Globe and Mail Columnist Attacks the Ontario University

In a recent opinion piece, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wende effectively calls Ontario's Universities bloated, inefficient, unaccountable customer services institutions. Fortunately for the province, however, she points to the recently published book Academic Transformations as the solution to the problems faced by an allegedly unsustainable model for post-secondary education.

Wende argues,

"Yet the benefits of all this research are often remarkably obscure. What the market really needs is a lot less marginal research, and better ways to deliver utility courses such as Introduction to Thermodynamics. Ultimately, this means a two-tier university system, with a few elite research-intensive universities, and more teaching-centred ones. (The colleges are more efficient.)"

The benefits of research are often obscure? I am surprised such a ridiculously moronic statement made it way to the webpages of a somewhat intelligent and enlightened publication like the Globe and Mail. Its utter obserdity, I believe, speaks for itself. I challenge Ms. Wende to a thought-experiment. Mentally, travel back in time and stop all research whose benefits can be deemed obscure at that time and try to live a single day without the latter realised benefits of the research that she stopped.

As much as you, and many of our policy makers, wish and believe that a research model based on development and commercialisation yields the best bang-for-buck, it is only the tip of the iceberg and only can exist on top a large, broad foundation of basic (or obscure, if you prefer) body of research. The former, in most cases, is well tailored for the private sector since this is the final rung between idea and the marketplace and profits are foreseeable at this point. The latter is best suited for the public sector (i.e. Universities) since it is an investment in our collective idea and knowledge infrastructure providing the building blocks for entrepreneurs and businesses to develop products, services and intellectual property for the marketplace. But that is not the only benefit of strong public investment in basic (i.e. curiosity-driven research). We can also use it to educate our populace and provide a productive outlet for human creativity. This is why Universities exist, NOT "to efficiently deliver mass undergraduate education to 30 or 40 per cent of the population".

The argument of Wende's piece and this book are predicated on the assumption that the previous quote is the mission of our Universities and at, "Universities now do this job in the most expensive way possible". This is a dangerous premise to start from, however. It seems to me that the mass production of people with undergraduate degrees may look good on paper and help continue to supply the labour market it endangers the developing of a truly creative, analytical population with a culture of critical thinking. As Wende concedes, "U.S. commentator Walter Russell Mead remarks, taxpayers are not going to subsidize research in critical literary theory much longer". A narrowly focused research program based on commercial viability and the latest trends is a recipie for disaster chasing our brightest and most creative minds away and leaving us with narrow-thinkers and followers who have little use for academic freedom since they do what they are told and what is commonly acceptable rather than push the envelope.

At the end of the day this entire discussion is about money. Wende believes that Universities cost too much while I believe that they do not recieve sufficient public funding. While we claim to be amonst the most educated juristictions in the world I believe it is perverse that we invest the second lowest amount per student in all of North America and that we have the highest tuition fees in Canada. As for faculty salaries, one must consider the vast personal investment of over a decade of one's adult life that goes into training and the mortgage-size debtloads that emerge with no guarantee of return on investment. There is then the struggle to be considered for tenure, to maintain an active and dynamic research program, stay on top of the latest developments in pedagogy and your respective field to facilitate you teaching duties, participation in institutional governance, active involvement in one's community (both geographically and academically). University professor is not a 40 hour a week job. Despite all of these additional responsibilities Universities know that they have to compete amongst the private sector for the best minds.

Lets see public funding in Ontario's Universities at least meet the national average before we call them unsustainable. And please take a moment to reflect on the role of the University in society beyond being a degree factory before you advocate drastic (and I believe dangerous) changes to it. Just because somebody published a crappy book (which was also funded by tax dollars btw) about post-secondary education in Ontario does not mean they know everything and that they are correct in their premises, arguments and conclusions (just one of the many things I learned at Laurentian University).