Synopses & Reviews
There is no single idea of the university. Ever since its medieval origin, the concept of the university has continued to change. The metaphysical university gave way successively to the scientific university, and then to the corporate and the entrepreneurial university. But what, then, might lie ahead?
Being a University both charts this conceptual development and examines the future possibilities for the idea of the university. Ronald Barnett pursues this quest through an exploration of pairs of contending concepts that speak to the idea of the university ? such as space and time; being and becoming; and culture and anarchy. On this foundation is developed an imaginative exposition of possible ideas of the university, including the liquid university and the authentic university.
In the course of this inquiry, it is argued that:
- Any thought that the idea of the entrepreneurial university represents the end-point of the evolution of the idea of the university has to be abandoned. The entrepreneurial university is excessively parochial and ill-matched to the challenges facing the university
- A responsibility of the university is precisely that of working out an imaginative conception of its future possibilities. The boldest and largest thinking is urgently required
- The fullest expression of the university's possibilities lies in a reclamation of the universal aspirations that lay in earlier ideas of the university. The ecological university represents just such a universal aspiration, suited to the unfolding demands of the future.
Being a University will be of wide interest, to institutional leaders and managers, higher education planners, academics in all disciplines and students of higher education, in educational policy and politics, and the philosophy, sociology and theory of education, and indeed, anyone who believes in the future of the university.
Synopsis
There is no single a idea of the universitya (TM). Ever since its medieval inception, what it is to be a university has undergone successive changes. The metaphysical university gave way to the scientific university which, in turn, has been succeeded by the entrepreneurial university and the corporate university a and even by the bureaucratic university. Two implications arise from these reflections. Firstly, the belief a now widespread a that the entrepreneurial university represents a kind of end-point of the evolution of the university has no substance. The university, both in its form and the ideas through which it is understood, continues to evolve. Secondly, the question arises, and in stark form: just what is it to be a university? And further, what might the university become?
In this book, Ron Barnett argues that answers to these questions require imagination and the creation of feasible utopias. Through a careful examination of key a contending conceptsa (TM), searching issues are raised in relation to ideas such as a anarchy and culturea (TM), a space and timea (TM), a authenticity and responsibilitya (TM) and a being and becominga (TM). On this basis, four feasible utopias are set out and critically examined. The first three are those of a the liquid universitya (TM), a the therapeutic universitya (TM) and a the authentic universitya (TM). Each has virtues but also each also has weaknesses and even harbours dystopias. However, the fourth feasible utopia, the idea of the ecological university offers a way to the university fully to become itself. And it is an idea carrying universal significance and so reflects something of the universitya (TM)s metaphysical inheritance. It is a utopian idea of the university but it is entirely feasible.
This book will be of interest to all those working in, and in the future of, Higher Education.