Covid-19 and the Universities
And what about the historically public universities, the concern of this brief book? First and foremost, the pandemic brought to the fore universities as hubs of science and research. After all, it was to science that the world turned for explanations to what was transpiring. In many ways, scientists rose to the abrupt challenge of working around the clock. Within the first three months of the outbreak, 3400 manuscripts were published on COVID-19. The articles and preprints covered all the aspects of the virus: its etiological factor, transmission routes, diagnostics, preventative measures, treatment options and clinical manifestations. The scientific community contributed with original research and provided commentaries on different aspects of the ongoing outbreak. In addition, university researchers participated in developing treatment(s), vaccines, personal protection equipment (PPE) and medical devices. Universities contributed to vaccine development, building on previous vaccine research. They were often the starting point of different scientific contributions. Experts in infectious diseases, epidemiology, public health and mathematical modelling were central to national policymaking. Together with policymaking, research was the co-driver of the pandemic response. What explains the different approaches to COVID-19 adopted by the states – including the right-wing populist states – is the fact that policy-making is also mediated by socio-political factors.
Science had its important achievements during the pandemic. Among these was the rapid development of an effective vaccine. Whereas, previously, vaccine development against infectious diseases has taken years, the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine was developed in less than a year. The key to this success was a parallel development of the vaccine and the building up of production capacity already after the first successful clinical studies. Investments in fundamental (or basic) research proved vital for the scientific response to the pandemic. Successful science, we may add, is not so much characterised by being in possession of knowledge as it is by a continuous quest for knowledge. The incomplete character of science depends on trust in its processes and methods. Science also teaches us that more than half of infectious diseases are zoonotic in their character, that is, stemming from the interconnectedness of humans, animals and nature. Zoonotic diseases are becoming more likely due to the destruction of rainforests, climate break- down and loss of biodiversity. Impoverished ecosystems have the effect of facilitating the transmission of pathogens to human beings. Considering this deteriorating state of the planet, societies cannot rule out the outbreak of another pandemic in the future. Despite its success, vaccine development is only a short-term solution. Long-term prevention, on the other hand, is, in many ways, a better and more necessary measure. Long-term prevention involves systemic and transformative knowledge. It is by focusing on long-term prevention that science can contribute the most to the well-being of future generations. Science, which can rise to the challenge of preventing future deadly outbreaks, needs more public investment in fundamental research. Fundamental research is called for – and not only in the fields of medicine and biology – so that relevant conclusions can be drawn from COVID-19 and the post-virus world navigated.
Similarly to the broader impact of the pandemic, a deepening of earlier tendencies could be witnessed in higher education. The rapid shift that occurred towards online teaching and learning is the most obvious example. This turn was in progress before anyone could associate physical meetings or gatherings with health risks. Instead, it was being driven by technological advancement: online teaching could facilitate learning by making it easily accessible, potentially widening access. Furthermore, it could also help universities, now in the Brave New World of competition for students, attract international students via flexible distance learning. It is, in a sense, commendable that most universities in the world were able to continue their classes online in a short space of time. Initial research shows that COVID-19 has broadened inequalities in higher education. Developed nations could easily switch to virtual learning; developing nations struggled to move their classes online. This had to do with both technological infrastructure and their inadequate access to low-cost networking. On the other hand, with better infrastructure, e-learning can help developing nations into the global technological framework. Technology can – and, in some cases, did – spur creativity in bringing about new educational models and approaches. Although definitive studies on student experiences are still lacking, various studies show that students tend to prefer the more engaging campus experience to computer-mediated learning. On the other hand, academic staff is much more unequivocal about its dissatisfaction with online teaching. The Times Higher Education Digital Survey (2021), which was completed by respondents from 46 countries, found that nine out of ten respondents believe that the swift to online teaching increased their teaching load, most respondents said the switch to online teaching has negatively affected their mental health and most academic staff would prefer not to continue working online once the pandemic has subsided.
