Dear Stephan and dear Colleagues,
For the Portuguese readers, I published recently an article on this matters in Revista Punkto: http://www.revistapunkto.com/2017/11/para-que-servem-as-universidades.html
In short, concluding the universities should primary be for:
1. Take care, keep alive and disseminate Knowledge (the information about knowledge) already produced.
2. Give the regions of the future an intelectual leadership, allowing a great amount of people to move up socially through culture and knowledge.
3. Stand as a public space of learning and teaching between generations amongst real people.
These seem quite obvious stuff. But the menaces are really obvious also:
1. The obsession with producing new knowledge tends to erase the History of Knowledge.
2. The universities are loosing their cultural dimension in favor of an “employment”, "real-life" and techno obsessions that, in the end, will commodify humans to act as socio-digital serfs.
3. An Ubersity is growing disconnecting a community of professors and students that is erasing the University as Public Space and consequently diminishing the power of Universities to stand for the common good.
In short, universities should serve the Past (that strange entity that comprehends the whole of Humanity). They should serve the Present by the being-in-the-world of humans as humans forming people to elevate themselves from commodification and being able to understand and preserve places, communities, cultures by keeping them alive. They should serve also the Future by standing in favor of Public Space in human societies.
Please note that I’m not saying “Higher Education institutions” but saying “Universities”.
well, I know that I’m just adding something to the diagnosis.
So, Who does the University serves today? The system that is interested in erasing history, in commodify humans, in neglecting places and regions, in the disappearance of public space…
Best regards,
Eduardo
Eduardo Corte-Real
PhD Arch.
Associate Professor
Professor Associado com Agregação
[log in to unmask]
Av. Dom Carlos I, nº4, 1200-649 Lisboa, Portugal
T: +351 213 939 600
> No dia 15/12/2017, às 01:03, Stephen B Allard <[log in to unmask]> escreveu:
>
> Hello Design Scholars...
>
> The topic of why the university exists and who it is to serve in 2017 recently came up among some colleagues. In light of the rapid and radical changes in global higher education, I am wondering if this list has any views or opinions on the subject.
>
> A brief perusal of wikipedia will tell us that the west has distinguished itself from the east in terms of academic freedom and the ability of the church to grant degrees and provide qualified government administrators to princely and/or otherwise royal families of Europe. Similarly, in the Islamic world that includes Asia and Africa, the university existed to train and qualify those who would serve the government.
>
> With the university now in 2017 which is increasingly being converted into a profits generating corporation that monetizes the future of the workforce, and applies pressure to generate knowledge that can be economically weaponized Is the university now structured to deliver knowledge that can only serve investors and financial benefactors, or is there pockets of resistance out there that aim to develop the next generation into enlightened productive citizens apart from this new financial futures market aspect of 21st century higher education?
>
> This is uniquely fitting for design education as I see more and more design educators reaching for the research PhD in order to sustain their career at the expense of a career designing or teaching the next generation in a focused and devoted manner. In the process there is growing revolt, as the divide between student and professor, and professor and administrator grows wider because there is no clear picture as to who the university is there to serve. Is it the wealth of administrators, careers of scholars, or indebted students who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the 21st century university?
>
>
>
> Stephen B Allard
> Seoul, Korea
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
> Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|