University Colleges: Seats of Learning, Myth or Model? John Hirst

1. University Colleges: Seats of
Learning, Myth or Model?
John Hirst
Senior Teaching Fellow, DUBS

2. Our Guild Heritage
• The university ‘is the second-oldest institution in the western world with an
unbroken history’ (Iyanga, 2000: 7)
• Universities are some of the oldest and most enduring institutions humans have
created. The first European Universities were integrated into the Guild System
which ordered European society for over 6 centuries. The first “studium generale”
was Bologna (1088), then Oxford (1167) where three of the first four colleges
(aula) were founded from Durham (University; Baliol; Durham – later Trinity). They
were “specialised guild organs” whose function was to satisfy the “higher-order
learning needs” of the Guild System (particularly skills required for commerce)
which other guilds were incapable of delivering.
• Of all the institutions established in the western world by 1520, 85 still exist and
70 of these are universities (Kerr, 2001).

3. The Guild System
• A nested interlocking set of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities,
institutions, technologies and evolved psychological mechanisms that
worked together to suppress or regulate self-interest and made
cooperative societies possible
• Vulnerable to two sets of dangers:
– Values that are self-enhancing rather than self-transcendent
– Psychology that is individualistic rather than relational

4. Magistrorum or Scholarium?
• There were originally 2 models corresponding to the “direction” of the guild
promise:
– In Southern Europe (Bologna) where the promise went from Master to
Apprentice, the University was founded on the scholarium
– In Northern Europe where the promise went from Apprentice to Master, the
was founded on the magistrorum
• By the 14th century the federation of European universities (studium generales)
had all adopted the magisterial model (universitas magistrorum et scholarium
abbreviated to “Universitas”) teaching the common MA curriculum; scholars
were encouraged to travel between them (and were provided with protected
passage by edict of the Holy Roman Emperor) to complete various “modules” of
their degree.

5. Twin-track Approach
Schools: Learning Technique
(Regent Masters)
• Grammar
• Logic
• Rhetoric
• Arithmetic
• Geometry
• Astronomy
• Music
Colleges: Learning for Insight
(Aula Masters)
• Private study
• Mentoring
• Debate
• Public disputation
• Systematic reflection
• Development of goods
internal to practices (through
participation in collegial roles
and responsibilities)

6. Model for Learning: Technique & Insight
Social zone where,
models and theories
are sourced & tested
Dialogical zone where
“reflective thinking
meets practical
doing”
Personal zone of
reflection and
sense-making
Source:
Beech & Macintosh (2012:150)
Social zone where
the technique need
is contextualised
Dialogical zone
where the
technique is
developed through
questioning and
experimentation
Personal zone
where the
technique is
internalised and
integrated with
existing skills

7. Epistemic Learning for Insight
• Collegiality arises from a complex, highly non-linear dynamic,
created by a social network involving multiple feedback loops
through which values, beliefs and rules of conduct are continually
communicated, modified and sustained;
• These values and beliefs affect the collegiate body of knowledge –
they are the lens through which we see the world and construct our
perception of reality. They help us to integrate our experiences and
to decide what kind of knowledge is meaningful;
• They also become embedded in ways of life that co-create our
identity and inculcate a sense of belonging to something beyond
ourselves.

8. Enlightenment Rationality
• The central Humboldtian principle is that teaching, research and
learning are inseparable but should only be concerned with the
disinterested objective rationalistic search for truth.
• Humboldt supported the classical view of the university as a
'community of scholars and students' engaged in a common task,
but oriented this towards utilitarian rather than Aristotelian
conceptions of the good, replacing subjective wisdom with rational
scientific calculus.
(Anderson, 2010).

9. Post-Enlightenment
Oxbridge colleges evolved into self-governing
bodies of students and staff who lived and
socialised within them, forming self-contained
communities engaged in common pursuits,
combining teaching, research and learning with
personal development, particularly espousing
liberal democratic values (care, autonomy and
fairness), but also embodying values associated
with authority, loyalty and spirituality.

