Participare de marcă la dezbaterea „Comunismul. Câteva lecţii teologice”
Publicul ieşean are ocazia să participe astăzi, pe data de 15 mai, la dezbaterea publică „Comunismul. Câteva lecţii teologice”, care se va desfăşura în Sala Chopin de la Palas Mall de la ora 17.00. Invitaţii acestei dezbateri sunt Teodor Baconschi, antropolog religios, autor, diplomat, teolog şi politician român, fost ministru de externe al României, Sever Voinescu, diplomat, politician român, analist politic şi jurnalist, Adrian Papahagi, filolog şi eseist, doctor în Studii medievale şi conferenţiar universitar la Universitatea „Babeş-Bolyai”, şi Radu Preda, teolog român, director executiv al Institutului de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului şi Memoria Exilului Românesc.
Dezbaterea are loc în cadrul celei de-a VII-a ediţii a Simpozionului Stăniloae, fiind o manifestare organizată de către Facultatea de Teologie Ortodoxă „Dumitru Stăniloae” din Iaşi, de Mitropolia Moldovei şi Bucovinei, Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iaşi, în parteneriat cu Secretariatul de Stat pentru Culte, Institutul de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului şi memoria Exilului Românesc, Primăria Municipiului Iaşi şi Colegiul „Sfântul Nicolae” Iaşi.
Simpozionul Stăniloae - Creştinismul în postcomunism (1989-2019). Tranziţie - Terapie – Tendinţe are loc la Iaşi în perioada 15-17 mai. În această perioadă au loc întâlniri şi dezbateri cu experţi şi specialişti în domeniul istoriei, teologiei, sociologiei şi antropologiei, această ediţie fiind dedicată împlinirii a trei decenii de la căderea comunismului şi recâştigarea libertăţii, inclusiv religioase.
Publicație : Ziarul de Iași
Două titluri de Doctor Honoris Causa acordate de Politehnica ieşeană
Universitatea Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi“ din Iaşi (TUIASI) a acordat în ultima săptămână două titluri de Doctor Honoris Causa.
Astfel, prof.univ.dr.ing. Ion Vişa, rector al Universităţii Transilvania din Braşov timp de opt ani, membru titular al Academiei de Ştiinţe Tehnice din România, şi ing.dr.techn. Dr.h.c.mult. Heinz Brandl de la Universitatea Tehnică din Viena, Austria, au primit cea mai înaltă disticţie a Politehnicii ieşene.
Festivitatea de acordare a titlului de Doctor Honoris Cauza rectorului Universităţii „Transilvania“ a avut loc vineri, pe data de 10 mai, în cadrul unei şedinţe festive a Senatului, care a avut loc în Sala de Conferinţe TUIASI, din Corpul R. Şedinţa a fost prezidată de preşedintele Senatului, prof.univ.dr.ing. Tania Hapurne, profesorul Ion Vişa devenind astfel membru onorific al Politehnicii ieşene.
Prof.univ.dr.ing. Ion Vişa a fost rector al Universităţii Transilvania din Braşov timp de opt ani, în intervalul 2004-2012, ocupând mai multe funcţii importante şi la nivel naţional, în prezent fiind membru al Comisiei de Inginerie Mecanică, Mecatronică şi Robotică a Consiliului Naţional pentru Acordarea Titlurilor, Diplomelor şi Certificatelor Universitare.
Prof.univ.dr.ing. Ion Vişa (foto) a declarat, în discursul său, că „este un moment deosebit şi vă mulţumesc că TUIASI, una dintre universităţile de referinţă în mediul academic din România şi pe plan internaţional, a decis să mă accepte ca membru al acestei comunităţi. Vă mulţumesc foarte mult, domnule rector, mulţumesc Senatului, celor două facultăţi, colegilor din cele două departamente care au supus atenţiei aceste propuneri şi pentru că au fost de acord cu acordarea acestui titlu onorific“.
Cel de-al doilea titlul de Doctor Honoris Causa a fost oferit marţi, pe data de 14 mai, lui Heinz Brandl de la Universitatea Tehnică din Viena. Acesta este o personalitate marcantă a comunităţii ştiinţifice internaţionale în domeniul Ingineriei Geotehnice, cu o largă recunoaştere în mediul academic, atât în cercetarea aplicată, cât şi prin proiecte tehnice de dezvoltare a infrastructurii economice din mai multe ţări.
De asemenea, a fost cel care a a susţinut ca următoarea Conferinţă Dunăreană de Mecanica Pământului şi Inginerie Geotehnică, din anul 2022, să se desfăşoare în România.
Publicație : Ziarul de Iași
Studenţii, revoltaţi de solicitarea CFR Călători ca în perioada vizitei Papei Francisc tinerii să nu folosească trenurile: „Este nejustificabilă”
Alianţa Naţională a Organizaţiilor Studenţeşti din România (ANOSR) consideră că solicitarea făcută de către CFR Călători către studenţi, de a nu circula cu trenul pe rutele care vizează marile centre universitare vizitate de Suveranul Pontif în perioada 31 mai-02 iunie 2019, este „absolut nejustificată”.
Reprezentanţii studenţilor spun că „atenţia CFR ar trebui să cadă asupra adevăratelor probleme pentru care trenurile din România sunt supraaglomerate, acest fapt nefiind cauzat de numărul de studenţi după cum reiese din comunicatul CFR Călători şi nu găsirea unui „vinovat” care e mai uşor acceptat de opinia publică”, se arată în documentul remis ”Adevărul”.
Tinerii consideră că solicitarea CFR Călători este una nefondată din moment ce „20% din numărul total de bilete vândute îl reprezintă biletele emise pentru studenţi”, se mai arată în comunicat.
Asociaţia studenţească arată că CFR Călători menţiona recent că „luând în calcul creşterea de trafic din ultima perioadă, acoperirea necesarului de material rulant s-ar putea realiza prin creşterea parcului activ cu 400 de unităţi de material rulant.”. Cu toate acestea, întrebându-i care sunt măsurile luate în vederea creşterii gradului de confort în garniturile de tren gestionate de CFR Călători, referindu-ne aici la tipul de investiţii realizate, costuri şi număr de vagoane reabilitate/renovate/achiziţionate, în anul 2018, aceştia anunţau un buget alocat unor astfel de acţiuni de investiţii de peste 1,6 milioane de lei şi „modernizarea din fonduri proprii a unui număr de 24 vagoane de călători, contribuind la creşterea capacităţii de transport cu peste 2000 de locuri.””, susţine ANOSR.
CFR Călători evită problemele reale
Studenţii trag un semnal de alarmă în ceea ce priveşte grava subfinanţare a CFR Călători şi susţin că sunt ferm convinşi de necesitatea unor investiţii care să permită în viitorul apropiat îmbunătăţirea condiţiilor de transport a călătorilor.
Nemulţumirile tinerilor nu sunt puţine. Deşi CFR Călători recomanda achiziţionarea biletelor de călătorie online, „pentru a preîntâmpina aglomeraţia de la casele de bilete”, studenţii spun că „nici în momentul de faţă studenţii nu pot realiza acest lucru. Practic, de doi ani nu se respectă art. 3, alin. (3) din Hotărârea de guvern nr. 42/2017 pentru aprobarea Normelor metodologice privind acordarea facilităţilor de transport intern feroviar şi cu metroul pentru elevi şi studenţi, Registrul Matricol Unic nefiind încă funcţional, de aceea solicităm urgentarea punerii în practică a acestuia”, se mai arată în comunicatul de presă.
