Theoretical and conceptual knowledge frameworks

University Idea

The university is unique among institutionalized entities. Distinct from the corporation, the government agency or the religious congregation, the university represents a convergence of ideas, knowledge, imagination, reasoning and thinking. Where many of the institutions the comprise our society and culture are simple and definable in nature, the university continues to elude clear definition. This is because of its multi-dimensionality, a quality which drives the focus of Downey's (2000) discussion. According to Downey (2000), efforts at defining the university have often been confounded by the ambition of scholars to pigeonhole it into a single role. Whether this role is an a place of education, a cite for the receipt of professional credentials or a training context for one's profession, any of these ways of understanding the university falls short of capturing its nuance, complexity and socio-cultural importance. It is thus that Downey (2000) attempts to correct these failures of definition by promoting a multi-dimensional lens for evaluating the university. Downey (2000) identifies these dimensions as corporation, collegium and community, making the case that these are the fundamental aspects of the institution which distinguish it from all other areas of public life. Our discussion deconstructs Downey's (2000) claims with the interest of better understanding the role of the modern university.

Corporation, collegium, and community:

Downey's (2000) discussion initiates from the understanding that scholars have frequently failed to effectively define the university because they have oversimplified its intended purpose. Given the importance of the faculty present at a university in defining its internal culture, it would be inappropriate to simply seek a student-driven definition of the university. Further, the degree to which the social and lifestyle elements of university life may be considered essential denotes that it is not sufficient simply to define the institution according to the intercession of faculty and student interests. It is thus that Downey (2000) offers a construct that is intended to underline the intercession of the features which make the university so singular. He calls this a trinity of concurrent and individually important functions.

In order to better understanding this claim, Downey (2000) offers us a breakdown on the implications of each of the three dimensions. Accordingly, he indicates that every university inherently adheres to some of the characteristics of a corporation. Indeed, the university is an institution where the need for self-perpetuation, for the proper handling of resources, for the maintenance of regulatory affairs and for the appointment of internal leadership structures, just to name a few core qualities. Quite essential among these qualities, Downey (2000) indicates that the university as a corporation reflects some of the necessary structural conceits that allow a corporation to function according to its goals and capabilities, regardless of popular sentiment. To this end, Downey (2000) reminds us that corporations "have a hierarchical structure, with authority vested in a corporate board and delegated to designated officers. Because legal compliance across a range of accountabilities is required of it, the university as a corporation cannot afford to operate as a consensual community; it needs administrative levers to act, and its structure provides them." (p. 306)

According to this view, the human elements of the university must be treated at least to an extent as being analogous to the personnel roles which comprise a corporation. Here, administrators are akin to officers, professors identified as employees and students treated as clients. This is a necessary way of understanding the university, because its continuity relies heavily upon its coalescence to such corporate priorities as ethical codification, customer service, performance review, quality assurance and the achievement of certain financial benchmarks. As Downey (2000) demonstrates, these features are crucial as the university supports its goals of scholarship, research and accreditation by efficiently and formally structuring itself to distribute resources, maintain effective employment and promote its identity to would-be clients.

In other words, many of the practical aims of the university's survival and functionality depend on this corporate modality. These practical features must be supplemented, Downey (2000) reports, by a sound philosophical grounding. In most universities, this philosophical grounding is often captured by the phrase 'academic freedom.' This, Downey (2000) tells, is at the very root of the second modality of the university-defining trinity, collegium. According to the present discussion, this is the broad and determinant role played by the collective of professors and academics in establishing the atmosphere and identity of a school. According to Downey (2000), "the collegium is the complex network of assumptions, traditions, protocols, relations, and structures within the university which permit the professoriate to control and conduct the academic affairs of the institution, determining, among other things, who shall be admitted, who shall teach and research, what shall be taught and researched, and what standards shall be set for which rewards." (p. 306)

This, our research indicates, is an essential feature of the university which allows its instructors and scholars to function according to their own respective understanding of the search for truth. This, Downey (2000) indicates, predicates both the individual and collective freedom for professors to challenge their students, to promote research goals, to publish literature and to engage forms of pedagogy that are based on the ongoing insights and innovations of the faculty.

Contrary to many other walks of institutional life, Downey (2000) sees this structure as conferring a distinct level of both autonomy in taking individual liberties with one's instructional approach and of collaborative strength in providing educators with a forum through which to affirm university policy and identity. On this point, Downey (2000) goes so far as to compare the faculty of a university to something of a 'priesthood,' choosing this analogy for the faith and power which are essentially invested in a school's faculty. Ultimately, the role that this tier of personnel will serve both in contact with the student and independently within the framework of the university will be key features by which the institution is recognized as a whole.

In this way, Downey (2000) argues, there is a certain democratic order that persists within the faculty that enables all personnel to contribute findings, experiences, opinions and arguments to discussions on curriculum, policy and pedagogy. Quite to the point, Downey's (2000) trinity theory promotes the idea that the collegium is the most likely dimension of the university to serve as an agent of social change, a role which is often of catalyzing importance within an institution of truth and learning. Here, Downey (2000) argues that "it is through this time-intensive process that the consensus is formed which is so essential to concerted action. At the same time, it is also the process which often seems to those outside the university, not to say many within, to inhibit unreasonably institutional responsiveness to social change. When under pressure to respond with dispatch, most universities of course find ways of doing so, especially when institutional self-interest is involved." (p. 307) These 'ways of doing so' are, Downey (2000) reports, generally channeled through the efforts, actions and interests of a university's faculty. By comprising the dimension of the university trinity that is most directly understood according to its human units but which is simultaneously reflective of institutional principles in its collective impact on policy, the professoriate has the capacity to respond most intuitively to external changes in culture and society, even where this may seem to contrast longstanding university policy or identity.

