10.6092/issn.2531-6133/12618
application/pdf
2531-6133
12618
1
en
Matthias Klatt
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
University of Bologna Law Review
What COVID‐19 does to our Universities
Text.Serial.Journal
https://bolognalawreview.unibo.it/
6
Obiter Dictum
2021-03-27
2021-03-26
2021-03-27
2021-05-05
1-5
UBLR
Matthias Klatt
2021/03/27
10.6092/issn.2531-6133/12618
1
University of Graz
2531-6133
1
en
5
What COVID‐19 does to our Universities
https://bolognalawreview.unibo.it/article/download/12618/12422
6
    llVOLUME 6                                llISSUE 1                        OBITER DICTUM



                              UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA LAW REVIEW
                              https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2531‐6133/12618
                                                     A

                    What COVID‐19 does to our Universities
                                                          No mechanical means, however expeditous,
                                                               no materialism, however triumphant,
                                                          can eradicate the day break we experience
                                                                when we have understood a Master.1

    Across the globe, COVID-19 is affecting multiple dimensions of our lives, ranging from
    the most existential aspects to the more mundane ones. In this brief article, I wish to
    reflect upon the impact the pandemic has on our Universities. Let me stress from the
    outset that I do not intend to downplay the terrible losses people all over the world have
    suffered. Nor do I wish to discuss the proportionality of the protective measures imposed
    by the governments, including those taken regarding research and teaching activities on
    University campuses. What I do want to address, however, is that COVID-19 currently
    functions as a fire accelerant, stimulating highly detrimental processes that flagrantly
    run counter to the idea of a University per se. It is vital to prevent COVID-19 from
    altering the University experience permanently. To accentuate my point, I will first lay
    down what I mean by the “idea of a University per se”. Second, I will present a few
    thoughts on why COVID-19 has negative effects on our Universities.
            The idea of a “University per se” goes back, inter alia, to the classical
    19th-century theories of Alexander von Humboldt and John Henry Newman. According
    to these theories, Universities distinguish themselves from other kinds of professional
    instruction and training, by providing a liberal education. Understood in this way,
    education is a public good that pursues intellectual, cultural, and scientific aims.
    Education prepares and enables students to develop genuine autonomy, by introducing
    them to the open-ended search for deeper understanding and by stimulating them to
    form their minds and attitudes in a protected space. Universities also enable advanced
    scholarship.     University scholars research fundamental questions, which do not
    exclusively answer to the immediate needs of current practical problems.

1
    George Steiner, Lessons of the Masters




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                       WHAT COVID-19 DOES TO OUR UNIVERSITIES


By answering those more fundamental questions, University research is often the motor
for grander and sustainable transformations in society. Further, both education and
research are pursued not just in one single discipline or in otherwise narrow limits, but
in an open-ended and unlimited discourse, which spans across multiple disciplines and
approaches. Universities provide unique spaces for societal self-reflection, as well as an
unparalleled room for the growth of individuals as persons.          To achieve all this,
Universities require as much autonomy as possible, so that they can live by their own
intellectual rationale. External influence, stemming from political aims, social purposes,
or economic pressure, is not only alien but also ruinous to it.         The currency of
Universities is truth, not money. Numerous other functions of a University have been
added to this original idea of a University per se ever since. Not only were Universities
transformed into degree-emitting factories for the greater part of any generation.
Nowadays, they also engage in a wide range of activities, such as lifelong learning
programmes, marketing, third party funding and collaborating with local and regional
businesses and social institutions. In result, considering the pluralism of functions and
this wide variety of activities, we work in a “multiversity”. Yet, all these additional
functions and activities are of a secondary character only.           They are indirect
consequences and contingent byproducts of their primary purpose. In view of the
increasing pressure on scholars to engage in a preposterous race for external funding, it
needs to be stressed that money is a precondition of good research – and not its aim.
        This primary function, however, has been in decline for several decades now.
Vast areas in our contemporary Universities are characterized by a highly “distracted,
numbers-swamped, audit-crazed, grant-chasing” (Stefan Collini) atmosphere. Political
influence and measures of the so-called “new public management” have turned many, if
not most Universities, into organizations that are so far removed from the idea of a
University that one wonders whether the use of the label “University” is still justified.
Academic endeavours are commercialized and counted, and university leaders act as if
they were leading economic enterprises. Research output is expected to be directly
useful, allowing for an immediate implementation. In this way, Universities are pulled
into the vortex of purposive research. Various external pressure groups, boards of
governors, and artificially instituted competition are now influencing, if not imposing
upon, strategic decisions in our Universities. Accountability measures have destroyed
the institutional autonomy our Universities once enjoyed. Constant audit activities and
chase for grants distract and hinder the scholars from living by their primary rationale.




