08 May 2012

What are universities for?

All around the world, old assumptions are being challenged.

In education, as in the rest of life, we find we can no longer take for granted the premises which we once took for granted. Universities find themselves defending the idea that a broad based higher education – with enquiry spanning across all subjects and social backgrounds – is a social good worthy of public investment. Governments and families seeking to quantify or value something they may not have experienced, are increasingly defining our contribution solely in terms of economic activity, growth, impact and a passport to well-paid employment.

As technology changes, the world’s knowledge has never been more easily at our fingertips. Lectures and courses are available just a few clicks away from a Google search. So people are asking, what are universities for?

Inside academia, we are also looking past the immediate challenges or research, teaching and impact and asking ourselves the same fundamental questions. Do we still know how to answer the question, what are universities for? Have our answers changed? Must they change further? Can we give the same reason in Shanghai as Sheffield?

Ultimately I can only speak for myself, and my own answer to the question of the value of universities begins with my own experience.

I became an academic first by enchantment with science. I was captivated by the possibility of learning about the deepest knowledge we have of the world around us.

The way this started came back to me rather vividly when I went into the public library in Bridgend in South Wales last month. I suddenly remembered the thrill of leafing through Dirac's classic book on Quantum Theory. I had heard about the book, I think from reading New Scientist, and had ordered the book on inter-library loan.

Long before the days of search engines, access to knowledge demanded patience and I was thrilled when the little postcard announcing its arrival in my home town came through my door. I went into town to get the book with such excitement and remember at looking at what seemed mystical symbols to me. I could not understand much of it then, but the possibility that I might actually understand what I saw in the book thrilled me to the core. That is why I went to University.

Being an undergraduate was a life-changing experience in many ways. I was seeing so much but also sensing there was so much more to explore and understand. I did a PhD encouraged by my wife to think it was right to carry on with my obsession. Without her support I would not have had the courage to pursue what seemed at the time a powerful but selfish desire to go on learning.

I found I was good at science. I also saw how science had more influence on technology and people's lives than I had thought possible. I went on to teach part of the following generations about Physics. Seeing them enter the realm of science and grow to understand and love it as I did, was the most fulfilling part of my career. To be a successful guide and coach in learning is simply magical.

Later this year my last PhD student will leave "the nest". How do I feel now? I am still completely entranced by the beauty of physical theory and all the things I do not know. I cannot stop trying to learn about the world. I hope I will never ever lose this need. It helps me understand and expound the reasons why my colleagues also have such an intense commitment to their academic subjects, each seeking to ‘discover and understand’ our world, and what it means to be a human within it. And often this knowledge changes that experience, for ourselves and others.

As a vice-chancellor, my role has shifted though. I need to enable my colleagues to pursue the sort of obsession and vocation I had, and sometimes to explain to others the value of this transformational work. I need to be both a supporter and an advocate.

Time and again I am lifted by a deep sense of pride and reverence about what my academic colleagues in Sheffield do. I see them follow the path of commitment to knowledge, to teaching, and to making the world a better place. This is in spite of a much more challenging environment than I had to deal with. I hear this at first hand from those who do this work, those who support them and our students who benefit – and go on to share that benefit with others. Most recently talking to heads of academic departments, I have again seen the commitment in spite of difficulties that makes the University of Sheffield so wonderful – and so worth defending.

Of course, times do change. My colleagues give me challenges along with the inspiration to work for them. Our external environment also makes new demands of us, poses questions about a future which in which knowledge itself crosses boundaries and reaches people which would have been unimaginable to my teachers and librarian in Bridgend, or to the generation of academics who inspired me. We are also called upon to reach deep into society to address problems and challenges which require new ways of thinking, new applications of knowledge, fresh approaches. Our engagement with these will not only change our answers, but our questions.

It has been said that human beings are problem solving creatures. What makes a university a uniquely valuable place is that it specialises in defining and understanding what those problems are, and in reaching for solutions. To do both of these things well is vital for our world.

But for each of us, our relationship with knowledge is in the end also a personal one. I can't tell you what a university is for fully because – to a large extent – it is for you to answer that question through your own work. You must give life to your own meaning in your research, or the inspiration and support of another generation of students.

But I can tell you that I love being a part of one. I acknowledge it for the privilege it is, for the great good it can and does do, and know there is no other place I would want to be.

Professor Keith Burnett
Vice-Chancellor