With respect to its identity, a university will often be perceived by its students according to the community which is thereby formed. It is thus that community forms the third of Downey's (2000) modalities. This dimension of the university trinity is necessary to our understanding of the lifestyle, geographical layout and environmental norms that constitute the college experience. As Downey (2000) observes, there is perhaps no other institution which so accurately and credibly replicates the community experience as does a university. Downey (2000) points out that the collegiate "institution has such an impressive range of communal attributes. There is first the physical infrastructure of land, buildings, roads, sewers, communication and transportation systems, and cultural and athletic facilities. There is as well the infrastructure of a different sort; this is the impressive range of services provided to citizens -- personal, professional, social, recreational, and of course educational." (p. 307)

This, Downey (2000) indicates, is fleshed out by an inherent diversity, both within the population which has arrived at the school from any number of demographic cross-sections and within the array of professional and scholarly opportunities that are represented in its courses, clubs, electives, events, activities and specialized avenues of professional development. In this sense, the university is not just a replicated community but it is also a highly contrived idealization of such a community, where all members of the community are given equal opportunity to study in their area of interest, to congregate in their preferred social landscape and to engage their own various opportunities. Downey (2000) points out that this type of role selection is not necessarily an accurate foreshadowing of that which one can expect once beyond the protective confines of the university. And it is to this end that the university is so distinct in the way that it provides a community which is most hospitable to intellectual and emotional growth.

Difficulty of Harmonization:

Downey (2000) points to a modern vagary of our persistent state of global recession in making the case that it is difficult to find harmony between the stated goals of his trinity. Indeed, though this reflects a certain ideal for university functionality, it contrasts the reality in many contexts. Writing on Canada's higher education system, which has been largely subsidized by government funding on an historical basis, Downey (2000) indicates that that more privately run university system in America is becoming a model to public officials. This, Downey (2000) demonstrates, is to the detriment of the university's capacity to reflect the modalities of his trinity in harmony. As he remarks, the Canadian government is finding itself increasingly hobbled by the enormity of its public works. The result is that higher education institutions are beginning to suffer from the pinch. According to Downey (2000), "with this dramatic reduction in government support will likely come a partial deregulation of tuition fees. These two actions together will place a great deal of stress upon the corporation in meeting its obligations to the state, on the one hand, and to students, faculty, and staff, on the other." (p. 308)

Downey (2000) indicates that as a consequence, all parties affiliated with the university will experience a diminishing return for their investment. Downey (2000) warns that in the face of reduced government support, shortages in resource will result in faculty downsizing, reductions in wages and benefits, smaller ranges of available study courses and a lowering of the standards of community services. In other words, absent the public support which has always been instrumental to the Canadian university system, it will become increasingly difficult to balance the imperatives of corporation, collegium and community.

Quite to this point, the mere need for survival seems to tilt the balance toward the corporate modality. Here, the imperative simply to remain economically viable tends to overshadow the importance of academic freedom or the character of the campus. And yet, as we will explore further, this produces something of a defensive posture amongst the other dimensions of the university. This, in turn, produces certain patterns of behavior which impede upon the corporate functionality of the university. As Downey (2000) states on this point, "there never has been a time perhaps when all of these elements have been fully present and perfectly balanced, but present dangers of imbalance are greater than they have been in a long time." (309-310)

Three critical tensions:

Essentially, the discussion above contributes to the major tensions which make the ideal university so difficult to attain. In particular, there is a relative discomfit between the imperatives of the university as a corporation and the university as a collegium. To an extent, the pressure to remain viable in recession, under the thumb of public funding crises or in times of unusually low enrollment tend to cause an entrenchment of corporate values. For administrators, officers, board members and chair-holders, remaining either profitable or merely operational will stand with far greater imposition than the interests of academic freedom. This suggests that the core tension between the corporate and collegiate modalities is manifested in the sometimes differing interests of academic freedom and financial viability. That said, Downey's (2000) model is intended to balance these priorities rather than to choose between them. Therefore, he makes the argument that "it is by no means foreordained that bicameralism will wane as corporatism waxes; it will depend in large part on what imaginative power the concept of collegium holds academics." (p. 308)

To this extent, Downey (2000) argues that the tension in question can be resolved through the intuition and flexibility of the professoriate. This alludes to another critical tension preventing the proper balance between modalities. Downey (2000) makes mention of the relative empowerment of the collegium by arguing that the strength of its union has had a limiting impact on the functionality of the university's administrative appendages. That is, because teaching unions have so effectively limited the authority of the university's corporate apparatus, they have assumed something of a dominance in certain areas of policy and practice. Downey (2000) argues that this has been done under the auspices of academic freedom, but that it has limited the ability of universities to effectively govern themselves. Downey (2000) characterizes this by noting that "at the same time that faculty unionization limited the discretionary powers of boards of governors, it removed from academic senates several important jurisdictions over the terms and conditions of employment of faculty, promotion and tenure criteria and procedures being only the most obvious example." (p. 308)