Part Four

The conduct of the New Power University

Any reform movement which is limited to correcting slovenly or slipshod abuses in our university will lead inevitably to a reform which is equally slovenly . . . An institution is a machine in that its whole structure and functioning must be devised in view of the service it is expected to perform. In other words, the root of university reform is a complete formulation of its purpose. Any alteration, or touching up, or adjustment about this house of ours, unless it starts by reviewing the problem of its mission – clearly, decisively, truthfully – will be love’s labour lost.

José Ortega y Gasset (1946)

Having considered how the New Power University must evolve in terms of its purposes and its relationships with students, staff and affiliated communities, the final question is how should it conduct itself, both internally, in terms of the structures and governance, and externally, in the way it engages with the wider world of policy and politics.

The existing and long-practised organisational structure of the university into cognate disciplines may no longer be fit for purpose, and a new approach should be adopted, focused on the wide range of difficult-to-solve challenges that face the world today. This will free the New Power University to participate in the different types of ecosystems that are necessary to tackle these complex problems, some located in nearby geographies, others connected through transient affiliations globally. This, in turn, requires a more pluralistic and informal approach that eliminates the separation of academic from operational oversight, with a more networked, ‘opt-in’ governance, that has the delivery of the social good of the university as its main priority.

When looking outwards, the New Power University must engage with the policy and political debates of the day. The ‘sitting on the fence’ position that many old power universities adopt on issues of contemporary importance is untenable. Instead, the New Power University must become an advocate on issues that matter. To pretend that universities are apolitical is a hypocrisy that undermines their social purpose and makes them remote from life.