10. New Universities
Evolution of civic universities of the industrial
north, e.g. Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield -
reverted to teaching technique, i.e. practical
knowledge and training the workforce for their
local industries, e.g. applied sciences and
engineering.
(Reisz, 2008)

11. Demise of Collegiality
• Collegiality legitimised a plurality of different views and priorities and ensured they were taken
into account when making decisions (Hardy, 1991). But it was slow, looked inefficient and
embodied values that conflicted with those of economic and bureaucratic rationality. It was
resistant to change imposed by linear techniques, e.g. Lewin’s (1947) “freeze-thaw” model (a
more appropriate relational model is Hosking’s (2002) “whirlpool” model).
• The collegial decision-making process was described by Garvin (1993) as a “garbage can”
process - although complex and slow, surprisingly sound decisions did emerge.
• Like the guilds, collegiality became the victim of Left Hemisphere power and domination,
dismissing higher-order values in favour of lower-order values – it either reduces everything to
its utility value or summarily rejects it (McGilchrist, 2010)

12. Scheler’s Pyramid of Values
Sacred:
connectedness of
all things
Wisdom: justice,
beauty, truth,
learning
Virtue: courage, loyalty,
humility, prudence,
compassion
Utility: usefulness for satisfying basic
needs & wants
Right Hemisphere:
builds on lower-order
values to embrace
higher-order values, all
of which require
affective or moral
engagement with the
world
Left Hemisphere:
dismisses higher-order
values in favour of lower-order
values – it either
reduces everything to its
utility value or rejects it.
How we think determines what we value: Scheler’s Pyramid of Values (in McGilchrist, p160)

13. The Resource-based View
The Jarrett Report’s (1985) guiding assumption was that universities should be treated as private-sector
enterprises which compete against each other for resources and in which students are the
customers (Alderman, 2009 & 2010).
It recommended
• stronger central top-down leadership;
• centralised resource allocation;
• clearer accountability;
• more formal, long-term planning;
• systematic and quantitative performance indicators;
• systematic gathering of information;
• better monitoring and evaluation systems;
• more selective cutback decisions
(Hardy, 1991).

14. New Managerialism
Universities went from one extreme to another - almost
total involvement in decision-making under the old
collegial system, to almost no involvement under the
new managerialist approach.
However, as research shows, excluding staff leads to
poor decision-making, slow and unsuccessful change,
and demotivated staff (Burnes, 2009; Macfarlane,
2005; Oreg et al, 2011).

15. OTT Command-and-Control
“Of course tax-payers, students, funding bodies and government
agencies need assurance about Quality. But the Review Group is
appalled by the sector’s apparent acceptance of creeping
intervention and by its capacity to respond to red tape in spades. In
other words, to gold-plate its response to bureaucracy and
centralisation.”
Patricia Hodgson (Chair HE Regulation Review Group)
“The pursuit of ever more perfect accountability provides more
information, more comparisons, more complaints systems; but it
also builds a culture of suspicion and low morale.”
Oonagh O’Neill (BBC Reith Lectures, 2002)

16. Decentralisation
The notion of the centralised, command-and-control type
organisation, driven by top-down decision-making, is giving
way to less bureaucratic, flatter and more flexible
structures which seek to involve and empower staff
(Burnes, 2009; Kanter, 2008; Mintzberg, 2001; Yukl, 2010).
Some universities are beginning to look at introducing less
hierarchical and less centralised structures (Bryman, 2007;
CHEPS, 2008; Sonka & Chicoine, 2004; Wend, 2011).

17. Triumph of Utility over Integrity
The Robbins Report (1963): one of the four main
purposes of universities was ‘… the promotion of the
general powers of the mind so as to produce not mere
specialists but rather cultivated men and women’.
Now, the emphasis is on wealth creation and establishing
‘… long-term, sustainable relationships with employers
to stimulate and meet their demands for highly
competent and skilled employees’ (HEFCE, 2011).

18. Degree Factories
University is now just a financial transaction: £27,000 cost set
against a future profit of a graduate salary premium.
Reducing education to the implicit but increasingly flawed
“learn to earn” contract is having an effect: this year’s
national student survey reported that gaining employability
skills has become one of the highest priorities for students.
(Black, 2011: 6)

19. Where We Are Now
The trend is for universities to see themselves more as
businesses, preparing students for employment, and students
as customers.
However, this does not inevitably mean that the centralisation
of power in universities must continue and that collegial
forms of influence and involvement are a thing of the past.
Source: Burnes et al (2013)

20. Colleges as “Living Networks” (Capra, 2003)
Living networks are self-generating: each communication
creates thoughts and meaning, which give rise to further
communications. In this way, the entire network generates
itself, producing a common context of meaning, shared
knowledge, rules of conduct, a boundary, and a collective
identity for its members, based on a sense of belonging.
Living networks liberate people’s energies, stimulate
creativity, and set processes of change and transformation
in motion.

