Reclaiming our university
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2988
Originating at the University of Aberdeen, Reclaiming Our University is a movement that is running a campaign to reclaim the academic world and reshape it in a more communal sense. The Reclaiming Our University Manifesto sets out the key principles of freedom, trust, education and community on which the University is founded. Further details about the movement and its campaign are available at https://reclaimingouruniversity.wordpress.com/.
application/pdf
2239-625X
2988
1
en
The University of Aberdeen Manifesto
Anuac
Reclaiming our university
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac
6
Forum: Anthropologists Witnessing and Reshaping the Neoliberal Academy
2017-07-18
2017-06-27
2017-07-17
2017-07-18
89-98
1
The University of Aberdeen Manifesto
2017/07/18
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2988
89
University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
2239-625X
1
en
98
Reclaiming our university
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac/article/download/2988/2606
6
                                                  2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98




                                                                                              FORUM




Student demonstration against fees and cuts, Aberdeen. Credits: http://anticuts.com/wp-content/uploads /
2015/07/ Aberdeen-student-left-banner.jpg


Anthropologists witnessing and reshaping the neoliberal academy
Edited by
Tracey HEATHERINGTON & Filippo M. ZERILLI

Contributions of
Virginia R. DOMINGUEZ, Sam BECK, Carl A. MAIDA, Martin A. MILLS, Berardino
PALUMBO, Alan SMART, Ger DUIJZINGS, Alexis M. JORDAN & Shaheen M. CHRISTIE,
Boone W. SHEAR, Alex KOENSLER & Cristina PAPA, THE RECLAIMING OUR UNIVERSITY
MOVEMENT.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN MANIFESTO
Reclaiming our university
2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98.
ISSN: 2239-625X – DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2988
ANTHROPOLOGISTS WITNESSING AND RESHAPING THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY                            89




Reclaiming Our University
The University of Aberdeen Manifesto


ABSTRACT: Originating at the University of Aberdeen, Reclaiming Our University is a
movement that is running a campaign to reclaim the academic world and reshape it in a
more communal sense. The Reclaiming Our University Manifesto sets out the key prin-
ciples of freedom, trust, education and community on which the University is founded.
Further details about the movement and its campaign are available at https://reclaimin-
gouruniversity.wordpress.com/.



   §1 We, scholars, students, staff and alumni of the University of Aberdeen,
call for fundamental reform of the principles, ethos and organisation of our
university, in order (1) that it should be restored to the community to which
it belongs and (2) that it can fulfil its civic purpose in a manner appropriate
to our times, in the defence of democracy, peaceful coexistence and human
flourishing.
   §2 We stand at a pivotal moment in the long history of our university, a
fork in the path that offers two ways forward. One is to follow the business
model of higher education to its logical conclusion, in a competition for stu-
dents, research funding and ratings that values constant change as an end in
itself. The other is to rediscover the civic purpose of the university as a nec-
essary component of the constitution of a democratic society, with the re-
sponsibility for educating its citizens and furnishing them with the wisdom
and understanding that will enable them to fashion a world fit for future
generations to live in.
   §3 Under its current regime, this university has committed itself to the
business route. Not only does this contravene the university’s duty, as a
charitable institution, to disseminate knowledge for the public benefit; it
also overlooks its primary responsibility for education and scholarship. To
take the civic route will require a complete alteration of course. It will mean
rebuilding the university from its very foundations. Whether we participate
in the community as students, as researchers and teachers, or as administra-
tive or support staff, we are here to promote truth, justice, virtue and liberty.

                                                 2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
90                                              TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)


The kind of university we want is one in which these principles are both
thought and taught.
  §4 In our university we will:
   • Create an environment for free, open-minded and unprejudiced de-
      bate, which stands out as a beacon of wisdom, tolerance and human-
      ity.
   • Defend our freedom to undertake research and teaching in the pursuit
      of truth, against the constraints, both internal and external to the in-
      stitution, which threaten to curtail it.
   • Restore the trust that underpins both professionalism and collegiality,
      by removing the conditions of line and performance management, and
      of surveillance, which lead to its erosion.
   • Bring together research and teaching as complementary aspects of an
      education that carries a responsibility of care.
   • Abstain from the egregious language of business that would divide the
      university between ‘employers’, ‘employees’ and ‘customers’.
   • Restore the governance of the university, and control over its affairs,
      to the community of scholars, students, staff and alumni to which it
      rightfully belongs.

