Re-orienting the University

Talk at the latest meeting of the October Club centred around the Orientation Week discussions and lectures. This year a group of students formed an Orientation Committee to approach stage 1 students to try and create some awareness among students about their role in the university, and the university's role in society.

The medium chosen was that which figures most prominently in the life of the student—the lecture. Coupled with hand-outs which tried to create student awareness, these lectures were aimed at building an atmosphere conducive to dialogue and discussion.

Opposition

Some staff members were receptive to the action that was being initiated. Others, however, were quite dubious, and apparently fearful of what might evolve from free, critical discussion of the issues facing their departments. The difficulty of actually getting into some departments necessitated toning down some of the lectures.

If everyone is to be reached, a cordial atmosphere between staff and student must be maintained.

The actions of the Orientation Committee were bred out of the dissatisfaction and frustration which are rife on campus at the moment, and the belief that these feelings are unavoidable consequences of the way the university operates and what it operates for. Many students simply do not enjoy university life—university is seen as a sort of obstacle course, a suffering that one has to experience to achieve some distant but enticing future happiness. Students tend to view their problems as peculiar to themselves, not realising that the problems arise not from within, but from outside pressures.

Orientation lectures attempted to create this realisation. The solution of the problem is in a sense socialistic because the problem becomes not an individual one, but that of the group. The focus therefore is not on the individual but on collective participation and organisation.

Rationales preclude analysis

Many students have a dismal attitude, resulting from a long history of constricting and negative influences. Critical awareness is minimal and honest appraisal of what education is all about is dextrously avoided. The development of such an attitude is ably assisted by the ideological slants of the subjects that are taught. Many subjects simply discourage critical appraisal of their own particular reason for existence. From sociology to chemistry to business administration, underlying rationales preclude a true critical analysis.

Most subjects are grounded in a firm belief in the virtues of empiricism, of a supposedly value-free study of simply "what is". If what exists around the student is to be studied, and the scope for this type of superficial study is endless, then to accommodate it all and continue studying it, almost unavoidably leads the student to a position of assent, to an unquestioning acceptance of the status quo. Challenges posed to this orthodox method are treated in a totally cursory fashion, because alternatives cannot be studied by such methods.

Take, by way of example, the study of dialectics. The theory involves the resolution of contradictory and opposing forces, and yet it is studied with methods embedded in theories involving equilibrium theory which involves ideas totally inappropriate for the study of the conflicts of dialectics. The study of radical alternatives therefore becomes mere tokenism, and the supposedly liberal arts in reality are as narrow and accepting as commerce and science subjects, because all are reducible to a common denominator of ideological mystification.

Alienation

A lot of students have no idea why feelings of frustration and discontentment abound. The university after all is really nothing more than the people in it, and to talk therefore of university as something "out there", detached and dominating, can only mean that the student feels discontentment with the social relations that the people at university have established. This feeling of alienation, from what 'should really be the fruitful and rewarding relationships with those whom one is surrounded with, finds it counterpart in other areas of university life. Subjects, for instance, are not to be enjoyed but mastered. Instead of becoming part of a student's life, they become outside of and opposed to the student, to be strenuously avoided. This can be seen in the way in which textbooks are avoided like the plague in the period November to March. As long as knowledge is to be dissected, dealt out and digested, and learning manipulated and distorted, so as to become compliant with the demands of getting a job and earning a living, such alienation is unavoidable.

Staff not the enemy

The focus of conflict in the university is not staff-student relationships. The idea that they are is a throwback to days at school, and memories of authoritative and apparently omnipotent teachers. The polarisation that this mistaken view leads to is a hindrance to staff-student unity and frustrates the creation of a learning atmosphere.

Staff themselves have their own set of pressures that tend to ensure the maintenance of the present system. For instance, the roles of teacher and administrator are closely tied and the possibility of personal advancement necessarily involves "toeing the line", and the desire is not to become a better teacher but to become a better administrator. Surely if a lecturer or tutor is to become fully involved in learning as well as teaching, then he should be free from promotional concerns and constricting administrative preoccupations.

No assessment

Assessment, something which is a direct course of the present dissatisfaction on campus is not in itself wrong or somehow injurious. But the reasons for being assessed will determine the methods of assessment used, and the strictness with which they are applied. The university, as it stands, is an institution interlocking with the rest of society. Its continuance demands that it fulfils its functions within society, and so the question of the university's function in society cannot be divorced from the question of assessment and its function. As long as the system of which the university functions as a part, demands that students be rigourously and strictly assessed, on the basis of quite distorted criteria, then the problems associated with assessment will remain.

The type of change that the October Club is hoping to achieve and which was attempted by the Orientation Committee involves advancement on two levels. Dialogue and thought must be complemented by positive action. This combination of action and reflection should lead to changes on both the level of structure and consciousness. This sort of synthesis was the one aimed for by the Orientation Committee. The success achieved and the experience and guidelines gained promise well for future action.