[Reflection] On the Academy and the Public Good

The acclaimed American geographer Gilbert F. White always believed that "the role of higher education and research is to serve the public" (B.L. Turner II, "Contested Identities," 2002: 59). It is often suggested that academics play a role in changing the world by serving the public. We hear it all the time, and for the most part we don't disagree. Serving the public is a humble, perhaps noble, cause. It sounds right, and it feels right. But upon further thought, it is not entirely clear how higher education and research accomplishes this goal... especially in this day and age. Do professional academics really serve the public by publishing articles in journals catering to the distinct needs of a small research community? Is the public good really served when throngs of first year students trudge in and out of the lecture hall each week, to sit amongst hundreds of peers whom they view as competitors for those few 'A's the professor has promised to dish out?

Those of us in the academy who think we serve the public need to take some time to consider how it is that we do so. It may be important enough to continually revisit this question: How is it that we are contributing to the public good? In doing so, I believe it is inevitable that we will come across various structural pressures stemming from our contemporary political economic setting that cause us to go about the motions while losing sight of our goal of serving the public. For students, a university education is more and more becoming a commodity. For academics, teaching and researching is more and more becoming merely a means to an income and a semblance of job security. In this way we often feel powerless when we ask ourselves how we can do a better job of serving the public. We'd like to attend that community event, but we don't have time; We'd like to write that meaningful opinion piece, but it's not recognized as a respectable, refereed publication; We'd like to spend one-on-one time with our students and have them work in partnership with local organizations, but the university has implemented rigid grading standards with hopes of beating other institutions in the annual post-secondary rankings - not to mention we have multiple classes to teach. There is pressure to treat our roles in the academy as just any other day job, and oddly enough that pressure seems to correlate with rising tuitions...

Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but it seems that the more private our universities become, the harder it is to see how academics are able to serve the public. In this way, perhaps the best way to ensure that researchers and educators in the academy serve the public is to focus their efforts on keeping the influence of privatization out. Perhaps the answer is to make our universities truly public spaces - welcoming places with distinct attainable goals of societal contribution. Perhaps we should make tenure dependent upon the impact academics have in their communities, not how many publications they have ... just a (heretical) thought. Either way, the suggestion that academics play a role in the public good shouldn't be just another meaningless and hollow mantra - it would be nice if it was the truth.

[Reflection] Between Reproduction and Contestation

I started a PhD in Geography today. While the next four years are certain to offer numerous opportunities to expand my knowledge and scholarly abilities, I will undoubtedly also be faced with tremendous challenges. One worry that I have about taking on a doctorate is the possibility of getting sucked into the permanent meta-coma of academia. In this nightmare I become just another ‘head-in-the-clouds’ academic; I live in a theoretical world of utopias and dystopias; I play into the structures of power and dominance that exist in society rather than actively work to contest them; I lose sight of the responsibility that comes with a degree from an institution of higher learning.

As a Master’s student I experienced similar anxieties. It’s easy to live the sheltered life of a student, to get sucked into the daily humdrum and processes of academia. But it can be a vicious circle: In order to spend all your time as a promising scholar, you need the funding do to so. In order to get funding, you need high grades, publications, and conference presentations, and so you spend all your time trying to fulfill the role of promising scholar (both intellectually and esthetically). Yet the circle is just that – a circle. There appears no end to the road. You keep going and going unless you realize the only thing tying you down is gravity. The other roads only exist once you decide to take a step off the beaten path.

My worry is that in pursuing a doctorate I will forget about the other roads. This would have severe implications for the (acknowledgedly romanticized) images I have of being an activist academic. In the very first reading for our doctoral seminar (an article titled “Learning to Become a Geographer: Reproduction and Transformation in Academia,” by Harald Bauder), I was struck by a sentence in the opening paragraph: “By the time academic geographers assume faculty positions, romanticized ideas of being a knowledge-seeking scholar or Gramscian-style intellectual who changes the world may have been dashed by the realities of academic practice” (671). Is it ironic that I maintain a blog dedicated to the idea of the Gramscian-style intellectual? Or is this a sign that I am conscious enough about the possibility of becoming what P.E. Willis calls an “unconscious foot soldier” (2004: 390) that I will be able to stay conscious after all?

Our political economic trajectory isn’t helping. The academy is changing along with our society. More and more we are being trained as machines, taught to complete tasks that will work to facilitate economic growth. In her latest book, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Martha Nussbaum refers to this problem as “a crisis of massive proportions and grave global significance”. The neoliberalization of the university may be working to squeeze out the activist in us academics, slowly converting the ivory tower into a prison watch tower, where thinking outside the box is akin to a jailbreak.

All this to say… so much as I am looking forward to taking on the next step in the academic ladder, I’ll have to remember that I’m climbing along the boundary between the reproduction and contestation of contemporary academic structures. If I can hold onto this thread, I may be able to make it out of here with the ability to think and act critically still in tact!

[Survey] Cycling in Ottawa

I wanted to pass on a link to the City of Ottawa's Cycling Safety Evaluation Project. It's an on-line survey they've designed to help identify the most dangerous cycling areas in town (and thus to identify areas for improvement). As you know, there have been a number of cyclists killed in the Ottawa area in the last year - so this is an important tool initiative:

http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/onthemove/travelwise/cycling/csep_en.html

[Billing] Vote in C-311 Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, (Wednesday, May 5th), the House of Commons will conduct its FINAL VOTE on Bill C-311, The Climate Change Accountability Act. This Bill has been on the table for nearly four years, but has been subject to stalling pressure, death by election, and prorogation! Yet the Bill has been resurrected and survives! It is essential that all three opposition parties pull through and support this bill tomorrow.

Why?
- Because you may have noticed that last year (2009) was the warmest year on record; that the last decade is the warmest decade ever recorded; that within the last 12 years we have experienced the 10 warmest years recorded!
- Because the world now consumes 86.6 MILLION Barrels of Crude Oil EVERY DAY!
- Because the global atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is presently at 391 parts per million (far above the widely recognized upper limit safety threshold of 350ppm).
- Because glaciers, arctic sea ice, coral reefs, and countless species are disappearing!
- Because the world's poor are extremely vulnerable to global warming and lack the financial capacity to adapt to climate change.
- Because the Harper Government has done NOTHING to mitigate or adapt to climate change.
- Because Canada is quickly gaining a reputation as the 'asshole of the world' at global climate talks (the bully of the business as usual approach).

Will Bill C-311 change any of this?
Likely not. However, it does force the Canadian government to at least fall in line with the basic international agreements on reductions. It will tell Harper that he can't continue killing the planet with impunity. Most importantly, Bill C-311 could foment new regulations and public infrastructure projects to help us reach the carbon reduction targets set out in the Bill.

So what should you do?
Send an email TODAY to Iggy and the leaders of the three opposition parties letting them know that you expect them to vote in favour of C-311 tomorrow! The Green Party has already set up a letter template and will automatically the letter for you: Go to http://greenparty.ca/action/C-311

[Clip] Carleton: Divest from Apartheid!

This is a fantastic clip made by students at Carleton University's chapter of Students Against Israeli Apartheid. The request to divest from five corporations profiting from war is logical and straightforward, but most importantly, it's the right thing to do.