The university and its purpose
   §5 The primary civic purpose of the university, in a democratic society, is
to educate future generations of citizens and to forge the knowledge needed
to sustain a just and prosperous world. The university is a place where people
of integrity, from all nations, gather in order to learn to think, and think
deeply, about the nature of things, about the ways we live, about truth and
justice, peace and conflict, freedom and responsibility, the distribution of
wealth, health and sustainability, beauty and virtue. They learn to weigh
these thoughts against the evidence of experience, and to translate them
into policy and practice, systems of law and governance, as well as great
works of science, literature and art. These things are the foundations of
civilised life. Our university will be a place in which they can be incubated
and nurtured.
   §6 The university is a centre of academic life. The days when the academy
was an ivory tower, wherein intellectual pursuits could be enjoyed in isola-
tion from the practical conduct of life, have long gone. In today’s world, not
only are people and ideas moving and meeting on an unprecedented scale,
but the colonial hierarchies of knowledge that propped up the academy in


2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
ANTHROPOLOGISTS WITNESSING AND RESHAPING THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY                            91


former times have largely imploded. The rise, in their place, of competing
economic, political and religious fundamentalisms poses a grave threat to
democracy and coexistence. In this increasingly dangerous situation, the
academy has a new and pivotal role to play. It is to create and sustain a safe,
ecumenical environment of freedom of expression, in which ideas matter,
and in which there is room for experiment and dissent, and for open-minded,
unprejudiced debate. In our university we will create such an environment.
   §7 Our university is not a business. Its goals are academic, not commer-
cial. It is here to foster inquiry, not to extract profit. We are motivated in our
scholarship not by incentives of financial gain but by the pride we take in our
educational and scholarly work. We are driven by a quest for truth and a pas -
sion for learning. Our ambition for the university is not that it should be
ranked above others in terms of quantitative indices of performance or pro-
ductivity, but that it should stand out as a beacon of wisdom, tolerance and
humanity.
   These are our core values. They are moral and ethical, not instrumental,
and cannot be measured on any scale. They rest on four pillars. These are
freedom, trust, education and community. Below, we spell out what they
mean.

Freedom
   §8 Though we speak of academic freedom, this is not a freedom reserved
exclusively for academics. It is not the privilege of a scholarly elite, absolving
them of any burden of care. It is neither a form of immunity, nor a refuge. It
offers no protection, nor can we hide behind it. On the contrary, academic
freedom is a form of exposure. It rests upon a willingness to relinquish the
comfort of established positions, to take the risk of pushing out into the un-
known, where outcomes are uncertain and destinations yet to be mapped.
   §9 Academic freedom is exemplary. In everything they do, academics in
our university seek to live to the fullest extent a freedom that, in a demo-
cratic society, is available to every citizen. Thus academic freedom is not dis-
tinct from the freedom of the citizen; it is an intensification of that freedom.
No more than the freedom of the citizen, is academic freedom handed to us
on a plate. It is a task that falls to us, not an unqualified right to which we
are entitled, and we have continually to work at it, whether in our teaching,
in our research or in our scholarship. We perform freedom, and thereby ex-
emplify it, in our relations with students, with colleagues and with society at
large. It is always work in progress; we can never give up on it and assume
that it has been achieved. Academic freedom can never be taken for granted.


                                                 2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
92                                              TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)


   §10 The freedom we seek in our university, and wish to defend, is one that
confers upon the imagination the right to roam, without fear or favour, un-
hindered by predetermined aims and objectives. But this right also carries
personal, moral and professional responsibilities. We are responsible to our
students and to the university community as a whole, and we are responsible
for the wider societal and environmental consequences of what we do. We
have to trust that members of our academic community, whatever their rank
or status, will exercise their freedom wisely. There can be no freedom with-
out trust. Loss of trust is the greatest enemy of academic freedom since it
leads to the replacement of autonomy and self-determination with surveil-
lance and control.
   §11 Academic freedom is the life-blood of our university. It has to be sus-
tained against multiple threats. Unaccountable regimes of management,
monitoring and assessment are currently placing severe constraints on what
can be researched or taught, on how work should be presented or published,
and on intellectual priorities. These constraints are particularly acute for
younger scholars, for whom employment and promotion prospects depend
upon compliance. Some constraints come from outside the institution, from
government or funding councils over which we have little or no control. In
using these external parameters as levers of internal management, the insti-
tution is not only exacerbating their effects, but actively undermining the ef-
forts of the scholarly community to defend the freedom on which the proper
conduct of academic life depends. In our university, we will restore the free-
dom of the academic community to govern itself, above all through the re-
empowerment of the University Senate.