„Suntem ferm convinşi de importanţa evenimentului, însă găsim inoportună şi nejustificată solicitarea CFR Călători din acest comunicat, întrucât se evită problemele reale cu care se confruntă aceştia şi se încearcă rezolvarea acestora pe termen scurt, în locul unei soluţionări durabile, care să nu afecteze în mod direct o anumită categorie de călători şi drepturile studenţilor”, au conchis reprezentanţii asociaţiei.
CFR a emis o informare vineri, 10 mai, că în perioada călătoriei apostolice a Papei Francisc în România dintre 31 mai şi 2 iunie 2019, va avea în circulaţie capacitatea maximă de transport, tehnic disponibilă, pentru asigurarea mobilităţii cetăţenilor, cerând totodată studenţilor să evite utilizarea trenurilor pe anumite rute.
Publicație : Adevărul
Female authors listed on just 30% of recent UK academic research
Progress rate ‘disheartening’, says expert as 2014-17 figure is small improvement on 2006-09
Women are listed as authors of just 30% of academic research from British universities, according to a major new ranking of higher education institutions.
Although the number of women named as authors is gradually increasing, the slow pace was described by one expert as “disheartening”. The 30% figure is for studies published between 2014 and 2017, which is an improvement from an average of just under 26% between 2006 and 2009.
Trends in the UK are comparable with other research-intensive countries. For instance, 31.8% of research papers published between 2014 and 2017 in the US had female authors, while Germany’s figure is 25.7%.
The UK’s small increase was “quite disheartening”, said Dr Gemma Derrick, a senior lecturer at the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation at Lancaster University who is not involved with the new ranking system. “I would have thought in a short period of time we would see much more of an increase.”
The new indicator of gender differences in publication output is produced by the team behind the Leiden Ranking of universities, released annually since 2011 by Leiden University’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS). It is the first time the centre has ranked institutions based on gender diversity.
The numbers vary across different UK institutions. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine leads the way with more than 46% of its research papers produced between 2014 and 2017 having female authors. King’s College London comes second at just over 40%.
Some of the UK’s big hitters are lower on the list. The University of Oxford ranks 20th, with 30.7% of its publications having a female author between 2014 and 2017. The University of Cambridge is 30th, with its figure 28.4%. Previous research has found that women account for fewer than 30% of authorships worldwide.
To create the gender ranking, the researchers scanned 14.6m studies published between 2006 and 2017 by scientists at 963 research institutions across the world, determining gender of authors from their first names. More than a million papers in the sample were co-authored by UK-based scientists.
“The point isn’t necessarily to raise the percentage [of papers authored by women],” said Caroline Wagner, a public policy scholar at Ohio State University in Columbus, who was involved with conceptualising the gender ranking. “The point is to examine the systemic obstacles to women’s success.”
Wagner said academic journals needed to do better, putting more women on editorial boards and accounting for the fact that women’s work was under-cited across nearly every field, but especially in the natural sciences and engineering.
“It can’t be because their work is that much worse,” she said.
Ludo Waltman, the deputy director of CWTS, who created the gender metric, agreed there were biases against women in academia. He said he believed the trends seen today were a consequence of the low percentages of women who studied for PhDs in the 1980s and 1990s.
Some universities – especially medical or nursing ones – in Poland, Serbia, Brazil and Thailand have more than 50% rates of female authorship, the figures reveal. Wagner suggests this may be because these countries pay lower wages, and women are more likely to be willing to work for these rates.
One limitation of the ranking was that it did not consider author order despite the fact that the first and last named authors were generally thought to be playing lead roles, at least in the biomedical and life sciences, Derrick said.
Derrick said she suspected women were contributing in supplementary roles rather than leading or directing research. “I think that these numbers, even though they are troublesome, are actually much lower when you take into account the contribution that women make to the production of knowledge, indicated by where they are in author lists.”
Publicație : The Guardian
University cancels EU election debate over Ukip candidate
UWE Bristol blames security concerns after Carl Benjamin’s Jess Phillips rape comments but critics say only he should be banned
A row has broken out after a university cancelled a European elections hustings due to be attended by a Ukip candidate under police investigation for speculating whether he would rape the MP Jess Phillips.
Carl Benjamin had been expected to attend the event organised by the debating society at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) on Friday but there had been growing calls for him to be banned from the debate and promises of protests.
UWE Bristol blamed concerns over security when it cancelled the event but has come under fire both from people who claim it is effectively no-platforming him and from others who argue it should have banned just him rather than calling off the debate.
Among those who had criticised the decision to invite Benjamin was the Green candidate Carla Denyer, who was also due to attend.
She had threatened to boycott it, writing to the organisers: “Please remove Carl Benjamin from the billing or I will not be able to take part. I hope the same will be true of many of my fellow candidates from across the political spectrum.”
Denyer explained: “The dangerous creep of the far right into mainstream politics is enabled by well-meaning people offering them platforms out of a sense of fairness. But while the protection of free speech is important, we have to guard against the far right taking advantage of it.”
After the event was cancelled, Denyer said the better option would have been to ban Benjamin. “I’m very disappointed UWE Bristol cancelled the event rather than simply remove Benjamin,” she said.
A fellow Green EU election candidate, Cleo Lake, said: “It is wholly unacceptable that Carl Benjamin be given a platform, especially in a diverse and inclusive city like Bristol. Creating fear of social unrest is a key tactic of the far right and we should not play into it.”
The Greens’ stance was criticised by the Tory MEP Ashley Fox. He said Benjamin’s comments were disgusting but added: “In a democracy we counter bad ideas with good ones – not stopping debate.”
Protests had been inevitable. The group Bristol Antifascists had called for people to meet at the Frenchay campus car park to demonstrate against Benjamin.
In a statement, UWE Bristol said: “As a university, we are wholly committed to the principle of freedom of speech and we have a long history of regularly welcoming a diversity of speakers on to our campuses to spark discussion and debate with our students, staff and visitors.
“However, we also have a duty of care to everyone on our campus and to ensure that they are secure and safe.”
The statement said both Avon and Somerset police and the university security team considered the event to be too high risk to hold on campus as it required significant security measures.
Avon and Somerset police said the decision to cancel was one for the university and students’ union to make.
Freddie Gough, a spokesman for the students’ union, said: “We will continue to support our societies to exercise their right to freedom of speech and remain committed to enabling students to organise a range of events that promote debate.”
Publicație : The Guardian
Carl Benjamin: University hustings cancelled over safety fears after Ukip candidate doused with milkshake
'We believe it presents too high a security risk for us to hold the event on this campus,' UWE officials say
A European parliament election hustings where Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin was expected to appear has been cancelled over safety fears.
The “high-risk” event was due to be held at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol on Friday, but was cancelled on the advice of police and campus security staff.
Mr Benjamin, also known by his online moniker Sargon of Akkad, is standing as an MEP candidate in the southwest region.
