Debatt ● Olga V. Lehmann
UiS is not dysfunctional — the Norwegian government's portrayal of universities is
Why does the Norwegian government insist on treating academic organizations using the same principles as Vinmonopolet?
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Will the Norwegian government realize they are eroding the essence of universities before it is too late? The ethical dilemmas read in between lines in the media about universities' present and future are not just disheartening; they are a call to action. Scholars, leaders, and politicians seem to be lost in the tensions between the local, the regional, the national, and the global value of academic institutions.
If I were to choose an image that represents us, I would say Norwegian academia looks like a Picasso painting. There might be eyes, mouths, swords, aftertaste of blood, a little irony, an aesthetic remembrance, but not a lot of alignment.
Can we justify the existence of Norwegian universities primarily to serve local needs? Where do the ideas of working for the common good and sustainability developmental goals fit in this picture? If research becomes more dependent on external funding, how would a CV tailored to local needs become competitive for international standards?
The 'Us and Them' arguments are a fast track to polarization. By pitting small/new universities against large/old universities, or local against foreign employees, or local against international students, we open the door to stereotypes and prejudices. Norwegian academia is experiencing a domino effect of decades of narrow-minded decisions.
If we need inspiration to escape despair, we should look to Ireland nowadays. Instead of fighting for survival alone, public universities in this Celtic land have created the 'Irish Universities Association' aiming toward a feasible future for academia and academics.
If a group of people could show the government that their plan is set up to fail, it should be us!
Olga V. Lehmann
What if public universities in Norway continued to approach the government together for dialogue? If a group of people could show the government that their plan is set up to fail, it should be us! Hackathons, panels, reports, and op-eds should be at the top of our agendas as professors — and not profit.
The wishful thinking that universities are to be run primarily based on profit contradicts the welfare state and the definition of a university. The hypercontrolling aftertaste of the policies, mandates, and decisions changing the everyday life of scholars in Norwegian academia is bitter. Ignoring that specific research fields are less popular among assessment panels also challenges our academic freedom.
Why does the Norwegian government insist on treating academic organizations using the same principles as Vinmonopolet? We are not bottles of wine, so restricting access to funds in this unapologetic manner is unhealthy. To make a fair point, Vinmonopolet has a more explicit position in Norwegian society and a clearer connection to governmental ideals.
The discourses on the individual responsibility of an academic, the employers' responsibility for career development, and the government's responsibility to offer conditions for work-life balance are ambiguous. The idea of the overachieving academic that never burns out is a cliché pick-up line in mandates for optimizing budgets.
In psychology, my field of expertise, we have widely addressed the damaging idealization of romantic partnerships in our current society. Partners are expected to be best friends, best lovers, best housemates, best cooks, and best parents… leaving people exhausted and helpless of not being able to correspond to a set of perfectionistic ideals.
I fear that the same is happening with the persona of an academic. We are asked to prioritize local needs while becoming internationally competitive to receive external funding. We are asked to teach more with less time and to both conduct research and write successful grant applications within reduced R&D time.
We are asked to teach more with less time and to both conduct research and write successful grant applications within reduced R&D time.
Olga V. Lehmann
We are invited to attend fewer conferences but have a vast network. We are supposed to say what we think but also remain quiet to avoid conflict. We are supposed to take care of our mental health and well-being and relax with our families after 4 pm and during weekends, while we also need to work hard to keep the boat afloat in the uncertainty of whether our names can be on the red list of firings.
If we are foreigners, we are asked to master a language without the time to learn it and without the support of colleagues on how to feel welcome at work during the process of learning it.
I see the rhetorical point of my colleague Rune Todnem By in stating that UiS is a dysfunctional university, and I partially disagree with him because what is dysfunctional is the government's understanding of what universities are.
I fear that my colleagues and local leaders will not listen to his otherwise brilliant ideas, among other reasons, because these might be experienced as a personal attack. I fear colleagues, local leaders, or politicians will not listen to me either, as I am a young and female Latina academic. I have often been met with silence when I have tried to address these dilemmas. «Unluckily» for some, and «luckily» for me, I wrote a Ph.D. thesis on silence, so I have possible explanations ready.
The first guess is that colleagues, leaders, and politicians dodge the bullet of addressing stereotypes and prejudices in academia because these are still taboo, meaning that Norwegian society is defensive toward raw conversations about the potentially unhealthy polarizing discourses in academia.
My second guess is that the prolonged quietness of leaders and politicians about these topics also evokes uncertainty; many of them might not have clue about what to do yet.
My third guess is that silence is misused as a manifestation of power, a very well-known phenomenon in social psychology: human beings are as great at talking as they are great at ignoring or diminishing those who think differently from them.
My fourth guess is denial. Norway is becoming the land where sentences such as «We have too many foreign researchers», «We need fewer international students», or «Small universities should…» can go out of the mouths of decision-makers as seemingly trivial statements.
Prof. Ola Kvaløy wrote recently in his column at DN that «I Norge kan vi holde oss med verdens gunstigste sykelønnsordning uten at det går ut over sykefraværet, og pumpe opp olje og gass uten at det går utover klima.» I guess that continuing with the analogy, in Norway, colleagues, leaders, and politicians can remove internal university funds or dismiss the value of international talent without this being risky patriotism.
Will Norwegian universities ever become institutions where both local and global needs are at stake while securing the mental health and well-being of academics? Isn't that, in principle, the leading example that Norway could be giving to the world?
