It's tempting to think we're living through a turning point in history. Despite its rhetorical tone, there is something to be said for this claim as we approach 2000. It's reminiscent of other turning points: the late-15th-century invention of print and the opening of the Modern period; the rise of professional science in the 18th and 19th centuries; and the world wars of our century.
The great question is whether, as history turns, we can continue to teach and to do research with the tools and working conditions we require and with the academic freedom to adapt the university to a new century. Or shall we instead lose every vestige of influence over the shape of the university?
In 1997 we risk losing both autonomy and influence. Private interests in PSE are stronger than at any time since the 1950s. The managerialist tendencies of university administrations remind one of the 1920s and 1930s.
After winning a measure of autonomy -- often at great cost -- Canadian university teachers find themselves answering to new authorities. The new bosses are accountants and high civil servants intent on performance measures. They are business technocrats, speaking through the Business Council on National Issues or the press. And they are sometimes would-be bosses, colleagues who pine for the university of 1950.
The new bosses want universities and colleges to encourage economic growth and make jobs. To do this, the system must be "differentiated."
Thirty years ago many of us welcomed differentiation. The technical institutes, community colleges, undergraduate universities and research universities of the 1970s were a response to rising demand for equitable access to post-secondary education and a sensible educational answer to the demands of a new time.
In the 1990s, the newest forms of post-secondary education are narrower than those of 30 years ago, much more closely tied to business, much less likely to worry about academic freedom, and often private. In British Columbia more than 1,200 private institutions offer training and education. They've been joined by the Technical University of British Columbia, a public institution that feels private. Meanwhile, at the University of Manitoba, the administration talks of "total transformation" and downsizing. And the list goes on.
Set against these large-scale developments are everyday facts, some of which have helped the new bosses in their work. The coming retirement of large numbers of university and college teachers in their late fifties, for example, has allowed some administrations and politicians to divide the professoriate just when unity is most important.
Meanwhile, external political pressure grows. Ministers of education speak of post-secondary education as an "industry," complete with inputs and outputs, efficiency measures, and benchmarks. The talk about "industry" draws attention away from the transformative and educational mission of the university.
At the same time, a quarter-century of enrolment increases and funding cuts have made our classrooms crowded and busy. And just when we've begun to see the educational risks in all of this, our new bosses insist that we participate in a campaign for life-long learning.
The quest for life-long learning is a welcome revival of the old idea that our minds and our personalities are permanently open to educative transformation. But I doubt that this idea is motivating the new bosses. Instead, they're thinking about course modules and information applets and Internet instruction, whatever the cost, even though these things further commodify the life of learning.
Canadians are faced with hard questions. Will public funding of PSE continue to decline? Will collegial governance survive? Will the objectives of post-secondary education continue to be driven by the idea of transformative learning -- or driven by the marketplace? Will we maintain our commitment to broad and equitable student access to universities, institutes and colleges? Will educational practice retain its personal and social character or become a matter of atomized information exchange?
CAUT's position on these questions is well known. But rarely, if ever, has it been so important that we and our allies remain united, and committed as never before to making our position clear to every Canadian.