Th&ma Hoger Onderwijs 2021-1

in chapter 10, which deals with
Finnish-Russian double degree
programs, we read about
‘responsibilities regarding
funding, travelling and quality
assurance’, or ‘responsibilities
for partner selection, curricula
design, recognition of the study
abroad period and quality assurance’.
Responsibility in this
sense is an intra-academic matter,
rather than an issue of our
relationship to society. And even
in this sense, the title of the
book is not well-supported by
the content. You can read entire
chapters without once encountering
the word ‘responsibility’.
The book is best read for what
it is: a conference proceedings.
To be precise, it is a collection
of papers presented at the 41st
annual forum of the European
Higher Education Society
(EAIR) in 2019. Once this fact
becomes clear, and once the
reader has recalibrated his or
her expectations, there is much
to appreciate, and much to
learn. In 14 chapters and 275
pages, the reader gets an overview
of current developments
within higher education at a
global level. It appears that the
editors selected the chapter
contributions on the basis of
individual merit, rather than
collective coherence. That is a
perfectly fair editorial choice
to make, but it means that the
book as a whole never quite becomes
anything more than the
sum of its parts. There are con-
tributions about developments
in India, Germany, Italy, Austria,
South Africa, Norway, Ethiopia,
Finland, Russia and the United
States. There is a wide range of
topics, dealing for example with
study abroad, academic middle
managers, bureaucratisation,
university mergers and double
degree programs. There are discussions
of innovative concepts
such as intercultural wonderment,
college undermatching,
and ‘high-impact’ teaching and
learning practices. There are
also many insightful indications
of the different worlds we live
in. We learn, for example, that
according to a recent report
over 80 per cent of engineers in
India are unemployable for any
job in the knowledge economy,
that in South Africa only about
30 per cent of students complete
their first degree within regulation
time, and that in Ethiopia
the government appoints the
president and all members of
the governing body of each university.
It is not as though the content of
the book is irrelevant to matters
of responsibility; it is just that
the chapter authors by and large
leave it to the reader to make
whatever linkages can be made.
One shining exception is chapter
7, which responds directly
(and very well) to the question
‘What does it mean to be a responsible
21st-century South African
university?’ Also, part 3 of
the book is titled ‘Higher Educa-
tion Impact’, which again raises
expectations. However, even the
chapters falling under this heading,
while interesting and valuable
enough, do not quite address
the matter of responsibility to
society. Thus chapter 11 is a
study of student participation in
practices that promote success,
chapter 12 deals with the productivity
of leading global universities
(where leading means
highly ranked), and chapter 13 is
about the role of hybrid middle
managers in executing the third
mission in Austrian universities
of applied sciences.
It is worth noting that throughout
the book the ‘third mission’
idea is taken for granted. On
the positive side, this means
that there is some recognition
of academic engagement with
civil society. On the negative
side, however, there seems to
be no awareness that the ‘third
mission’ terminology and practice
have been criticised lately
for treating our interaction with
society as something apart
from and additional to the other
two missions (research and
teaching). Increasingly, it has
been argued that our engagement
with society is about the
deployment of our research and
teaching to make a contribution
to society, not about something
extra. In this respect, the words
‘third mission’ create the wrong
impression.
Given the disparate nature of
the various topics in the book, I
turned to the concluding chapter
(by the editors) with hope that it
may uncover an overall message
I had missed. And indeed, the
abstract to this chapter seems to
describe what I wish the book
had been. It points out that
there are ‘increased demands
on higher education institutions
to make their contribution and
benefit to society more visible’
(my emphasis), that universities
should ‘embrace a transformation
process’ and ‘be more
proactive in strengthening our
critical stance’.
I wish this book had done all of
that. Instead, as the abstract also
says, it has provided a ‘review
of the higher education sector’s
responsibilities for the traditional
university tri-partite mission’
(my emphasis). On the whole,
the book is firmly positioned
within the mainstream of academic
thinking and practice. It
is interesting and informative,
but rarely challenging. If providing
a review of mainstream
academic practice was what the
editors aimed to accomplish,
then they should be congratulated
on a job well done.
Chris Brink
is a South African mathematician
and academic. He was the vicechancellor
of Newcastle University
between 2007 and December 2016
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