As mentioned in a recent review of The
New Idea of a University by Duke Maskell and Ian Robinson on this web site,
recent years has seen the development of somewhat of a publishing industry
oriented around the state of the academy.  Often these books take the form of
strident polemics against what they see as one misguided educational ideology
or another.  Universities: The Recovery of an Idea by Gordon Graham does
not take such a form.  Universities presents a thoughtful, sustained,
and coherent argument, something one would expect from a trained philosopher. 
In fact, Graham identifies his work as "an exercise in two branches of
philosophy€”philosophy of education and applied philosophy" (3).

Graham self-consciously titles his
book as an allusion to John Henry Newman’s classic The Idea of a University,
first delivered as a series of lectures in 1854.  Graham believes that Newman’s
classic still has things to say that are of considerable contemporary
significance, the critical examination of which will inform debates about how
we should regard universities and what it is reasonable to expect from them.  Important
aspects of these debates are captured in the titles of the seven chapters of
this relatively short book (126 pages): "A Very Short History of
Universities in Britain," "Explaining the Value of University
Education," "University Education," "University Research,"
"University Management," "Financing the System," and "Recovering
the Idea."

Although Universities is written
with the British university system and its evolution in mind, the significance
of much of its discussion applies to modern universities found anywhere, including
those in the United States.  Graham’s definition of the modern university seems
to have broad application.  The modern university, he says, is a "non-denominational
institution in which natural science played a significant part and where
theology and history were subject to critical intellectual scrutiny" (7). 
Furthermore, claims Graham, as opposed to a certain purist attitude toward
institutional autonomy, to one degree or another universities have always been
subject to state interference.  Perhaps the degree of "interference"
has been a function of the general public’s regard of the university.  And the
public perception of the university has been in large part shaped, claims
Graham, by works of fiction such as those by Kingsely Amis or David Lodge. 
Again, one only has to think of Straight Man by Richard Russo to appreciate
similar perceptions regarding academic life in the U.S.  What these books have
in common is "an attitude of relentless ridicule," motivating those
that believe the university system needs to be interfered with.  Given this
backdrop Universities asks "what makes a university education
worthwhile" and "what the value of academic research is" (17). 
Graham’s "hope is that arriving at answers to these questions might contribute
something to the crucial task of restoring to institutions of higher education
a formative role in their own future (18).

Graham acknowledges that from the
start all universities had the dual purpose of providing both vocational
training and "education for its own sake" (20).  That said, he
believes misunderstandings of this distinction has had a pernicious effect on
debates about the modern university.  It is here that Graham’s discussion
becomes most interesting and his philosophical skills most apparent.  Graham
develops an analysis of crucial terms upon which rests the entire argument of Universities. 
"In society we find wealth-creating and wealth-consuming activities"
(22).  We often associate wealth-creating activities with the ‘useful’ and wealth-consuming
activities with the ‘valuable’ (23).  Many of the attacks on higher education
are based, then, on the claim that not all university subjects and activities are
useful (23).  But to defend what is valuable in the university it is not
necessary to explain value in terms of use, a mistake made by Newman.  There is
an important sense in which serious intellectual inquiry can be declared
valuable in terms of wealth-creation (29).  Thus, according to Graham, "the
claim that society needs farmers and mechanics, whereas it does not, strictly,
need historians or sculptors" is one that "powerfully influences
public policy and discussion, it is also one that is deeply mistaken"
(30).  The distinguishing mark of liberal arts and pure sciences is to enrich
the mind.  "It is here that the rationale of university education properly
so called lies; it is a source of wealth per se"(43).

Contemporary systems of assessment of
both teaching and research at modern universities are undertaken  in terms of
the belief that what is not useful is not valuable which has "led to a
somewhat superficial, and arguably fatuous, style of scrutiny" which is "seriously
inadequate with respect to the purposes of universities and any educational
enterprise" (55).  Much of the enterprise of universities is not so much "the
acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, but rather the pursuit of
understanding, within which the acquisition of knowledge has a central part to
play" (69).  Building on central insights  from Aristotle, Graham claims
that even if we make welfare or happiness "the supreme value, we thereby automatically
attribute value to understanding"  and "a concern with understanding
is a parallel concern to ameliorate the human condition from the point of view
of ignorance and misunderstanding (72).   According to Graham’s Aristotelian
interpretation, the mind flourishes in so far as it understands, and academic
research is to be valued, therefore, in so far as it contributes to this
understanding (74).  To apply other standards of measurement is misconceived.  Academic
governance has also come to be understood in terms of a corporate management of
production model.  According to Graham, universities are generally dependent on
student finance such that their survival depends upon their attracting and
retaining students.  This reality has given growth to the need for marketing,
personnel management, and new conception of corporate responsibility.  In other
words, "universities have become big business" (94), rendering the
old model of collegial government served by administrators outmoded.  Anyone
attending an administrator’s retreat has heard the phrase "the student is
the customer."  According to Graham, in "education the ‘customer’ is
never king. Students need not only learn, but to be taught what is worth
teaching (97).  This is all something for which society at large as well as
students themselves should be willing to pay.  This latter issue is a
relatively new and heated topic of debate in Europe, less so in the U.S.

When all is said and done, what is "recovered
or recoverable" from Newman?  The name ‘university’ covers a broad array
of institutions of higher learning thee days.  For Graham, the "crucial
task is to distinguish in thought between the different ideals each can
plausibly aspire to" and to understand the range of values and purposes
that can give them coherence" (121).  For Graham, as for Newman, only when
institutions have a plausible conception of what their purpose is can they and
society have a sense of their worth.  A university "could be conceived as
a place in which the commitment to truth over usefulness is paramount, at least
to the extent that freedom of inquiry is regarded as essential and the ‘uselessness’
of a subject is no bar to its pursuit" (122).  Again, the essential role
of universities is "as sources of enrichment" (123).  This is
accomplished by scholarship that  maintains continuously revitalizes cultural
inheritances, by supplying the critical minds that engage with cultures (123). 
This is why the university as a place in which the pursuit of truth and freedom
of inquiry should be given special protection and why a measure of autonomy
from society and its auditors is necessary.

The author of Universities
holds himself to high standards as he says "philosophy at its best is
marked by clarity and rigor" (4).  These standards were met.  And what of
the author’s overall purpose?  He identifies his own target this way.  "I
hope that my professional mode of analytical thinking and writing has enables
me to preserve philosophy’s intellectual virtues in the exploration of the many
issues which I believe need to be addressed.  If I have, the book will have the
merit of setting out certain questions, and some answers to them, in a manner
which makes their debate more precise, and hence more profitable" (4).  
Graham has certainly lived up to his own self-defined obligation.  It remains
to others whether they will read this fine little book and profit from it.

© 2004 Ben Mulvey

Ben Mulvey, Ph.D., is an Associate
Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Division of Humanities at the College of Arts and Sciences at Nova
Southeastern University.  He received his doctorate in philosophy from Michigan State University specializing in political theory and applied
ethics.  He teaches ethics at NSU and is a member of the board of advisors
of the Florida Bioethics Network. 

Categories: Philosophical