Currently under police investigation following rape comments he made about the Labour MP Jess Phillips, he has already been pelted with milkshakes and fish on his campaign tour.
University officials appeared to have judged that he would not be safe during the proposed debate. Organisers said they feared possible disruption by protesters.
Gallery staff give a final dusting to the 'Olympe' sculpture by Aspencrow, modelled on Cara Delevingne and an interpretation of Medusa, as it is unveiled at the JD Malay Gallery in Mayfair, London
PA
“We are wholly committed to the principle of freedom of speech and we have a long history of regularly welcoming a diversity of speakers onto our campuses to spark discussion and debate,” UWE said in a statement.
“Both Avon and Somerset Constabulary and our security team consider this to be a high risk event that requires significant security measures to be put in place. Based on our risk assessment of the event as it currently stands, and the ongoing changes we are aware of to the event format and panel participants, we believe it presents too high a security risk for us to hold the event on this campus.”
The university’s debating society confirmed to The Independent that Mr Benjamin was among the proposed speakers.
Another proposed panel member, the Green Party’s Carla Denyer, told the organisers that she would not share a platform with Mr Benjamin because of his rape comments.
The debating society added in a statement: “We sought the top candidate from each of the parties’ lists and subsequently accepted whichever speaker was offered to us. All the candidates were approved through the students’ union and university’s external speakers policies.
“Concerns were raised at a meeting between our society, the students’ union and UWE, not about Carl Benjamin himself, but about potential disruption of the event by individuals that would want to protest him.”
UWE was the venue at which Jacob Rees-Mogg was filmed breaking up a scuffle when masked protesters disrupted a talk he was giving.
The Conservative MP was filmed as he restrained a number of people as the confrontation threatened to turn violent.
Publicație : The Indepenndent
Has university governance lost touch with academic reality?
Recent controversies in Australia over vice-chancellors’ pay, Ramsay Centre funding and the role of academic presses have raised questions about whether university boards have too few – or, perhaps, too many – members from scholarly backgrounds. John Ross chairs the discussion
Soaring vice-chancellors’ salaries have attracted all the wrong headlines in the UK, where a decade of austerity has kept the pay packets of rank-and-file academics – and most other workers – in firm check. Yet all the opprobrium heaped upon the University of Bath for paying its vice-chancellor, Dame Glynis Breakwell, a total of £468,000 in 2016-17 is cast into some relief by the situation on the other side of the world.
In Australia, overall wage growth has languished at about 2 per cent in recent years, barely enough to keep pace with inflation, while academics’ pay has increased by little more: about 2.4 per cent. But university leaders’ earnings, by contrast, are coasting towards an uncomfortable milestone – in public relations terms, at least.
If the recent 5.1 per cent average annual hike in vice-chancellors’ salaries is maintained, the average antipodean university leader will pocket more than A$1 million (£550,000) this year. By 2017, 13 of Australia’s 38 public university chiefs were already earning that much, amassing four or five times the incomes of their professors, and rising. All this in a sector supposedly all about collegiality, where contributing to knowledge matters more than mundane matters like self-aggrandisement.
So how did vice-chancellors come to join the million-dollar club, a clique traditionally reserved for the likes of investment bankers, corporate lawyers and self-employed gastroenterologists? Many point the finger not at vice-chancellors themselves but at the people who set their salaries – typically, remuneration committees drafted from universities’ governing councils.
John Simpson, a member of Monash University’s council, says that university leaders’ pay levels befit their job description. “The appointment of vice-chancellors is not a national undertaking – it’s an international undertaking,” says Simpson, a former oil and gas executive who has sat on the boards of numerous Australian non-profit organisations. “There’s barely a sector that is more global now than [higher] education. It is incumbent on the sector to ensure that they’re appealing to a global market, and remuneration is part of that. It is really important that you offer remuneration and employment arrangements that appeal to the very best in the world.”
Stephen Gerlach, convenor of the University Chancellors Council, also stresses that university leaders have “a very significant job” since they are “24/7, day-to-day, in charge of the management of the organisation, and they’re the principal academics as well”.
But Gerlach, who is chancellor of Flinders University in Adelaide, notes that historical perks like supplied housing are disappearing from remuneration packages. And he insists that governance boards work hard to ensure that the money awarded to vice-chancellors is fair and appropriate, and that salary decisions are “not taken lightly”. Fair remuneration is “something people have well and truly up on the radar screens”, he adds.
But it is noteworthy that not all universities around the world feel the need to reward their leaders so handsomely. Eight of the top 50 universities in Times Higher Education’s latest World University Rankings are from continental Europe, but their leaders typically enjoy considerably lower salaries than their cross-channel cousins do – never mind their peers Down Under.
That is no doubt one reason why, according to Thomas Estermann, director for governance, funding and public policy development with the European University Association, there is little questioning of their compensation packages – even though they have increased as the traditional academic leadership role has evolved into responsibilities more akin to those of heads of large corporations.
“If you compare [universities to corporations] in terms of turnover or impact, [universities] are big machineries,” he says. “You wouldn’t question the salary [of the leader of] a similarly big private global player.”
But Melbourne-based economist Jamie Doughney scoffs at suggestions that the “ridiculously high” packages on offer in Australia are justified. “The idea that million-dollar salaries for vice-chancellors somehow represent the productivity contribution of those individuals is laughable, frankly,” he says.
Doughney, a former member of Victoria University’s council, says “a certain pack mentality” drives remuneration committees to ensure that their chief executives’ salaries are at least keeping pace with those at comparable Australian institutions. The phenomenon is not unlike “pattern bargaining”, a union tactic to manipulate workers’ salaries ever upwards by extracting a superior offer from one targeted employer and then using it to leverage the same offer from others.
“To be seen to be paying lower salaries to your CEOs – that somehow puts you further down the pecking order in the status game,” Doughney says. “The unfortunate consequence is that we see the growing divide, in terms of incomes across society, replicated in the university.” But universities would do well to pay more heed to public dislike of this salary divergence, Doughney continues: “They’re public institutions. They should be exhibiting greater sensitivity to the wealth inequality that people object to across society.”
Corporate governance advocate Stephen Mayne agrees that the pressure to “keep up with the Joneses” is pushing university leaders’ salaries into unreasonable territory. “Once you’re north of a million [dollars], it’s getting excessive,” says Mayne, a journalist turned shareholder activist. “The last thing you want is to be a vice-chancellor who everyone thinks is overpaid and overrated. If I was a director at a university, I would probably make the argument that ‘this is a great institution: surely you can get by on A$990,000. Do you really need to clock over to a million? Why don’t you set a standard and not be the highest paid [vice-chancellor]?’”
There was no need for any such argument when the current vice-chancellor of the Australian National University, Brian Schmidt, was negotiating his salary before accepting the role in 2015.
According to the ANU’s chancellor, Gareth Evans, the institution had been prepared to offer the Nobel-prizewinning astronomer a salary at the median level of the Group of Eight universities, whose other leaders now attract million dollar-plus salaries.
“He said it was absolutely unnecessary,” Evans says.