Trust
   §12 Academics are professionals. They have joined the university on the
strength of their professional accreditation and competence. This profes-
sionalism carries with it an expectation of trust. In our university we will
trust academic staff to perform their duties responsibly, with personal and
ethical integrity, and in a spirit of service to the community and to the public
good. But trust also implies collegiality. Not only do we depend on colleagues
to play their part, we also grant them the autonomy to do so. Trust rests on
this combination of autonomy and dependency. It is fundamental to scholar-
ship.
   §13 As a university we aspire to the highest professional and scholarly
standards. We will promote and encourage in one another the attainment of
these standards, under the authority of the University Senate. We acknowl-


2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
ANTHROPOLOGISTS WITNESSING AND RESHAPING THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY                            93


edge the risk that individuals will not always live up to the standards ex-
pected of them. In our university we will put transparent protocols in place
to deal with mistakes and failures if they occur. We will not however assume
that errors are bound to occur unless such protocols are applied, or that their
application is a necessary condition for success. We trust that for the most
part, they will not be needed. We are confident that in flourishing communi-
ties of scholarship, colleagues will look after one another, and that by main-
taining collegial commitment, high professional standards will be upheld
without the need to have them continually inspected and monitored.
   §14 Trust does not arise of its own accord. It has to be nurtured. It is nur-
tured by openness and honesty, by matching stated intentions with actions,
by striving for fairness and consistency, and by learning from mistakes. Trust
calls for personal investment, and sometimes entails setting aside immediate
advantage for the sake of the community. The individual costs of doing so
are more than offset by collective benefits that trust brings to the day-to-day
conduct of academic life. Nevertheless, trust that has taken time to build up
can quickly be broken down. It is broken down, above all, by the impositions
of what is increasingly known as ‘management’.
   §15 Many kinds of management have the potential to erode trust, includ-
ing ‘line management’ and ‘performance management’. Line management
undermines both professionalism and collegiality when it redirects the re-
sponsibility and loyalty of every member of staff from the community of col-
leagues who share a love of their subject and work together in teaching it, to
an organisational superior who neither knows the subject nor is accountable
to the community. Performance management undermines professionalism in
assuming that scholars are not motivated by a desire to advance knowledge
in their fields but are responsive only to threats and incentives issued by
managers. It undermines collegiality in attaching these threats and incen-
tives to targets that bear no relation to the contribution that individuals
make to the communities of scholarship to which they belong. Behind both
line management and performance management lies the premise that staff
cannot be trusted to perform of their own accord, to the best of their ability.
Both are instruments not of support but of control.
   §16 The principle of trust applies not only to academic staff. It also ap-
plies to students. Students come to the university because they are eager to
join with us in our scholarly endeavours and because we hope they will carry
the torch of learning to future generations. We trust that they will do their
best, according to their abilities. We are convinced that the legitimate aspira-
tions of students are optimally served by demonstrating, in principle and


                                                 2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
94                                              TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)


practice, that learning and scholarship are rewarding in themselves, rather
than by defining their education as a regime of testing, geared only to the
achievement of measurable results, and implemented through procedures of
assessment and verification based on the pretext that students are less than
conscientious.

