Writing more than a century and a half ago, John Henry Newman defined a university as “a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. Many things are requisite to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this description; but such as this a University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country.”
His whole unfinished essay (“The Idea of a University”) is worth reading, but that definition in particular is still strong (in spite of the passage of time, the change of society and the rise of new media of communication).
Teachers and learners. You can’t have a university without them. Other things are necessary: books (and other more modern media), buildings and administrators. It might even be nice to provide amenities like sports and amusements and recreational centers. But the essence of a university is teaching and learning.
Somewhere, somehow, we’ve taken a wrong turn: in this country and in this University, at BGSU. Somehow, building glass-eyed empty behemoths has come to matter more than any educational experience that happens inside them. Instead of learning through “personal intercourse,” we hear talk of using the faculty with “more efficiency” — a phrase which suggests another and much less friendly form of intercourse.
Any regular reader of this space must be getting tired of rants against the BGSU administration, and I totally get that. I would rather be writing love letters to the awesome things going on at this University (like the Battleground States Conference, running this weekend: http://thecultureclubatbgsu.tumblr.com/schedule).
But the hits keep on coming. Last week’s outrage was the administration filing a Unfair Labor Practice complaint against the faculty union for refusing to reveal the names of its members.
There’s a good reason why the BGSU-FA refused to reveal the names of its members. It would be perfectly illegal to do so.
We’re not talking about some secret power or privilege attached to the union. It’s the individual members’ rights that are at stake.
It’s well established in labor law that employees have the right to keep their association with the union private if they choose — particularly if they think they might suffer retaliation if it were revealed. The BGSU 100 could so easily become the BGSU 101, if you know what I mean. Releasing the membership list might affect their jobs, and would certainly violate their rights to freedom of association and privacy.
But the present administration, like the previous one, cares nothing about the destruction of individual rights. If it can wield the power they think is theirs, they don’t mind the harm their policies cause.
It’s a disgrace that a thin dented penny of University resources has been spent on this mere attack on the rights of Ohio citizens. But it wasn’t the first such and sadly it probably won’t be the last.
What would happen if the administration stopped treating the University faculty as an enemy that had to be destroyed? What if they cut out the legal and extra-legal theatrics and settled down to do their job — supporting faculty and students in teaching and learning, the central mission of this and every university?
It’s nice to think about, but it doesn’t seem likely to happen soon. For the time being, the admininstration’s power-grab at the rights of Ohio citizens must be stopped.
If it isn’t, this University will never become the community of teaching and learning that it could be.
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