Schmidt, who was previously a professor at the ANU, accepted a package that ranks among the five lowest of Australian vice-chancellors, recorded as between A$610,000 and A$624,999 in the university’s annual report for his first year of service – compared with $970,000 and $984,999 for his predecessor, Ian Young.
“He said it was considerably more than he’d been earning as a professor and he would much prefer that the money was spent around the university,” Evans says. “Unhappily, that mindset seems to be a minority one.”
The Australian newspaper reported that Schmidt argued for an even lower salary, but “it was felt this would undermine the prestige of his position as chief of one of Australia’s most important universities, as well as apply downward pressure on salaries at other levels within the university”.
Evans says that the University Chancellors Council has started developing benchmarks for vice-chancellors’ pay. The objective is not to impose some tight regulatory framework but to offer future guidance for remuneration committees – “and possibly reverse the trend towards forever higher…salaries”.
Governing bodies recognise that pay rates have been “careering upwards at an unacceptable rate, in a way that simply hasn’t been necessary to get the best people”, Evans says. “What’s good enough for Oxford and Cambridge is really good enough for the best of the Australians. There’s nothing so different in the water here to justify more than that. Any reference to the competitiveness of the market needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt.”
Australian vice-chancellors’ earnings are, in reality, “a reflection of corporate-think rather than the reality of university culture”, Evans says, as people with commercial backgrounds comprise an increasingly prominent slice of university council membership.
“People who choose the life of a university academic don’t do it for the money,” he notes. “If the university is a prestigious institution, the attractions will speak for themselves. Money, for most people, will be a second-, third- or fourth-order consideration.”
Some governance experts say that the salary “scandal” reflects a broader issue of university councils that have lost touch with their constituency.
“The original concept of governing bodies was that they represented a kind of public interest. The one thing that’s evident in regard to vice-chancellors’ salaries is that they’re not representing a public interest,” says Michael Shattock, a former registrar of Warwick University and a visiting professor at UCL’s Institute of Education.
The austerity that has been applied for the past decade throughout British society, right up to the prime minister – whose salary has been frozen at about £150,000 since 2010 – seems to have bypassed university councils. He says remuneration committees have routinely awarded vice-chancellors 10 per cent salary increases on the basis that “our chap is doing rather well”, while the rest of the academic community has received rises of 1 or 2 per cent.
“In the old days, you appointed a vice-chancellor because you were looking for academic leadership. Nowadays, the vice-chancellor is seen as the chief executive, which is a different concept altogether. I think we’ve essentially got our priorities wrong,” Shattock concludes.
Back in Australia, higher education consultant and governance expert Hilary Winchester says the shrinking of university councils over the past decade has diluted staff and student representation and left them looking more like corporate boards. “The composition of those councils has predominantly been people from business and industry rather than higher education,” says Winchester, a former pro vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia.
“You get some university councils that have no one with higher education experience except for the vice-chancellor and the chair of the academic board, or where members have been on council for so long that their knowledge of higher education is out of date,” she says. “You’ve got people who understand finance, risk and infrastructure – all those big ticket items – but don’t necessarily understand the peculiarities of the higher education sector and higher education governance requirements.”
That lack of understanding – combined with a sidelining of academic senates, the third “axis” of university governance along with council and the executive – could come at a cost to institutions as stricter governance regulations start to bite, Winchester predicts.
Australia’s higher education standards framework, which came into effect in 2017, outlines what is required from academic governance structures and processes. “The academic board is inscribed in most university acts as well. It can’t just be pushed to one side or forgotten about,” Winchester says.
In addition, a number of Australian universities next year face mandatory re-registration assessments from the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, which was established in 2011 and typically requires universities to renew their registration every seven years. The quality assurance body begins the process by examining separate external reviews of each university’s corporate and academic governance arrangements, Winchester says: “They’re pretty serious items. Universities need to get them right.”
Perhaps the most dramatic recent example of the fading influence of academic governance mechanisms has occurred at the University of Wollongong, where the senate had no role in approving a contentious new arts degree funded by the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation.
Vice-chancellor Paul Wellings avoided senate scrutiny of the course – opposed by many academics on the grounds that it curtails academic autonomy and champions a “Western supremacist” perspective – by using a “fast-track” procedure normally employed to make minor changes to existing programmes. When the senate formally objected, the university said the protest had “no direct impact” and that the partnership with the Ramsay Centre would proceed as planned.
The executive also second-guessed the view of its overarching governing body, saying the issue required “no further actions” from its council. At a subsequent meeting, the council sided with the executive. In a statement issued by the university, chancellor Jillian Broadbent said she was “comfortable that the decisions taken by the vice-chancellor have been in accordance with university policies and in the best interests of the institution”.
Speaking to THE earlier this month, Wellings denied bending the rules to approve the course, worth A$50 million (£27 million) to the institution, and described the fast-track procedure he used as “a bog-standard piece of machinery” that has existed at Wollongong for 20 years.
Wollongong’s approach to dealing with the Ramsay Centre differed starkly to that adopted by the ANU, whose governing body took a leading role in ultimately terminating negotiations on the grounds that the Ramsay Centre wanted to be too hands-on regarding the curriculum and recruitment – in turn prompting claims in the right-wing media that the university’s concerns were less about autonomy and more about appeasing left-wing elements in its staff and student body.
“The issues we got ourselves into with the Ramsay negotiations were entirely appropriately a matter for the council and me as chancellor to engage with,” Evans says. “The situation was becoming a major public relations problem. The university was being cast as a prisoner of the forces of anti-intellectual darkness.”
For his part, the University Chancellors Council’s Gerlach dismisses claims that academic senates’ clout is being diluted. “That’s really where most of the discussion is going on, with people who come out of that [academic] background and know what they’re talking about in detail,” he says. “Decisions that are material would be approved by the council, but you have to rely on the people with that intimate knowledge.”
That said, Gerlach adds, Australia has moved on from a time several decades ago when members of the academic senate “virtually dictated what happened in a university. Unless academics agreed to something or other, nothing could happen. You could not operate now under that sort of regime.”
But Shattock’s view is that the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Rather than reducing the power of senates, universities should give academics more power on their councils. “I’m perfectly confident that the kind of academics running big science departments or advising the government on economic policy are well able to take good management decisions about a university – and probably much better qualified to do that than many of the lay members,” he says.
Thirty-four per cent of Australian university governing council members – including most chancellors – have backgrounds in large corporations, with experience in banking, insurance, energy and retail particularly favoured. Current or former academics comprise just 32 per cent, and current students just 9 per cent.
Economist Doughney agrees that there has been a concerted “trimming” of elected staff and student representatives on university councils. “It goes with the corporate view that you need small boards so that they can function. Who do you peel off? The internal representatives.”
Margaret Sims, professor of early childhood education at the University of New England and a former council member at the institution, says that her institution used to have two elected academic staff positions. That allocation was cut to one, with a “push to have none”, while two slots reserved for university alumni have also been “disestablished”.
“My experience on council was that the staff voice was consistently silenced,” Sims says. “If I was allowed to speak, it was almost [greeted with] rolling eyes and a complete dismissal of anything I said. They’d just forge on ahead with other things.”
In 2016, Sims took the university to federal court – and won – after it denied her access to council meetings over conflict of interest concerns following her election as branch president of the National Tertiary Education Union.
