Universities
On 25 November, Gresham College (London) and NYU in London will co-sponsor a special ‘Thanksgiving’ event on the nature of the changing university system, seen from both a UK and a US perspective. Professor Ron Barnet of University of London’s Institute of Education and Professor Mitchell Stevens of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education will be discussing these issues in an open forum. The chair will be NYU’s President, John Sexton.
The Thanksgiving Lecture, commencing at 5:30 pm, will be followed by Thanksgiving Buffet Supper. Admission free but only by r.s.v.p. in advance by signing up with Anna Maguire by 15 November.
Please note: no admission without ticket.
Lecture at Staple Inn Hall followed by Supper at Barnard’s Inn Hall.
Staple Inn Hall has a magnificent hammer-beam roof, priceless Elizabethan and Jacobean stained-glass windows, rich oak panelling and minstrels’ gallery. The current Hall dates back to the reign of Elizabeth I, but there has been a hall on the site since 1292. By 1450 Staple Inn was one of the Inns of Chancery and the current hall was built in 1580. It was visited in the 19th century by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote of it: “In all the hundreds of years since London was built, it has not been able to sweep its roaring tide over that little island of quiet.”
Barnard’s Inn Hall was recorded as part of the estate of the Mayor of London in 1252 and in 1454 it, too, was established as an Inn of Chancery. The building housed the Mercers’ School from 1894 until 1959. The current Hall dates from the 14th century, with early 16th century linen-fold panelling.
The historic chalk and tile walling preserved in the Council Chamber is much older, dating from the Roman period. The Hall has three timber bays, with two transverse frames supporting crown posts (the only surviving examples in Greater London) and collar purlin roof.
Staple Inn Hall is situated close to Chancery Lane tube station in Holborn (address: Staple Inn, WC1) and Barnard’s Inn Hall is a very short walk from Staple Inn Hall along Holborn towards the Viaduct.
Topic for the lecture: he Changing University: the end of liberalism?
Worldwide, universities are changing as they have become part of the global knowledge economy. Just some of the key changes are: massification of systems and institutions; the emergence of ‘the virtual university’; the marketisation of higher education and the arrival of students as customers for products; diversity among institutions such that ‘teaching-only’ universities are emerging and the traditional integration of research and teaching pulls apart; and the establishment of quality regimes that possibly threaten the very integrity of that they would evaluate.
In all of this, the question arises: can we any longer associate ‘University’ with a definite set of values or is it now up to each university to define its own values or is any attempt to associate universities with values in a market-led age an idea of a bygone age? Should we just accept that universities are now simply institutions that will be used by a range of stakeholders to advance their own interests (including the interests of academics within their particular disciplines) and abandon the idea that universities might be associated with a larger and overarching set of values and even liberal sentiments?
Drawing especially on recent developments in the USA and in the UK, this evening Conversation will example the possibilities for the recovery and development of liberal ideas of the university in the twenty-first century.