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2021]                      UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA LAW REVIEW                        [Vol. 6:1


These destructive processes are now augmented with COVID-19 and the way how
University leaders, rectors, presidents and department chairs have reacted to the
pandemic. Before I elaborate on these detriments, let me at least briefly acknowledge
the paradox that, as far as research is concerned, at least in the humanities and social
sciences, the pandemic turned out to have some positive impact. A significant number of
talks, workshops, and conferences had to be cancelled during the lockdown. When not
substituted by an online format, these cancellations gave scholars the most precious gift
the world has for them: Time. Time to read. Time to write. As a reviewer, I already
notice the higher quantity of research output following the lockdown period. One could
doubt, of course, whether a higher amount of publication is good in itself. But still: more
time for research is something we scholars regard highly, but experience rarely. This
positive aspect apart, we are confronted with a deplorable picture: vacant campuses,
closed libraries, empty seminar rooms. Exchange programmes have come to a halt,
international student mobility has almost entirely subsided. Students and scholars
report the terrible experience of the COVID-19 term. They miss the everyday realities of
campus life: no-tech classes face-to-face, social and cultural diversions, extracurricular
activities, in-person office hours, social interactions. The pandemic has triggered one of
the most enormous disruptions in the history of University education. The muting of so
many aspects of University life, closes down vital communication rooms and
opportunities for actual face-to-face encounters, not just of knowledge and ideas, but of
persons. Now, one may say that thanks to the various technologies we nowadays have at
our disposal, we have alternative communicative spaces:            online rooms.       Many
commentators praise digitalization as the ultimate benefaction, both of our lives in
general, and of higher education in particular. The euphoria of digitalization is, however,
fundamentally mistaken.       The benefits of digitalization are overrated, while its
downsides are grossly underestimated. This is a fact that both students and professors
report alike after their first lockdown term. In a similar vein, I recently learnt that in my
city, around 80 per cent of 3- to 6-year-olds are using tablets or mobile phones. I cannot
bring myself to see this as an advantageous development. On the contrary, I wish these
kids would browse storybooks instead. Many would want to convince us that a fully
digitized University is the pinnacle of a movement toward an ever more inclusive and
modernized research and learning environment. I find this idea utterly ridiculous.
Reducing students to small images on video conference checkerboards does not support
real education, but it hinders it. Surveys demonstrate that during the last COVID-term,
students got ever more frustrated with their learning experience, the longer the
online-teaching lasted. They miss the interactive, socializing life on campus.



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                       WHAT COVID-19 DOES TO OUR UNIVERSITIES


