A la recherche …

We all have things in our lives that drive us crazy, some small and some large; and the university offers no shortage of these in my own daily existence, from the frequent total lack of any response when I attempt to contact certain people in Physical Plant, to the misguided way, in my opinion, with which we approach the deployment of Teaching Assistants.  But perhaps those can be subjects for another week!

Also high on my list of things that get up my nose with some regularity is one aspect of the language used in the Collective Agreement between the university and CUASA, and specifically the continual references to “the employer” and “employees”.  I suppose that these terms are technically correct, in a purely legalistic sense, but they reflect an understanding of the nature of the university that I don’t happen to share … or at least don’t wish to.  And hence my annoyance when they are used in that particular document.  The implication is that faculty members are merely one of a number of employee groups, all of whom work for “the employer”, by which is presumably understood the university administration.  I know that some will say that this is simply language, and consequently is not important … but I shall beg to differ.  The language that we use is exceptionally important, as it frames and guides the discourse in any particular situation.  And it is precisley this point which provides the basis for our program of study in applied linguistics.

At the heart of my objection is a fundamental difference of opinion regarding the definition of “the university”.  What do we understand when we say the words “Carleton University”?   Is it the physical campus: the buildings, the quad, the tunnels?  Is it our Board of Governors, which has the final say on most administrative and financial matters? Is it the executive committee of the president and vice-presidents?

I am probably the only person on campus who, if asked, would choose to define the university, any university, as the body of its faculty and students, the “universitas magistrorum et scholarium”, or corporation of teachers and scholars, a concept which emerged in Europe in the central Middle Ages, and which constitutes the origin of our modern word “university”.  OK, I will concede that this is a medieval view, and not one grounded in current reality … but I suppose I am to some extent the sort of person whom Hermann Hesse defined as an “antiquarian”, namely a seeker in the past.  In my view we could lose the campus, and still have a “university”; and ditto for the Board and the administration.  All those things are certainly important, and useful for the university to continue to function, but they are not necessary for it to exist.  Faculty and students are a different matter.  I shall confess that there are days when I am reminded of one of my favourite episodes of the British television show, “Yes, Minister”.  Jim Hacker is setting off to present an award to the most efficient hospital in the country – and is more than a little shocked when Sir Humphrey mentions that it doesn’t have any doctors or patients!

In the ideal university of my mind, one true to its medieval origins, the faculty and students ARE the university, by definition, and all others are their employees.  In such an institution there would be no place for a faculty union, but there might be one for a union of deans and the president.  What a thought!