Education
   §17 The university is, by definition, an institute of higher education. By
education we mean an open-ended process of intellectual growth and dis-
covery. In our university, education covers the activities of both research and
teaching. These are inseparable; there cannot be one without the other.
   §18 Research is the pursuit of truth. Though the meaning of truth may
vary, depending upon a scholar’s discipline or philosophy, the call of truth is
the same for all. Truth is an aspiration: it is about trying to get things right,
whether empirically, conceptually, ethically or aesthetically. Research sus-
pends prejudice, and turns all certainty into questioning. It means to search
and search again. Thus research converts every closure into an opening, and
every apparent end-point into a new beginning. It is the guarantor that
scholarship can carry on. This is why research is a primary responsibility of
the academy.
   §19 Under the current framework of evaluation, the meaning of research
has been corrupted beyond recognition. It has become a game, in which uni-
versities and their academic personnel are players. It no longer has to do
with critical scholarship and is instead defined by its products, the values of
which are measured by conformity to uniform standards of assessment
rather than by any appeal to truth. It entails the collection of ‘data’ and their
processing into ‘outputs’ which, in their application, could have measurable
‘impact’. Such a production-line conception of research may have its place in
corporate industry where, in an ever more intense competition for dwindling
returns, only innovation sells. In our university, however, research will be
driven neither by market demand nor by the expectation of novelty. It will be
driven rather by curiosity – by the burning desire to find things out. We are
curious because we care deeply about the things we study. Care, not impact,
is the hallmark of the ethically responsible search for truth. And in our uni-
versity, care and curiosity will be recognised as two sides of the same coin.
   §20 This will be equally true of our teaching. Since research turns all an-
swers into questions, it cannot be taught as if the questions were already an-
swered. Truth is never given in advance; it is rather a horizon of attainment


2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
ANTHROPOLOGISTS WITNESSING AND RESHAPING THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY                            95


that ever exceeds our reach. It is not therefore available for transmission, as
is implied by models that measure teaching and learning by the achievement
of predetermined outcomes. There can be no such outcomes, beyond training
in skills of so superficial a nature that their transfer can be achieved and as-
sessed through the completion of tick-box exercises. Teaching is not about
the transmission of pre-existent knowledge; it is about guiding students in
journeys of growth and self-discovery that they necessarily undertake to-
gether.
    §21 These are often difficult journeys without fixed end-points, in which
both teachers and learners participate. It is the job of a teacher to help and
inspire students, to stretch their imaginations, not to make things easy for
them. A good teacher is exemplary in the conduct of scholarship, a generous
guide and companion for students, and a tireless critic of their work. It is in
this sense that teaching, in our university, will be research-led. This does not
mean that students receive their knowledge at first rather than second hand.
It means, rather, that students will be immersed from the start in an educa -
tional environment that is dedicated to the search for truth.
    §22 Generosity, open-endedness and criticality are fundamental to all ed-
ucation, whether in teaching or research. But this is not how education is un-
derstood by the current regime of university management. In succumbing to
the market-driven rhetoric of teaching and learning with its calculus of mile-
stones and measurable outcomes, and in divorcing research as the produc-
tion of new knowledge from teaching as its dissemination, the university has
abandoned its educational mission. Learning has been reduced to the
smooth and painless acquisition of information, so that students can obtain
good grades with minimal effort and leave as satisfied customers. Teachers,
then, become little more than facilitators, tasked with assembling the infor-
mation to be acquired and delivering it in userfriendly form.
    §23 In our university, we will refuse to regard the provision of higher edu-
cation as a service industry. We will treat our students neither as customers
nor as consumers of the ‘experiences’ we provide. Marketing courses, selling
experience and inducing satisfaction are not, in themselves, educational ob-
jectives. We aim to recruit and retain students with ambitions to study and to
learn, whatever their means and background. We will respect these ambi-
tions, and will support students in their fulfilment. Our task is to give stu-
dents the intellectual tools and the critical confidence to address the chal-
lenges of the contemporary world, not simply to provide them with a pass-
port for future employment and debt relief. In our university, policies of


                                                 2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
96                                              TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)


teaching and learning will be geared to the proper objectives of education:
the search for truth, the promotion of tolerance and the pursuit of justice.