“There was never a single skerrick of evidence that I had ever leaked anything, in all the years prior to that,” Sims says. “It’s part of that whole right-wing agenda that staff in general can’t be trusted – the idea of managerial privilege versus staff who just have to shut up and do as they’re told.”
Another trend is for council agenda items to be marked confidential. Sims says she often questioned such decisions and was invariably told that the topic could prompt discussions that members preferred to keep secret. If it didn’t, she asked for the item to be moved back on to the open agenda so that it could be reported in the minutes.
However, “it generally didn’t happen”, she says. “More and more councils are operating behind closed doors. I used to report to my academic colleagues after every meeting, but of course I could only report on the open agenda. Over the years, my reports got more and more pathetic because there was so very little I could say.”
Cathy Rytmeister, a quality assurance and professional development specialist at Macquarie University, says a typical tactic is to mark an item commercial-in-confidence “even though it’s clearly not”. She says staff members on council are even warned not to talk to each other outside meetings. “As if all the bankers aren’t getting together,” scoffs Rytmeister, a one-time governance researcher who has completed two stints on Macquarie’s academic senate.
“They keep talking about how the senate’s too big and the council’s too big and it would be much better if they were smaller. But the executives just keep growing,” she adds.
But governance expert Mayne says the progressive reduction in the size of university councils has “made sense from a practical governing point of view”. And elected academic representatives are “a little anachronistic”, with elected union or staff board members “long gone” in corporate Australia and government-owned enterprises.
“Universities have become very large institutions and they need to move to a modern governance structure of professional independent directors. The governing board has to decide things like academic funding and which disciplines to focus on. By definition, any incumbent academic would not be an independent director. You should have a clear majority of independent directors on any governing board.”
Mayne cites the University of Melbourne’s recent, controversial decision to refocus the activities of Melbourne University Publishing – which had developed a flourishing trade in highly regarded popular non-fiction books – as an example of the conflict of interest generated by having academics on boards.
“It was a bad decision to focus back on publishing academic research when MUP has been such a trailblazing general publisher. It’s generated a lot of political heat and backlash, which wouldn’t have happened but for the academic presence on the board,” he says.
An alternative view is that MUP is shifting back to its core business of publishing academic monographs, which have comprised barely 10 per cent of its output in recent years. And Evans dismisses the idea that staff representatives automatically have a conflict of interest.
“We have three elected staff representatives and two students on a council of 15 at ANU,” he says. “In my judgement – and I’ve been there nearly 10 years – this works extremely well. They’re certainly there to inform the council of the interests of the people they’re elected by and the issues that are concerning them, [but] having those voices…gives us a much better understanding of the dynamics and culture of the university than we would have if they were missing...It is well understood that the overwhelming fiduciary obligation is to the university as a whole.”
Evans says accountancy, investment and management oversight skills are things that “every council needs, but they’re not the dominant skill set required”. But nor, he believes, should academic experience take precedence on the boards of institutions charged with enacting a broad social purpose. The best boards, he says, incorporate a wide range of talents and outlooks from an array of sectors.
“People in the arts, the intellectual environment, scientific researchers, Indigenous representatives, former public servants, former politicians, thinktank leaders: there’s a wealth of talent not confined to corporate or academic Australia,” he says.
Publicație : The Times
Modern universities are not neoliberal – but many academics are
Successful publish-or-perish operators should look in the mirror before writing their next diatribe about marketisation, says Mike Marinetto
One thing social scientists excel at is the radical pose in the academic prose. Take anything with “Foucault”, “labour process” or “performativity” in the title. Now toss it in the rubbish: such formulaic discussions of “the neoliberal university” do not spark joy, as decluttering guru Marie Kondo would say.
For its long line of big-name academic critics, the neoliberal university is now a self-evident evil: an eminently worthy target of their literary bricks. Some are even calling for the closure of the business school, that incubator of neoliberal ideology. But rather than stroking my beard in solemn agreement, I am reminded of the obscure 1980s anarcho-punk outfit, Crass, and their not-so-radio-friendly song, Punk is Dead.
The song complained of the once-radical genre’s absorption into the music business’ corporate mainstream, personified by a “superstar” punk who “sucked from the system that had given him his name”.
Like Crass’ vocalist, Steve Ignorant, I am tired of listening to privileged figures with safety pins in their ears (Steve put it a bit less decorously). I am tired of such straw man-demolishing academic populism. The reality is that the neoliberal university is just an empty signifier, used to elicit the cheers of like-minded readers.
True, the realities of academic life today – performance management, work intensification, student consumer evaluations – have undeniably intensified work routines. But they do not necessarily equate to, or derive from, “neoliberalism”. If the high priests of this economic theory visited a UK or US university, they would not recognise it as something made in their image. There are no shareholders, and while lower-ranking institutions may scrap for their share of the student market, most universities largely remain what can be called professional bureaucracies, run by and for the benefit of their staff.
If neoliberalism exists at all in higher education, it is not to be found in the organisation of the university. It is not an institutional but a generational phenomenon.
As the noughties progressed, a new cohort of academic stars emerged, editing the august journals, writing the landmark books, monopolising the major grants and wielding the greatest patronage. Their success derived not only from intellectual virtuosity but also from careerist strategies. Competitive individualism, goal-fixated instrumentalism and professional egoism became strategic virtues. Neoliberalism was embraced. The neoliberal generation is self-made.
True, the circumstances in which such strategies have proved so successful were not necessarily of the individuals’ own making or choosing. Still, it was individual choice to exploit those conditions for personal ends.
Those conditions can be defined as the researchification of the academy – which obliterated the focus on teaching that had previously dominated British academia. As Halsey and Trow’s classic 1971 study, The British Academics, makes clear, the academic of yesteryear was at best blasé when it came to scholarship and publishing – and often totally indifferent. But the expansion of the academy brought greater professionalisation, and entrance to its labour market became increasingly dependent on demonstrating research ability. The later research audit culture, using performance indicators around quality and impact, only further boosted the market value of research.
The academic labour market now resembles Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism and his idea of evolutionary fitness. In our case, the evolutionary parameters are defined by the ability to demonstrate “publishing fitness” – call it scholastic Darwinism. The neoliberal species has soon learned that failure to evolve (by prioritising research and mastering the rules of the publishing game) will result in extinction, because natural selection is determined by the survival of the fattest CV.
Not all aspiring neoliberal academics succeed in mastering “the game”, of course. The failed neoliberal academic is the worst kind – someone who excels only in envy-fuelled cynicism directed at the neoliberal class that he aspires to join. Sadly, that’s me.
The neoliberal academic is like a sole trader, as the London School of Economics’ Michael Power once put it in Times Higher Education, who uses the “university franchise for career development defined solely in terms of research” (“Is ‘academic citizenship’ under strain?”, Features, 29 January 2015). So they are particularly averse to volunteering for citizenship and administrative roles, since these have no commodity career value.
But not all younger academics have adapted to the environment in this way. As well as those unable to demonstrate publishing fitness, others reject the neoliberal ethos. They do not necessarily become extinct, but they are not flourishing. In the UK and Australia, around half have been forced on to the vast Badlands at the fringe of the academic world, subsisting on precarious, short-term contracts. This is an academic underclass.