Another way in which the pandemic escalated earlier tendencies is the deterioration of the mental health of both students and academic staff. Studies reveal that the pandemic had adverse effects on students’ mental health. High levels of anxiety and stress and depression have been reported, with social isolation and loneliness being key drivers of declining mental health. Greater uncertainty regarding the future and financial troubles can be witnessed as well. Scientists working in fields related to the pandemic faced an all-time high pressure to generate vaccines, to target antibodies and perform large-scale testing that would benefit public health. Those working in fields that had been temporarily put on hold, such as oncology, cardiology or neuroscience, needed no less resolve. Added to this is the broader context of working in a field structured by a culture of performativity (referring primarily to the use of metric and ranking systems in academia) and competitive funding, issues which affect the academic staff more or less across the board. A global survey involving 1200 academics and professional services staff across Europe, USA, Australasia and Asia has found that excessive workloads remain a huge problem vis-à-vis mental health. Overwork (prompting some to consider leaving their jobs) is reported across job categories; long working days are reported all over the world. Aspiring academics also report considerable job insecurity. The pandemic-related opportunity to work from home is the only silver lining for academics in this study, helping them to commute less and achieve a better work-life balance. Thus, almost half of respondents strongly agree that it has made a positive difference.
This Book
In light of the pandemic shock and a more longstanding decline of the public university, this book studies the public university as a real utopia. Doing so, I draw on the social thought of the late American sociologist Erik Olin Wright (1947–2019). Wright’s work has hitherto not been explored in relation to higher education, and it is my contention that this has been a missed opportunity. Wright recognised the real utopian dimension of the university but never fully explored this matter. His writings on real utopias provide the inspiration and theoretical foundation of this book. Wright counts as one of the outstanding social theorists of our era. He is renowned for both his analysis of class in modern society as well as his later engagement with real utopias. From the 1990s onwards, real utopias were his abiding concern. For Wright, ‘real utopias’ are institutional arrangements that advance democratic and emancipatory goals. As is characteristic of the utopian tradition more broadly, the overarching aim of real utopias is the creation of social institutions that advance human flourishing. Real utopias continue this long tradition with a keen sociological awareness and constructive spirit. The focus on social institutions is real utopianism’s core strength. Taking my cue from the project of real utopias, I will argue that the public university in its complete form can be understood to be a real utopia. I understand the public university to be a university that receives public financing, encourages access to high-quality higher education for citizens without distinction, is as a space of open debate and contributes to the public good (i.e. democratic knowledge and human flourishing). Real utopia suggests an ‘already present’ utopia. I want to explore what is real utopian about a public university. Public universities have been valuable institutions of public life – of educational aspirations and scholarship. The book is future-oriented. I attempt to ‘flip the script’ and approach the world of the public university not as a residue from the past but still in need of exploration as well as worthy of realisation.
There is unrealised potential in a concept of the public university that is real utopian. In particular, the three real utopian dimensions of the public university are academic freedom, personal growth and the ‘untimely’ dimension of the university. In a nutshell, academic freedom stands for free enquiry, which is indispensable to produce new knowledge. It signifies freedom for university researchers, teachers and students in their scholarly pursuits. Critical thinking is about independent thinking, which does not accept the status quo and its accompanying discourses as simply necessary: it instead problematises them. It also stands for students’ wider personality development – coming to know oneself and one’s relations with the world more fully. The exploration of these ‘constituents’ of the public university is at the forefront of this book.
Real utopian university is also an ‘untimely university’ (unzeitgemässe Universität). Intellectual inquiry is inquisitive, anticipatory and can push back against the intellectual limits of Zeitgeist, but also because the university needs to resist the communis opinio where it is complacent or flawed. I suggest that a university that encapsulates a real utopia must be, in a sense, untimely; or that untimeliness is its real utopia. At the current historical juncture, untimeliness is called for to push back against the ‘solutionist’ approach to many of the ills that beset the contemporary world. While not the only view of social betterment, solutionism is nevertheless prominent. The main strand of solutionism is technology – the idea that technological development can solve the great problems of the day, even the ecological breakdown. In this discourse, adaptation via solutions such as ‘carbon offset mechanisms’ is preferred by states to transformation to tackle the climate breakdown. Preserving the status quo clearly outweighs other considerations. Universities ought to be untimely with their socio-ecological sensibility – and with their commitment to humanism and developing bonds across national boundaries.
