching metaphors
17W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis,
(Jonathan Cape, 1975)
- Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a
goal, but the value in winning is only as great
as the goal itself..So we arrive at the
startling conclusion that true competition is
identical with true cooperation.In true
competition no person is defeated (111).
18Richard Sennett, Respect the formation of
character in an age of inequality, (Allen Lane,
2003.)
-
- Part of what makes both men rare performers is
that they have achieved mutuality many musicians
have the cooperative impulse, but few manage to
translate it into sound. Even more is this true
of social life an enormous gap exists between
wanting to act well toward others and doing
so..I argue that in social life as in art,
mutuality requires expressive work. It must be
enacted, performed (59).
19Richard Sennett, The culture of the new
capitalism, (Yale U. Press, 2006.)
-
- A person can use the words correct or right in
describing how well something is done only if he
or she believes in an objective standard outside
his or her own desires, indeed outside the sphere
of rewards from others. Getting something right,
even though it may get you nothing, is the spirit
of true craftsmanship (195).
20Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (Allen Lane 2008)
- The modern era is often described as a skills
economy, but what eaxctly is a skill? The
generic answer is that skill is a trained
practice (37). - Embodied knowledge is a currently fashionable
phrase in the social sciences, but thinking like
a craftsman is more than a state of mind it has
a sharp social edge (44). - To do good work means to be curious about, to
investigate and to learn from ambiguity (48).
21William Miller, Conversation a history of a
declining art, (Yale U Press, 2006).
-
- Quotes Michael Oakshott Conversation is an
unrehearsed intellectual adventure, as with
gambling, its significance lies neither in
winning or losing, but in wagering.
22Academic membership the deal
- Honesty (inc. scientific procedure)
- Reciprocity
- Manners
- Self-motivation
- Discipline
- Respect for the environment
- Collective agreement
23Ed Husain, The Islamist (Penguin, 2007)
- I loved my time at university. My understanding
of my subject had hitherto been blinkered by the
arguments of Mawdudi, Qutb and Nabhani that
history was a conflict between Islam and the rest
of the world. But I was determined to open up my
worldview and slowly, independently, question
some of the concepts and tenets I had once held
dear (156-7). - Another of my tutors was Professor John Tosh,
author of The Pursuit of History. His lectures
caused me to question my approach to history.
One thing history was not was an idle
intellectual pastime. Professor Tosh argued that
the past created the present, and that the past
was open to multiple interpretations. What
seemed like blasphemy at first slowly began to
make sense (159).
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25Is this the reinvention of liberal HE?
- Soft citizenship
- Values
- Worked examples
- Dearing on breadth (recommendation 16)
- The Harvard core
- The Melbourne model
- The Russell Groups balanced meal
26Sources of liberal revival
- Breadth as well as depth
- The ethical turn
- Student mutuality
- Civil society before the state
- Professional formation at the second cycle
27Contexts for learning teaching
- Research and scholarship
- Employability and professional formation
- Instrumental and liberal values
- Academic careers
28The role of the arts and humanities
- In several of these respects, it is arguable that
the arts and humanities have already arrived.
The research and teaching agenda for these
perennially popular subjects are inextricably
inter-twined. As Cary Nelson and Stephen Watt
declare in their Academic Keywords a Devils
Dictionary for Higher Education, research and
writing together produce the contemporary
intelligibility of the humanities (Nelson and
Watt, 1999 221). - Watson, Managing Civic and Community Engagement,
p. 100
29Discussion
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