'Great civilizing conversations' within higher education

Higher education is not directly about job preparation, nor should it be. Not that such study impairs a student's ability to get and keep a good job: in this quest, a university degree can help greatly.

But for me, the more interesting question is "if liberal arts universities are not about specific job preparation; then what are they about?"

They are about "the great civilizing conversation" of our common life as human beings on a small and now increasingly stressed planet. They provide the opportunity for a person, usually a young adult, though this is not necessary, to participate in this conversation and be changed for the better by the experience. Are these the sad generalities by an academic? Strictly speaking, I'm not an academic. I live in both worlds and, outside the university, I know the pressures of the job, the competition of the market place and the growing need in many fields for technical competence and able practitioners. Those within the university are no longer, if they ever were, immune from such pressures. I also know first-hand that able practitioners are developed slowly through years of practice. Training schools can help but they cannot guarantee one will become an able practitioner. This is true in the vast array of human services where many people are employed in Canada, and it is true as well in the science and technology fields. Despite the increasing complexity and alarming power of our technologies for managing both people and things, humane and wise problem-solvers and decision-makers are required who can think outside their professional and technical boxes. The problems we face today call for human beings who care about their work and have a sense of responsibility that is capable of guiding them beyond their own personal and professional self-interests and presuppositions.

These qualities are enhanced and developed in part through solid experiences in higher education. Often they are intangible, difficult to measure. They do not automatically show themselves as the results of any particular educational technology. They are part of the "hiddenness," what can transpire between student and teacher, what can happen in good conversations over time. These conversations, which take a variety of written and spoken forms, take time, effort and talent to develop: time for students to find their own voice. It is important that students not be excessively preoccupied with "job preparation" and the acquisition of too-specific skills for tasks that may not have the same value, or perhaps not even exist, in five years time.

My work puts me in regular contact with business people, social workers, clergy, psychologists, nurses, teachers, psychiatrists, doctors and justice and corrections workers. All are highly skilled professionals; many have been to both university and technical schools. All will be challenged by their work situations, their clients, their cases, and the institutional systems they work within.

Universities, if they are about anything, are about preparing people for such challenges. Niels Christie, the well-known Scandinavian sociologist, spoke at Saint Thomas University in New Brunswick a few years ago to a room filled with professionals and students aspiring to be professionals. He told a simple story that illustrated the profound ambiguities of "crime." Then he said, "there is no such thing as a 'crime.'" His utterance had a "playful" aspect but it was also provocative and unsettling. Those in the audience were experiencing the university and university teaching at its best. I know of no other place where such heartfelt questioning happens.

Christie pointed to the fact that there is a significant disproportion of young males from minority groups in our prisons. His assertion, with its implied question, provoked not so much a technical knowledge of the deeds labelled "criminal" as an uneasy "self-knowledge"; a subjective awareness of how we "name" things and how this changes over time and across cultural contexts.

I saw the effects of this event still resonating in the minds of students minoring in philosophy and majoring in criminology, a very popular "applied arts" program at Saint Thomas which has a relatively well-defined career path. Because of exposure to philosophy, one of the oldest humanities' courses, they were asking the Socratic question: "What is justice?"

This question never is finally settled but it remains alive in "the conversation."

Not long ago I witnessed students preparing to go to the Quebec City Trade Summit to join in organized protest. At the time we were studying the British philosopher, John Locke. I was burdened, as are most middle-aged adults, by what seemed to me to be more pressing worries. Locke was becoming rather dry and his manner of expression made my task of getting students to read his writings difficult. Some were going to Quebec and many more knew of friends who were going.

The complex challenges of globalization are many. They raise questions as to the role of nation states, and as to the nature of democracy in a global context. Locke's own writing influenced the often traumatic course of democratic government and state authority. These students were struggling, many for the first time, with the present political determinations of the "possible" on a global scale. Many were searching for some helpful context in which to "read" the meaning of the issues and events.

John Locke's thinking on political power and authority seemed to provide a helpful context. His argument that political authority ultimately is based upon the consent of the people seemed to suddenly come alive. Hence, I believe that the Quebec Summit became a profound learning experience for many university students, participating in the great and turbulent conversation. There is a painful tension between the direct experience of State-sanctioned, and apparently indiscriminate, use of tear gas and the desire to move the political leadership of nation states to implement a more just international order.

The political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes might have given us a different interpretation of these events. Hobbes places a strong emphasis on the need for state authority to maintain the social order and public peace among the unruly masses.

Universities are especially good at exploring such divergent viewpoints. But we are not studying Hobbes this spring because the students had selected Locke earlier. Even in higher education the selection of dominant voices from the great conversation has an element of luck to it. Or in the Catholic higher education tradition, which Saint Thomas University remains a part of, we might chalk it up to Providence.

The university needs the humanities and the ideal of their civilizing and humanizing influence. Much of what the university does cannot be measured easily in terms of economic benefits. A farmer friend, many year ago, honoured the fact I was a university student, though he had never gone beyond the grade school at the end of his lane. He loved books, and he would ask to peruse my own books. He honoured the fact that I was trying to read Camus and Kant (though as a devoted Anglican he thought I should be reading the King James Bible as well). And because of this appreciation for what, at the time, I did not see, I went back to university in the fall.

Hugh Williams writes from Debec, N.B.

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