Students report a significantly higher workload during the digitalized term, as well as
problems to focus and to motivate themselves at home. They reproach the missing
orientation when assessing their learning materials.        Guidance must be given by
professors in real presence. While it may be that some aspects of professional training
can as well be achieved in an online format, University education is different. Education
requires, what George Steiner named “real presence”. “Real” means real, and not some
zooming-skyping-webexing fake-type of real.       A technophile fetishization of digital
teaching should not deceive us here. One can certainly acquire a lot of knowledge, alone,
in front of electronic devices. But when it comes to how this knowledge shapes the
learner and affects society as a whole, it is impossible to replace the direct personal
encounters of real education. Remote learning is nothing but a poor substitute.
        It may be true that we cannot avoid the fake-type of real education for the time
being, due to the pandemic. What I firmly believe, however, is the following: We must
maintain our awareness of the differences between real and fake-real.           University
education is not a serial information programme that can be switched on and off as one
pleases. And here is what alerted me so much in this respect: the phrasing Universities
used to announce lockdown measures, was highly revealing. Many University leaders
seemed to cherish that the pandemic now forces the “old dog” type of professors to learn
the new tricks of digitized teaching. They conveyed the distorted image of online
teaching as a special gift to the students. Allegedly supported by this image, it seemed as
if they had finally found a justification for interfering with the professor’s freedom of
education.
        What an absurd idea! Instead, Universities should have apologized to their
students.    They should have labelled digitized teaching as a poor copy and cheap
imitation of real education. They should have mentioned humbly, that for the time
being, they could, sadly, “only” provide online teaching. They should have promised to
return to real education as soon as the situation would allow it. But instead, what we saw
were some high-gloss marketing announcements, signalling that “all is fine” and
“everything is under control”. Some Universities even seemed to be tempted to prolong
their lockdowns a bit longer, to make the digitalization more permanent. In short, the
pandemic was abused to hinder the type of education students have a right to
experience, and professors have a right to provide, if we take the idea of a liberal
education seriously. A German minister even praised the digitalization of teaching as the
ultimate solution to the tense situation of the housing market in many University cities:
after all, online-students no longer need to live near their Universities. This statement
reveals a profound misunderstanding of the function of Universities: an education
presupposes the whole spectrum of horizon-broadening experiences that come with

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2021]                      UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA LAW REVIEW                            [Vol. 6:1


living in a University city. And the statement also displays a cynical vision of how we
should develop and improve the social structure in our cities. The educational losses of
the pandemic now threaten to extend beyond the current generation, erasing decades of
progress, as far as the opportunities for the most vulnerable young adults from
marginalized groups are concerned. Persons living in rural or impoverished areas,
refugees or persons with disabilities rarely have access to a fully equipped home-office
with a high-speed internet connection. And even if they had, distance learning is second
class learning from the start. I do not deny the necessity to build resilient educational
systems and the need to be adaptive and innovative in improving our means to provide
high-quality education and research. Instead, I want to remind all of us that it is at least
as important, if not more, to rediscover the original idea of a University. Universities
must proactively improve their institutional abilities to change. But they must most
vigorously avoid doing so at the expense of their academic core mission. While the
members of Universities nearly perish by drowning in the flash floods of endless calls for
adaptation, agility, and attitude reframing, I urge all of us to vividly remember our
origins.     The invocation for education and research is alarmingly silent in the
ever-growing, excessive hullabaloo of innovation and change.            In this respect, the
pandemic, with all its detriments, may at least give us a forceful reminder of what
Universities are for, and what conditions they need to flourish. The highly detrimental
influence of ministers of higher education, boards of governors, and external funding
providers needs to be stopped. The pandemic could help us revitalize our understanding
of the nature and importance of Universities. This understanding is so much in danger of
being lost sight of. While the immediate effects of COVID-19 have been dramatic and
detrimental, mid-term, it also brings with it the opportunity to refocus on higher
education and advanced research as a public goods, and to rediscover our Universities’
true mission.
           In a major weekly German newspaper, one could read a miniature recently
written by a University professor. She reported that she was photocopying on a late
Friday afternoon, just before the term started. When the job was done, and the machine
fell silent, she first felt isolated and alone in the vast and utterly empty building. Yet
suddenly, she heard distant music. Going about to find out, she discovered a violinist
playing in a seminar room. In her concluding memento, she praises the place of a
University campus: “People not only work here – they live here”. If only we could revive
this spirit again soon. Until then, let us at least remember it with all our forces.
                                                                                Matthias Klatt
                                                                        Chair of Jurisprudence
                                                                    University of Graz, Austria

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