The 21st-century university is a realm more akin to liberal Victorian England, with an “industrial reserve army”, as Marx and Engels put it, fed by a huge oversupply of labour. It is not a happy state. Not, that is, unless you are in a top hat, smoking your pipe and blowing out smoke about neoliberalism.
Publicație : The Times
Chinese PhD students a risk to West in some fields, v-c warns
Former chief defence scientist of Australia says universities may be forced to bar Chinese nationals from conducting research in sensitive areas
National security concerns could force Western universities to stop enrolling Chinese doctoral students in “sensitive” areas such as quantum computing and hypersonics, a vice-chancellor has warned.
Alex Zelinsky, who joined Australia’s University of Newcastle last November after six years as the country’s chief defence scientist, said higher education institutions were “unrealistic” if they thought they could work with any partner on any research topic.
He said advances in autonomous systems, cybersecurity and materials science had potential applications that “haven’t even been imagined”, and universities must be “very careful” about undertaking collaborative research with groups from some countries – including China – if there was a chance the results could be harnessed in military systems.
That could extend to accepting Chinese PhD students in such areas. “It may come to that,” Professor Zelinsky told Times Higher Education. “There are things we produce in universities…that are truly world leading. They could be turned into a competitive disadvantage.”
The debate is particularly sensitive in Australia, where universities are heavily reliant on China for student recruitment, including at postgraduate level, but where there is growing concern about potential theft of intellectual property and some Chinese researchers’ ties to the People’s Liberation Army.
US universities are also facing increasing pressure to monitor the activities of their Chinese researchers, and the Trump administration has reportedly considered restricting Chinese involvement in sensitive research areas on US campuses amid a mounting trade war with Beijing.
In Australia, universities currently require permits to share and publish applied research in areas with military applications. In February, the government resisted a Department of Defence push to extend controls to a broader suite of research topics in fields such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and new materials.
Professor Zelinsky said the government had “done the right thing” and named the topics of potential concern in its 2016 defence White Paper. The document highlighted quantum computing, innovative manufacturing, hypersonics and unmanned systems among the areas likely to spawn new weapons in the region.
But he said technology was a “moving feast” and the export controls might need revisiting. “We’re world leading in certain aspects of areas such as quantum [computing], hypersonics, cybersecurity and autonomous systems,” he said. “We have to realise that other players, because they can’t buy it or build it themselves, will seek to acquire it through any means they can.”
Universities wanting to recruit PhD candidates in sensitive areas would need to consider students’ plans afterwards, Professor Zelinsky said. “If they just want to come here, learn, go back to their country and implement something that could be used against us, you’ve got to be very careful about that,” he said.
James Laurenceson, acting director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, questioned Professor Zelinsky’s intervention, highlighting that a fundamental characteristic of doctoral study was that it created new knowledge.
“It’s hard to steal something that doesn’t yet exist, or that once it does exist is available to all researchers,” he said.
“There are plenty of areas of science and technology where Chinese researchers are at the frontier. If there’s something to steal, it would make just as much sense to argue that we might be the thieves.”
Professor Laurenceson also argued against bans in fields such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence. “These are incredibly broad labels, often encompassing cross-disciplinary elements, and it’s hard to see where you could meaningfully draw a line,” he said.
“It’s not hard to imagine hawkish national security types pushing for extremely broad interpretations.” This could inadvertently undermine Western countries’ ability to stay at the knowledge frontier, Professor Laurenceson said.
But Alex Joske, a researcher with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, said Western universities took a “simplistic” approach to engagement with Chinese partners. “In many cases, they haven’t thought through the implications,” he said.
“It’s getting harder to draw clear lines between military and civilian research in China. There’s a deliberate effort by the Chinese government to better take advantage of civilian resources, and that applies to universities.”
Professor Zelinsky said that, if collaborative research was thwarted, politicians should provide more research funding as a quid pro quo. “The worst case would be for the government to say we won’t support you, but you can’t work with anyone else.”
He also said that caution was warranted in decisions about allowing Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to provide critical infrastructure. But universities should have few qualms about using the company’s products, and fewer about accepting Huawei grants for research in non-sensitive areas, Professor Zelinsky argued.
“They were the first to really invest in R&D in 5G. They got ahead while the West was sitting on its hands. If our researchers have a better understanding of where the cutting-edge commercial systems are going, that’s good for Australia,” he said.
Publicație : The Times
Want to be less stressed? Do some overtime (but not too much)
Study finds university staff who do up to 10 additional hours each week are more satisfied with their job, but doing more than this has a significant adverse effect
University staff who do up to 10 hours’ overtime per week are more satisfied with their jobs than those who do none, according to a study.
But doing any more than 10 hours of unpaid work results in a significant drop-off in satisfaction, says the paper published in the International Journal of Stress Management.
It might be that the “benefits of working up to 10 extra hours outweigh the costs of doing less or working inefficiently or too much”, say researchers from the universities of Reading and Portsmouth.
The research involved 1,474 academics and 1,953 administrative workers at nine universities in the UK.
Academics were found to work a “significantly higher number” of extra hours per week compared with support staff. While 59 per cent of academics worked up to 10 hours’ overtime, 24 per cent worked 11 to 20 extra hours, and 9 per cent did more than 20. Only 8 per cent reported doing no overtime.
In contrast, while 63 per cent of administrators did up to 10 hours’ overtime, 8 per cent did between 11 and 20, and only 2 per cent did more than that. Twenty-seven per cent said they worked their contracted hours only.
However, academics were found to be more satisfied with their jobs, on average, than support staff.
And, alongside the findings on job satisfaction, university staff who did about five hours’ overtime a week were found to be less stressed than those who did none at all. However, academics became significantly more stressed when they did between six and 20 extra hours.
Rita Fontinha, one of the authors of the study, said that academics felt that the demands of their jobs were “increasing due to the diversity of their tasks and the number and quality of the expected outputs of their work”.
“Regular working hours may not be sufficient to meet the demands of the multiple tasks and outputs required for career progression in academia,” said Dr Fontinha, lecturer in strategic human resource management at Henley Business School. “On the other hand, those who work extremely long hours are probably struggling to achieve career success.”
Staff in the latter category might include early career academics striving to secure a permanent position or scholars with large teaching and administrative loads, Dr Fontinha said.
Overall, the study “reiterates the poor quality of working life of academics, compared with non-academics”, Dr Fontinha said.
“Overtime is a relevant issue, and it is seen as a necessity by some to be able to respond to the demands of an academic career,” she said.
“However, our results also demonstrate that a favourable context that promotes work-life balance will tend to be associated with a higher commitment from an academic workforce, thereby potentially reducing expenses such as those due to staff turnover.”
Publicație : The Times
Treasury opposition ‘could block’ England’s post-18 review
Chancellor opposes extra spending on universities, sources suggest, as universities minister dodges questions on report publication
Treasury opposition to increasing direct public spending on English universities could block the recommendations of the country’s review of post-18 education.
Times Higher Education understands that the review panel’s report calls for tuition fees to be cut to £7,500, but with the lost fee income being fully replaced via direct public spending to maintain present levels of funding at an average of £9,250 per student, under a model that would shift funding towards high-cost subjects.
