i.Universities: places of permanent revolution?

Over the past thirty years, and probably for far, far longer,the world of education, not only in schools but also in Higher Education has been one of permanent change. This situation looks set to continue into the foreseeable future. The ability of universities to be self-determining entities has been significantly eroded as successive governments have desired to use their power as primary funders to encourage the adoption of a various set of goals. There has been huge expansion in the system accompanied by a sizeable reduction in the unit of resource per student. At the same time, via the introduction of a system of loans, the student has increasingly come to bear the cost, albeit by a mechanism deferred payment. The latter development has turned students into ‘customers’ of a Higher Education market with all the attendant emphasis on customer satisfaction with their ‘experience’, the building of ‘brand personality’ on the part of the institutions, and pre-sales information. Yet at the same time, as the ultimate source of loan finding, government can still exert its own pressure on universities. As the public good of universities has come to be seen primarily in terms of their economic contribution to national wealth, a narrow focus on (first step) employability is increasingly shaping the curriculum. Students are also encouraged to see potential higher earnings as a result of their education as the reason for making the investment in tuition fees. Ensuring student contentment (obviously not a bad thing in itself) is now more important than academic freedom in the construction of syllabi ,with the attendant concern that universities run the risk of becoming extensions of employee training rather than schools for the generation of critical thinking (for more details see Education > 4. Education & the Consumer Society).

This very brief sketch, it is hoped, gives some sense of the ‘permanent revolution’ that has been taking place in Higher Education. This has affected students just as much as it has staff, but the former group, because only part of the institution for three years or so, do not feel the same sense of the cumulative weight of these changes. The effects for staff can be extraordinarily debilitating as the institution continually seeks to reorganise and re-prioritise in relation to the imposed shifting goals. Moody (1999) offers valuable insight here. Many institutions are marked by “the constant restructuring and changes in direction that put pressure on individuals to succeed in achieving new goals for the institution, whilst simultaneously discounting their previous experience.” (p.16). It is this discounting of previous experience that can be so undermining. Long years of often self-sacrificial contribution to an institution, with the associated accumulation of skills and experience can, in what seems like an instant, be discounted as no longer required. Given that work can provide a sense of identity, esteem, friendships, and financial security, the threat of one’s loss of place can be experienced as overwhelming (ibid.). The university can, therefore, be a particularly harsh environment concerned with ‘justification by works’, but one in which there is no necessary banking of previous effort; it is only one’s value ‘today’ that counts.

This is an environment in which chaplaincy has much to contribute. Not simply in terms of support for individuals, though this is vital, but also for the wider perspective that it brings. Contrasting eternity with time can be a theologically lazy move, but in a context of permanent flux and ephemeral values, a sense that one is held in an unchanging loving gaze of affirmation can be nothing less than transformative.