Governance of the Universities
Governance in most institutions has not been as complex as it has been in the universities. There are many models and there has been so much controversy about who will have power---the faculty, the government, civil society, donors, the clergy, students---that there are books on the history of the strife for power on the campus. Let us look at some of these models in this brief article.
The universities were formed both in the Christian and the Muslim world as loose associations of teachers and students. There are records of physicians gathering medical pupils around themselves in the ninth century; lawyers putting together a place of legal studies at Bologna; schools connected with the cathedral on the Isle de la cite in Paris to create the Sorbonne; masters gathering pupils around them at Oxford and later some of them migrating en masse to Cambridge in the twelfth century. The students needed certification to enter the church and the learned professions---law, medicine, school teaching and the bureaucracy. The masters gave them this certification. But some of the masters, being intellectuals, also taught them what they themselves were interested in---like Greek philosophy.
In short, the earliest model of governance in the medieval universities was that of governance by the faculty or self-governance as it came to be known. These early universities claimed autonomy in an age when the king and his barons ruled the land and the Catholic Church ruled the minds of human beings. Surprisingly, they got considerable autonomy---indeed more than any university possesses at present. They also got special privileges and the right to teach pretty much what they liked. For instance, they taught the philosophical ideas of Aristotle when the church banned them. In 1240, for instance, Roger Bacon flouted the ban by teaching the very books which the authorities of the Church has forbidden.
For some years the major universities of Europe did provide an intellectual space away from the centres of power---the church and the state---where new ideas were discussed. Youth did come in contact with lively minds; their own and their masters. And in all this intellectual ferment, some necessary skills were also imparted. But, of course, the monarchs did not like this autonomy nor indeed did the church. So gradually they nibbled away at the concept of both self-governance and autonomy. As for academic freedom, this was not even mentioned because these were, after all, the ages of faith and even when radical intellectuals taught Aristotle they claimed that they were doing so in order to find support and a higher understanding of religion.
Gradually, however, a tacit compromise was reached. The Church conquered the curricula; the state got its claim of ultimate authority accepted by the dons. King Louis XI of France, for instance, defeated Sorbonne by claiming that he would control its rector. But mostly, such assertions were symbolic. In general, universities, having accepted the overall authority of the crown, retained the right to govern themselves pretty much as they had wished. They were self-governing communities of scholars with their own rituals, ceremonial dress, courses of study and a more or less monkish way of life away from the hustle and bustle of society.
This self-governing model is still functioning, to a significant extent, at Oxford and Cambridge. However, in other British universities ‘civil society’ has always had power. In any case, despite the fact that self-governance has largely been an illusory ideal, it is one which has attracted academics throughout the ages and they have aspired and struggled for it in many countries. Non-academic people, and admittedly some academics too, have opposed it violently.
In the United States, for instance, this model was opposed fiercely by non-academics and defended consistently by many academics. At Yale, in 1701, the charter provided for a board of non-academics, mostly clergymen, to govern the university. Gradually all state universities had boards of governors, trustees or other bodies composed of non-academics and outsiders to oversee the universities. Day to day matters were in the hands of the university but then they were controlled by the ‘administration’ which grew powerful at the expense of the faculty. While it is true that administrators were also faculty members in many cases, they had much more power than colleagues-as-administrators had in the Oxbridge model.
American academics did not take this lack of power lying down. In 1917 Charles Beard resigned from Columbia University because he felt it was humiliating to serve in a place of learning which was ultimately controlled by men with no learning. Another academic wrote in 1907:
There is set up, within the university an ‘administration’ to which I am held closely accountable. They steer the vessel, and I am one of the crew. I am not allowed on the bridge except when summoned; and the councils in which I participate uniformly begin at the point at which policy is already determined.
Because of such protests, power began to shift to the faculty. As America has both money and ambition, it began to hire really outstanding scholars. Such ‘academic stars’ could not brook being controlled by people who were nobodies in the world of learning. They became ‘academic barons’ who had their own resources and selected their own staff. The most well known of such people, Albert Einstein, settled down at Princeton University in New Jersey. The Institute in which Einstein worked had no undergraduates and no football teams. It was a reclusive, scholarly community of 18 scholars who established an atmosphere somewhat reminiscent of a European medieval university.
However, businessmen, politicians, bureaucrats, members of the civil society all remain deeply entrenched in university governance. Students too have had some voice since the student evolution of the sixties. Thus it is easier for Mc. Carthyism to drown out dissident voices. Even in the Iraq War there were attacks on American dissenting professors from the university administration. However, the system does allow a really outstanding intellectual like Noam Chomsky to survive. Moreover, whatever curbs on free expression may exist, exist only because an articulate section of the faculty supports them. Thus, if American academics agreed, enterprises like ‘campuswatch’ would be demolished without controlling boards doing much about it. Despite the dominant non-academic members in governing boards, American academics, especially the outstanding ones, are quite powerful within the American university system.
There are other models of governance too but that which is most relevant for us is the colonial one. This was introduced in India in 1858 when the colonial state established the universities in Calcutta and then at Madras and Bombay. Here the colonial state kept the university firmly under its thumb. Not only was the symbolic office of the Chancellor vested in the head of the country or the province but even the ruling body, the syndicate, was dominated by persons representing the government and chosen by the government. Even the chief executive officer, the vice chancellor, was chosen by the government. There was no question of self-rule, monastic seclusion, autonomy or even academic freedom. And yet, within the colonial university academics did feel more free than they did in schools and colleges. The university was hierarchical all right bat people treated each other as colleagues and equals. The servile ‘sirring’ of the bureaucracy and the military were very little in evidence. In Pakistan, the chairmanship of departments rotates among senior colleagues and people debate matters in academic forums with considerable freedom. In short, though the reality was otherwise, the appearances of democracy, egalitarianism and mutual respect do prevail even in Pakistani’s major universities as they do in India.
It is these principles which are at stake as private entrepreneurs have started opening ‘universities’ as once they established schools. These entrepreneurs feel that the faculty is their ‘employee’ as are the factory workers, school teachers or other employees they have encountered all their lives. Thus they are not prepared even to leave the illusion of democracy and equality prevail on the campus. They do not allow any semblance of self-rule or rotation of offices among colleagues. They expect the delivery of a service---teaching, checking scripts, supervising theses---and that is all. The concept of providing new ideas; of the university as an intellectual space; the university as the home of scholars---these are non-functional ideas in the world of the entrepreneur. Personally I see a great danger in the death of such ideas for they are the seeds of humanism; they are the creators of human rights; they are the guardians of democracy and equality and liberty---and if the liberal university dies; the world will be a worse place than it is!