However, Philip Hammond, the chancellor, and the Treasury are unhappy with the recommendation from the review panel – led by Philip Augar – to introduce extra direct public funding for universities, Westminster sources told THE.
One suggested that the panel report was being “blocked” by the Treasury and that when the report is published, it will be accompanied by alternative points of view from sections of the government.
Another said that the Treasury opposed any plan that was not “fiscally neutral”.
One sector source said that “filling the gap [in funding] is a massive problem to implementing the review”, adding that the Augar report “places a lot of emphasis on the need to maintain the unit of resource, but I cannot see how that plays out given the cost”.
The Treasury must already find ways to finance extra spending on universities arising from the reclassification of a portion of loan outlay as direct public spending, which is expected to add about £12 billion to the deficit.
The post-18 review, set up by Theresa May in the wake of concerns about the electoral impact of Labour’s pledge to abolish fees entirely, is facing a blizzard of uncertainty.
It is closely tied to Ms May, whose position as prime minister is under intense threat amid the Brexit crisis.
The review is also tied to the Treasury’s expected autumn spending review, which might be downgraded to a one-year exercise because of the uncertainty caused by Brexit. That could mean that the Treasury finds it harder to make the medium- to long-term spending commitments required to implement the Augar panel’s recommendations.
And many believe that the government, with its slim Commons majority, would not have sufficient support among MPs to pass into law measures that lead to a funding cut or to a minimum entry tariff to access student loans.
Chris Skidmore, the universities minister, has staked out a sceptical stance on the review, telling THE that he opposes the minimum entry tariff plan and wants the recommendations to go to full consultation.
He was questioned about the review at a delegated legislation committee meeting on access plans on 8 May.
Jo Johnson, the former universities minister who was moved from that post after opposing Ms May’s decision to hold the review, asked Mr Skidmore whether “the review is imminently to report, or will it require a much longer gestation?”
Mr Skidmore confirmed that he had “not seen the report, which will be published in due course”. He also told Mr Johnson that “any decisions that will need to be taken on this interim report into the overall post-18 review will need to be taken by the Department [for Education], the prime minister…and Her Majesty’s Treasury”.
Publicație : The Times
Parcoursup : choisir, est-ce renoncer ? Petite philosophie des choix d’orientation
Crainte de faire un mauvais choix, difficulté à renoncer à autre chose : pourquoi est-ce si difficile d’assumer sa liberté ? A l’heure des réponses de Parcoursup, le professeur de philosophie Thomas Schauder livre un conseil : visez ce qui provoquera en vous de la joie, ce qui vous permettra de vous sentir vivant et de vous épanouir.
Selon le philosophe René Descartes, un acte est libre lorsqu’il résulte d’un choix de notre volonté. CHRISTOPHE LEHENAFF / Photononstop / Christophe Lehenaff / Photononstop
Chronique Phil’d’actu, par Thomas Schauder, professeur de philosophie. Ce mercredi 15 mai, 900 000 candidats inscrits sur Parcoursup espèrent voir leur insoutenable attente prendre fin et savoir s’ils sont admis dans la filière de leur choix. Certains auront le « luxe » d’être acceptés dans plusieurs formations et de devoir choisir entre elles. Choisir et être choisi : c’est un tournant important dans la vie de nos élèves, et très angoissant pour cette raison même. N’est-ce pas la possibilité de choisir pour soi qui distingue l’enfant de l’adulte ?
Mais au fait, que signifie « choisir » ? Est-ce la même chose que « décider » ou encore « être libre » ? Peut-on être sûr de faire le bon choix ? D’ailleurs, peut-on parler de « bons » et de « mauvais » choix ?
Si on définit la liberté comme la possibilité d’agir sans être contraint, alors on doit d’emblée admettre que la liberté absolue n’existe pas : nous devons « faire avec » les lois, les désirs des autres, les ressources naturelles ou financières… Bref, être libre en pratique, c’est pouvoir choisir, c’est-à-dire nous orienter dans une direction parmi plusieurs directions possibles. Ainsi, le promeneur qui arrive à une croisée des chemins peut décider d’aller à gauche, à droite ou de faire demi-tour, mais pas de s’envoler.
On pourrait résumer l’idée de progrès comme le fait d’ouvrir toujours plus de possibles à un sujet. En filant la métaphore précédente, on dirait que le progrès consiste à ouvrir de nouveaux chemins, ou à offrir un jet pack à chacun. C’est l’idéal des Lumières : par le développement du savoir et des techniques, l’être humain atteindrait le stade où sa possibilité de choisir serait infinie. D’un côté en se rendant « maître et possesseur de la nature », mais aussi en se rendant maître et possesseur de lui-même, en atteignant l’autonomie morale plutôt que l’obéissance aux autorités traditionnelles : l’Eglise, l’Etat, le père de famille, etc. (1)
L’homme livré à la machine
Or, cet idéal du progrès, qu’on pourrait qualifier d’« humaniste », a presque entièrement disparu. Il faut dire que depuis les Lumières, il y a eu Auschwitz et Hiroshima, la prise de conscience de la crise écologique, le déclin de l’idéal communiste. « Utopie » est devenu un terme dépréciatif. En revanche, l’idée d’une amélioration exponentielle de la technique et de l’intelligence artificielle est profondément ancrée dans la société, illustrant ce que Günther Anders nommait « l’obsolescence de l’homme » : l’être humain perd de sa valeur au profit des objets. Il se soumet à la technique plutôt que de l’utiliser à ses propres fins (2).
Parcoursup en est l’illustration puisque le processus est en grande partie géré par des algorithmes, au nom de la « lutte » contre la décision humaine, supposée « arbitraire ». On en arrive ainsi à un paradoxe contemporain intéressant : alors que nos possibilités techniques de choix sont, non pas infinies, mais incompréhensibles et impossibles à appréhender, nous avons du mal à choisir.
Et ce pour au moins deux raisons, selon moi. La première est justement liée à cette « obsolescence de l’homme », à cette idée selon laquelle l’être humain est faillible et susceptible de se tromper. La crainte de faire un mauvais choix serait alors telle qu’on préférerait déléguer ce pouvoir à la machine, supposée capable d’énoncer la vérité plutôt qu’une simple préférence (3).
Or, s’il est vrai que l’être humain n’est jamais objectif et qu’il choisit toujours en fonction de sa sensibilité, de son expérience, de ses préjugés, il convient de s’interroger sur ce que signifie un « bon » choix. Ne pouvant pas savoir à l’avance quelles seront les conséquences de mon action, je déterminerai a posteriori si le choix était bon ou non. Pour atteindre ma destination, j’aurais peut-être dû tourner à droite, mais en chemin, j’ai découvert un lieu que je ne connaissais pas et qui m’a plu !
Il en va ainsi de l’orientation : peut-être que tout ne se passera pas selon le plan que vous aviez imaginé, mais ce ne sera certainement pas une catastrophe. D’aucuns vous diront : « Au pire, tu auras perdu un an et tu feras autre chose. » Mais pourquoi cette idée de « perdre » un an ? C’est là une vision purement économique. En un an, vous allez vivre des choses (certaines plaisantes, d’autres moins) et vous deviendrez un peu autre. Car c’est aussi cela que signifie être libre : ce n’est pas seulement une capacité à agir, c’est une certaine indétermination, une possibilité d’évoluer, de bifurquer, de se métamorphoser… ce dont une machine n’est justement pas capable (4) !