The knowledge economy, a sublimated term for contemporary capitalism, remains the framework for contemporary universities, which has influenced much of their reorganisation in recent decades, including the rise of academic capitalism. The book will argue that universities need to rethink their relationship with the knowledge economy, not least because the current version of the knowledge economy is not compatible with the idea of the public university. Instead, it is intent on achieving as much of exchange value from universities as possible, both in research and degree programmes. Significantly, both institutional democracy and academic freedom have deteriorated with reforms aimed at making universities more responsive to ‘real world requirements.’ University governance has lost sight of the distinctiveness of the university as an institution. I argue that, in pursuit of short-sighted gains, what we are losing, is the untimeliness of the university.
British scholar Ronald Barnett has recently published a book on the university and utopia entitled The Ecological University: A Feasible Utopia (2017). The book develops a novel conception of the university that stands for interconnectedness and the well-being of ecosystems. These eco-systems are knowledge, social institutions, persons, the economy, learning, culture, the natural environment. There is an unmistakable normative sensibility here – the university is not only intertwined with these ecosystems but also has a care for their well-being. This is doubtless important in our time. Like in Barnett’s work, the potential (or possibilities) of the university will figure prominently in this book. Secondly, both books re-conceptualize the university. Ecology in the sense of the natural world must be part of real utopian social justice in an era of climate emergency, especially concerning the relationship between the global North and the global South. Whereas I agree with much of Barnett’s book, I pursue the themes of institutional democracy, academic freedom and the curriculum as instances of real utopianism of the public university in the second part of the book. The book adheres to the idea of the university as a realm of spirit and intellectual exploration but is also interested in the significance of the institution regarding contemporary challenges. The central theme of the book is real utopianism.
The book is also attentive to the historical development trajectory and current contours of the university, namely the rise and decline of the public university together with the current state of academic culture. These issues form the first part of the book. It may be the case that the public university envisioned in this book is too good to be true. A nice, idealistic proposal but something that is unlikely to gain the necessary support in today’s troubled world. In that case, the book is only an elegy for the public university or an exercise in utopian thought without much impetus. But it need not be so; of the existing institutions, the university has one of the longest histories, and there is reason to believe that much still lies ahead for it. And idealism still matters when thinking about the future of the university. Societies continue to need institutions for humanistic scholarship and higher learning.
The public university envisioned in this book does require considerable public investment. It remains unlikely as long as the paradigm remains that of a small state that only in times of crisis reveals its spending power. But the small state paradigm and laissez-faire capitalism will not last for- ever. While seemingly unassailable, it is, in the final instance, no more than an era. In fact, post-pandemic, we are already seeing changes: there is a return of industrial policy on both sides of the Atlantic. States are increasingly sceptical of the ability of private enterprise to drive development. Different sectors (i.e., high-tech and green) are witnessing a large increase in targeted state funding. Furthermore, in light of the current social and ecological malaise, there have been renewed calls for a Green New Deal. Properly understood, part and parcel of the GND is the redevelopment of public institutions. In other words, the GND ought to herald change broadly. Any GND worthy of its name needs to go beyond technological solutionism and incorporate a vision of social betterment. Thus, could universities which are frequently understood to have a role to play in advancing the GND, benefit themselves from this project?
With understanding and commitment, as Wright puts it, ‘we can get on with the business of building a new world, not from the ashes of the old, but within the interstices of the old. We can build what I call “real utopias,” pieces of the emancipatory destination beyond capitalism within a society still dominated by capitalism.’ The seminal idea of the book is that the university is an interstice of relative freedom. The book sets out to explore the different dimensions of this character, with an eye on possibly redeveloping them. This book is written to explore and theoretically advance doing just that. The book should be of some interest to scholars of higher education and utopian studies. More theoretically minded (postgraduate) students of these fields could also find the book worthwhile. Higher education activists could find in the book material to reflect on what’s at stake beyond the more immediate concerns and calibrate their compass. Lastly, the book could perhaps speak to a wider audience with some knowledge of humanities or social sciences and an active interest in the state of the contemporary university.