21. Social Capital
• Bridging social capital = cooperative relations between
people based on respect, trust and goodwill - the
foundation of citizenship amongst heterogeneous
individuals
• Bonding social capital = mutual relations between like-minded
people which forge links of solidarity and mutuality
within a homogenous group which often becomes self-transcendent
such that collective consciousness
predominates

22. The “Hive Switch” (Haidt, 2012)
• When we transcend self-interest and lose ourselves in something larger
than ourselves – our “hive switch” gets flipped
• The hive switch is an adaptation for making groups more cohesive –
through collective (and reflective) consciousness – bonding social capital
• Group rituals can generate “collective effervescence” accompanied by
profound feelings of belonging, wellbeing, passion and ecstasy
• This triggers intuitions by which the deepest truths can only be known and
which reason is blind to – it opens people to new possibilities, values and
directions in life – i.e. epistemic learning for insight, intuitive thinking, etc.
• This has enormous implications for how we should search for meaning

23. The Value of Colleges
If the purpose of a University is to advance human understanding, then colleges are of the utmost
value, because, at their best, they:
•teach us that we are part of a fabric woven from other lives as well as our own
•are environments where people meet, mix and form attachments that cut across barriers of class and
ethnicity
•are places where we rehearse the virtues needed to build a better world
•cultivate the habits of cooperation which form the basis of trust on which the economics and politics
of a free society depend
•value us for who we are and what we do rather than treating us as replaceable parts of an economic
system
•remind us that value inheres in things like loyalty, mutuality, reciprocity, altruism and friendship –
things that are not marketable, that are earned not bought - part of who we are not what we own
•are communities that provide us with a “stability zone” helping us to cope with “troublesome
knowledge” (Meyer & Land, 2003) and change
•are somewhere we can belong to and call home, in which values, traditions, griefs and celebrations are
shared and become a part of our identity

24. Observing the Hive Switch
“Now I know what happens when the hive switch gets flipped...I look
at my students differently. I still see them as individuals competing for
grades, honours, and romantic partners. But I have a new appreciation
for the zeal with which they throw themselves into extracurricular
activities. They put on plays, compete in sports, rally for political
causes, and volunteer for dozens of projects to help the poor and the
sick...I see them searching for a calling, which they can only find as
part of a larger group. I now see them striving and searching on two
levels simultaneously, for we are all homo duplex”
(Jonathan Haidt, 2012:269-70)

25. Colleges are Hives of Learning
• We evolved to live in groups. Our minds were designed not
only to help us win competition within our group but also
to unite us in sustaining and facilitating within-group
coordination and cooperation, enabling us to tackle bigger
projects, minimise free-riding and resist tyranny/demagogy
• Hiving comes naturally, easily and joyfully to us. Its normal
function is to bond us together in communities of trust,
cooperation and even love
• Hiving makes us less selfish, smarter, healthier, safer, richer
and better able to govern a just and stable democracy

26. More Hives Needed
• We have dismantled most of the hivish structures (Burke’s
‘little platoons’ of society) that enable us to achieve our
greatest fulfilment by becoming “simply a part of a whole”
• Liberal democracy has eroded groups, traditions,
institutions and moral capital with free markets and
economic rationality based on private goods that have
displaced our sense of common good resulting in anomie
• Colleges are testimony to the value of hives as the portal to
many of life’s most cherished experiences – we are 90%
chimp and 10% bee – we need more hives, not less!

27. Present-day College Practices
Bridging Social Capital
• Multidisciplinary scholarly activities: lectures,
seminars, workshops – dialogue/debate
• Roles & Responsibilities: committees, clubs &
societies - skills & competencies, e.g. team-work,
leadership (often without power)
• Mentoring: personal development, career
angels, mindfulness, spiritual direction –
reflective consciousness
• Intercultural Activities – bridging cultural
divides – engaging with value-pluralism
• Alumni & SCR activities – bridging
intergenerational divides
Bonding Social Capital
• Rituals: freshers week, formals, balls,
college days, open days, parties, etc.
• Celebrations: national customs;
anniversaries, sports awards; honours
awards, graduation
• Club & society activities that all can share
in – performing arts, regattas, open
mic/jam sessions, DUCK week, quizzes
• College excursions (trips)

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