Outre la crainte de se tromper, on peut citer une deuxième raison à la difficulté de choisir : le refus du renoncement. « Choisir, c’était renoncer pour toujours, pour jamais, à tout le reste, et la quantité nombreuse de ce reste demeurait préférable à n’importe quelle unité », écrit André Gide (5). Choisir, c’est nécessairement prendre un chemin à l’exclusion de tous les autres. C’est reconnaître le fait qu’on ne peut pas tout avoir. C’est donc accepter non seulement que nous sommes faillibles, mais que nous sommes en grande part impuissants. Autrement dit, notre désir est infini, mais pas notre capacité à le satisfaire.
Plus l’offre est grande, plus le renoncement est grand
Notre système économique est basé sur l’offre : la publicité, la pseudo-innovation technologique, les apparences du pluralisme politique, les applications de rencontre. Nous vivons à crédit (financièrement et écologiquement) pour pouvoir répondre à cette offre, sans quoi le marché cesserait de fonctionner.
Mais d’un point de vue psychique, on constate qu’il est devenu très difficile d’assumer la frustration : plus l’offre est grande, plus le renoncement est grand. Si je vais à gauche, je renonce à aller à droite ou en arrière, je renonce à deux possibilités seulement. Mais si le nombre des possibles augmente, je renonce logiquement à un plus grand nombre de choses. Et voilà comment la société ne nous rend pas tellement plus libres (car nous sommes toujours limités par nos moyens) mais beaucoup plus tristes, c’est-à-dire nous sentant diminués dans notre puissance d’agir (6).
Pour résumer : crainte de ne pas être choisi, crainte de mal choisir et crainte de devoir renoncer… Cela fait beaucoup de craintes ! Etre autonome, ce n’est pas chose facile. Et quoi que je vous écrive ici, vous ne vous sentirez probablement pas rassurés pour autant.
Aussi vous me permettrez un ultime conseil : ce n’est pas ce que vous choisirez qui compte, mais pourquoi vous le choisirez. Visez ce qui provoquera en vous de la joie, ce qui vous permettra de vous sentir vivant et de vous épanouir. Gardez ce critère toute votre vie, car c’est cela la véritable liberté, « quand nos actes émanent de notre personnalité entière, quand ils l’expriment, quand ils ont avec elle cette indéfinissable ressemblance qu’on trouve parfois entre l’œuvre et l’artiste » (7).
(1) Parmi les classiques sur cette question : Le Discours de la méthode, de René Descartes (1637), et Réponse à la question : Qu’est-ce que les Lumières ?, d’Emmanuel Kant (1784). (2) Günther Anders, L’Obsolescence de l’homme : sur l’âme à l’époque de la deuxième révolution industrielle (1956). (3) Eric Sadin, L’Intelligence artificielle ou l’enjeu du siècle : anatomie d’un antihumanisme radical (2018). (4) Jean-Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme (1946). (5) André Gide, Les Nourritures terrestres (1897). (6) Baruch Spinoza, Ethique (1677), partie III, prop. XI, scolie. (7) Henri Bergson, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (1889).
Phil’ d’Actu, l’actualité au crible de la philosophie
Thomas Schauder est professeur de philosophie en classe de terminale à Troyes (Aube). Il décrypte l’actualité dans ses chroniques Philo d’Actu, publiées deux fois par mois, sur Le Monde.fr/campus, et sur son site Internet, qui référence également ses autres travaux.
Publicație : Le Monde
Parcoursup 2019 : un temps de transport trop long peut affecter la réussite des études
Les longs trajets pour se rendre dans son établissement sont le lot de nombreux étudiants, en particulier en région parisienne. Un facteur à prendre en compte dans son choix de formation.
Par Elodie Chermann Publié hier à 06h00, mis à jour hier à 08h40
Il existe une correlation entre réussite académique et temps de transports très longs, selon une étude de l’Observatoire de la vie étudiante Wikimédias
Nancy de Freitas Camara vit avec ses parents à Bobigny, en Seine-Saint-Denis, au nord de Paris. Etudiante à l’école d’ingénieurs Efrei, elle se lève tous les jours à 6 heures pour être en cours à 8 heures à Villejuif (Val-de-Marne), au sud de la capitale. « Comme il y a souvent des malaises voyageurs, des bagages oubliés, des colis suspects ou des problèmes de signalisation dans le métro, j’arrive en retard au moins une fois par semaine, confie-t-elle. Heureusement, certains profs tolèrent une marge de retard de quinze minutes. Je me sens déjà assez épuisée comme ça. Je ne me vois pas me lever encore plus tôt. »
Cinq minutes montre en main : c’est le temps qu’il faut chaque matin à Antoine Behr, 18 ans, pour aller en cours au guidon de son vélo. « Ayant toujours habité Courbevoie, c’était très pratique d’aller dans une école de management située à La Défense, raconte-t-il. Je n’ai aucun problème de transport, je n’arrive jamais en retard, je peux rentrer déjeuner chez moi le midi, et j’ai du temps pour réviser et faire des activités à côté. »
Deux étudiants franciliens, deux vies parallèles. Alors que les jeunes vont devoir choisir leur orientation, le temps de transport constitue-t-il un critère pertinent pour se décider entre deux formations ? Ces choix sont souvent cornéliens pour les futurs bacheliers, qui reçoivent leurs premières propositions d’admission mercredi 15 mai à 19 heures sur la plate-forme d’accès à l’enseignement supérieur Parcoursup.
Du temps pour étudier, faire du sport ou se détendre
« Au-delà de trois heures de transport quotidien, il y a une baisse significative de la réussite et un taux d’abandon des études bien supérieur à la moyenne », explique Olivier Klein, chercheur spécialiste des transports à l’université de Lyon. Mais même en dessous de trois heures, stress, fatigue, et surtout, manque de temps disponible pour réviser, faire du sport ou se détendre peuvent significativement altérer la qualité de vie, et la réussite dans ses études. Ainsi, les étudiants qui ont moins de dix minutes de transport sont 5,2 % à n’obtenir aucune validation de leur premier semestre contre 8,7 % pour ceux qui sont à une heure trente et plus de leur lieu d’études, selon une enquête de l’Observatoire de la vie étudiante (OVE).
Mathilde Kadouch, 23 ans, en licence 1 de sciences de la vie à l’université de Bordeaux, à Talence, connaît les risques, mais dit qu’elle n’a « pas vraiment le choix » : « Comme les loyers aux alentours sont excessivement chers, je vis à 40 kilomètres. » Pour se rendre à l’université, elle enchaîne la voiture jusqu’à la gare, le train, le bus et pour finir, soit le tram soit la marche. « Au total, je passe trois heures par jour dans les transports, comptabilise-t-elle. Ce sont trois heures où je ne peux ni étudier, ni me reposer. L’abonnement train et tram me revient à 65 euros par mois ; plus de 200 euros si je faisais le trajet en voiture. »
Publicație : Le Monde
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