Community
   §24 Our university is its people: its scholars, its students, its staff and its
alumni, coming together in the service of higher education. The university is
a community. We are that community.
   §25 The university is not just one great community; it is also a collection
of smaller communities, made up of scholars, students and staff working in
different academic disciplines as well as in associated areas of activity. Many
of these are called departments. In our university we will strengthen depart-
ments by formally recognising their role in the working of the organisation
as a whole. We will acknowledge that they may conduct their affairs in differ-
ent ways, depending on what is appropriate and practicable for their respec-
tive fields, and we will respect and nurture this diversity. We will ensure that
departments or their equivalents are adequately represented in the constitu-
tion of the university, at all levels of inclusion, with elected representatives
at every level. At the most inclusive level, the university will be represented
and led by its Senate.
   §26 We do not pretend that the university community is a harmonious
place, free from conflict and argument. On the contrary, it is a sign of its vi-
tality that disagreements are openly discussed and debated, rather than hid-
den behind a veneer of consensus that often serves as a disguise for manage-
rial imposition. In our university we will encourage open debate in prefer-
ence to ‘consultations’ which, in soliciting opinions, admit no space for criti-
cal dialogue. However, we will also seek to replenish the reservoir of goodwill
that makes it possible for differences to be resolved.
   §27 Management harbours an inherent tendency towards verticality and
centralisation. In our university we will counteract both tendencies by insti-
tuting a decentralised organisation in which departments or equivalent units
are granted, as far as is practicably feasible, the autonomy to run their own
affairs, as trusted professionals and informed colleagues. Time and money
saved from supporting and responding to managerial functions will be rein-
vested in teaching and research.
   §28 Communities depend on regular face-to-face interaction. We will en-
sure that scholars, students and staff in our university have the time, oppor-
tunities and congenial physical spaces, including common rooms, to meet
and interact. We will accordingly seek to reduce the proportion of the work-


2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
ANTHROPOLOGISTS WITNESSING AND RESHAPING THE NEOLIBERAL ACADEMY                            97


ing day that is spent in front of computer screens. IT systems have their uses,
and in much of what we do they are indispensable. But overdependence on
these systems has pronounced negative effects, inducing isolation, deper-
sonalisation, alienation and even ill-health. It does much to erode the sense
of belonging among both staff and students.
   §29 More insidiously, corporate IT systems have become instruments of
managerial control. In our university we will not allow the requirements of
these systems, or the assumptions that underpin their design, to govern the
way we conduct our affairs, to restrict what or how we teach, or to limit the
practice of our research. They should work for us, not we for them.
   §30 Our university will need leaders. They will have a genuine vision for
the university as a beacon of scholarship, and will be committed to its core
values of wisdom, tolerance and humanity. Our leaders will be part of, and
will identify with, the greater community. They will be chosen by the com-
munity, not by shadowy committees whose members may have little experi-
ence of higher education, nor by firms of head-hunters which have their own
business interests at heart. They will be accountable to the constitutional or-
gans of the University, and will be transparently remunerated, like everyone
else, at a level commensurate with their experience and responsibility, to be
determined by these organs.
   §31 As a large and complex organisation committed to the support of aca-
demic life, our university will also need administrators. They include registry
officers responsible for the recruitment, admission and support of students,
finance officers responsible for budgetary oversight, research officers respon-
sible for the administration of grants and awards, and personnel officers with
responsibility for staff recruitment, contractual arrangements and welfare,
and for ensuring compliance with employment law. We will embed these ad-
ministrative functions at appropriate levels of organisation, so that those
who perform them can play a full part in the communities they support.
   §32 We will additionally ensure that the boundary between scholarly and
administrative roles remains permeable. We will expect the majority of
scholars to undertake some administrative duties, as they do at present, but
we will also encourage those whose primary role is administrative to partici-
pate, to some degree, in teaching and/or research. Through this sharing of
experience, scholars and administrators will be better able to work together.
   §33 Equally important to the effective operation of the university are its
librarians and curators, IT specialists, secretarial and office staff, estates offi-
cers, porters, cleaners, and a host of others. In our university, everyone will
be positively valued and respected for the work they do, and for their com-


                                                 2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
98                                              TRACEY HEATHERINGTON, FILIPPO M. ZERILLI (EDS)


mitment to the community as a whole. We will not, for that reason, classify
as ‘non-academic’ those whose contributions lie primarily beyond the fields
of scholarship.
    §34 Our university will need leaders, and it will need administrators. It
will not need managers. The current regime of management, having seized
executive powers over the institution, is acting as if the university were in its
exclusive possession. Having arrogated to itself the role of sole employer,
management treats those who work for the university as employees or ‘hu-
man resources’, to be used for the regime’s own purposes and subjected to its
increasingly arbitrary and authoritarian command. At the same time, the
sense of community that scholars, staff and students of the university have
forged over the years has been reduced to a market brand, designed to attract
potential ‘customers’. But the university community is not for hire, nor does
it rightfully belong to the regime. It belongs to us. It is our university, and we
mean to have it back.
    We have the opportunity to rebuild our university. We must seize it now.




2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 1, GIUGNO 2017: 89-98
