Comment: Universities must redefine their roles

GREAT universities are not born. They are made, by people who have a clear understanding of the factors that contribute to academic excellence. They also have a vision of the purpose of higher education, both in the national scheme of things as well as in the larger world context.

Even more crucial, in their view, is the need for all to embrace and claim ownership of the core values that underpin their organisations’ culture of ethics and integrity.

Their vision is focused, and not obscured or clouded, by political expediency and other extraneous influences that are harmful to the pursuit of academic excellence. In the context of our public universities, I am not suggesting that the government in Putrajaya should not be allowed a hand in guiding the progress and development of our universities.

"He who pays the piper calls the tune." Our only hope is that the tune is not called too often and that it does not produce too many discordant notes to add to an already confused situation.

Malaysian academics must, in all fairness, take their share of responsibility for the seriously declining standards of scholarship, which is a matter of national concern. The long queues of unemployable Malaysian university graduates speak volumes about both the quality of education itself and the policies that produce a level of mediocrity never seen before.

We have some great universities and outstanding academics to match, but the quality, overall, is patchy. Universities are less about their exterior and more about the quality of work of their scholars. The sooner they reinvent themselves the better before the rot truly sets in.

I agree entirely with the great ethicist, Professor Charles Samford of Griffith University, Australia, when he says in one of his books that "ethical demands fall on all those in public life. It is their ethical duty to serve the ‘public interest’ by helping their institution to live up to its justification" .

Senior academics have a clear duty to safeguard and protect the standing and reputation of their immediate university community. In doing this, they help strengthen the ethical legitimacy of their institutions to serve the wider community and the nation, with honesty, transparency, accountability and efficiency.

What is involved in leading academic institutions? A predominant characteristic of a traditional university is "authority vested in hierarchy". However, experience has shown that an uncritical application of authority tends to produce a culture of slavish compliance rather than one of commitment.

If our ultimate objective is to achieve results of a lasting nature, then we have to go beyond mere compliance. Leading men and women successfully requires a range of complex skills, acquired by diligent study, observation and dint of hard work. The rest are, in my view, values inherent in our individual make-up.

Vice-chancellors and other senior academics must be quick to demonstrate that they stand, uncompromisingly, for ethical and principled leadership. Leadership by example is rarely seen in the management of today’s public and private institutions. In the realm of effective management, there is no substitute for values-based leadership at all levels.

University vice-chancellors perform an impossible job. The juggling and fancy footwork required in meeting the many, often, conflicting demands of the Higher Education Ministry and other clients can wear down even the most resolute of them.

Can we develop a profile of effective administrators or managers, because that is what vice-chancellors are in practice? Let me borrow from the experience of the UN Office of Human Resource Management, which focuses, quite rightly, on three main competencies:

• Accountability — Leaders account for, report on, and explain their actions and the use of resources.

• Values — Leaders exemplify and live by their organisational core values.

• Emotional maturity — Leaders must be able to take the good with the bad, and rise above personal pettiness, always putting the interest of their university at the forefront of their actions.

• People management, demonstrating a great capacity to articulate ideas and advance the vision and intellectual excellence of the university community. It also means an ability to cope with and manage change.

Managing our complex multicultural institutions will be extremely difficult without taking full account of, and showing due respect for, diversity.

This means an understanding of diverse world views and seeing diversity as an opportunity to contribute to an environment where different communities and perspectives can thrive in harmony with complete freedom, within the law, to exercise their basic rights. Mere tolerance is what is holding us back from achieving concrete results in our search for "Unity in Diversity" nearly 50 years after Merdeka.

Given the ever changing role and demands made on our universities, vice-chancellors and other academics mandated to provide the moral and intellectual leadership must not forget that they are, first and last, chief administrators, and should not become too immersed in the rituals or preoccupied with the trappings of office. We are all, in the end, judged by our peers on our achievements.

More seriously, though, they have to account for their actions and this means they have to put the interests of those to whom, and for whom, they are responsible at the very centre of their existence if they are to justify their role in today’s terms.

They are under a moral obligation, no less, in performing their duties, to adopt high ethical standards consistent with the expectations of the public at large.

An important underlying principle governing the conduct of leaders is stewardship, which is central to the basic concept of trusteeship. This important principle of duty in the public interest appears to be not understood, or largely ignored, judging from the goings-on which often border on the criminal in many of our national institutions.

Any change of management must come with a clear and unequivocal articulation of the values that a reform or change process it intends to promote. These values should provide the core of ethical standard setting and of judging the success or failure of any organisation.

Today’s universities are not the ivory towers they once were.

The community of scholars that they represent is inseparable from the community at large. They can best justify their existence by understanding the true nature and purpose of higher education so as to be in a position to make a positive contribution not only to our immediate development goals but also to our legitimate ambitions as a global economic and political player.

They will continue to be relevant as long as they anticipate the future social, economic and political direction of the country, and become active partners and change agents in that process.

Tunku Abdul Aziz is a former special adviser to the United Nations secretary-general on Ethics. He now contributes from Kuala Lumpur. He spoke on this topic to a group of academics at a colloquium organised by the International Institute of Public Policy and Management of Universiti Malaya recently. He can be contacted at tunkua@gmail. com

source: New Sunday Times, 11 February 2007