Thursday, February 18, 1999
University policy root cause of passivity among students
INSTITUTION: Quality teaching of secondary importance, since
research generates more funds
The assertion that students at this university are unconcerned
with larger issues presents itself to me as glaringly
incontrovertible. The narrow range of editorial topics in the Daily
Bruin that actually generate reader responses are but one indicator
of the prevalence of our narrow narcissism. (Subtext: somebody
please respond to something we are saying!) Student apathy,
however, is deeper than our collective myopic vision. To get a
greater understanding of the phenomenon we need to look at the
larger picture.
Students do not operate in a vacuum. We are all part of a
complex dynamic between the institution of the university,
individuals within that institution, and other students, both
individually and collectively.
In this column I want to focus on how the institution of the
university functions to foster and reinforce student apathy. My
thesis: At every level of analysis, the university does not want
concerned and motivated students attempting to activate change.
During my undergraduate years, I had the opportunity to live
with a graduate student who was an anarchist. No, he did not ride a
skateboard or constantly tag anarchy symbols over the house.
Rather, he was a serious scholar and intellect with whom I had many
ideational exchanges.
Although we continued to differ in many of our political
positions, his views on institutions as inherently unresponsive and
dehumanizing entities were convincing. Although institutions can be
changed, they always operate with this tragic flaw. This is a point
conservatives get rather easily. Liberals would do well to consider
it.
Many well-intentioned people attempt to humanize institutions.
What needs to be made perfectly clear are the immense, inherent
obstacles to such attempts. Waiting for actualized and motivated
bureaucrats to reform the system might turn out to be a very long
wait indeed.
Otherwise, we face a Kafka-esque trial of waiting in vain for
the system to explain itself.
On another level are issues of power. It is in the university’s
interest to limit student activism and channel student energies
elsewhere.
In the 1960s, groups like the Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS) laid down their books and took it to the streets and
administrative office buildings. At Columbia University and
elsewhere, balances of power between the university and the
students were, from the institution’s perspective, teetering most
precariously.
Such incidents may truly be from a long-gone era which seems so
idealistic as to reek of irrelevance, but this history continues to
carry weight today. I have had the opportunity to tour many
campuses across this great land and almost all have "campus
stories" telling how post-1960s administrative buildings were all
designed to be de-facto fortresses against student uprisings.
Whether or not these stories are true, I am not sure. But, as
urban legends do for society at large, I believe these campus
stories speak to underlying fears in the university community. The
need to control students, however sublimated, is very real and very
present. On a functional analysis, the university’s disinterest in
student issues becomes glaringly apparent.
If I had to pick the single biggest thing this major research
university does, I would say it is maintaining its status as a
top-notch facility compared to its peer institutions. For the
university, all good things flow from status. The greatest thing
influencing status is the quality and quantity of research being
done at the graduate and post-graduate level.
The incredible emphasis on research does several things that
undermine any university assertion of interest in responding to and
activating student concerns.
First of all, research is all about getting funding. First and
foremost, departments must get funding if they are to remain viable
entities. Student concerns are necessarily secondary.
My experience in the Graduate School of Education and
Information Sciences (GSEIS) provides wonderful insight into this
dynamic. A brief research trip to the magazine rack at Ackerman
Student Union revealed that the magazine US News & World Report
ranks GSEIS at No. 5 in the nation overall as a department of
education. GSEIS is in the upper-most crust of the top 50
educational institutions in terms of funding.
For 1997, UCLA is only one of three institutions in the top 50
with over $17 million for research.
The majority of other programs are far below UCLA in terms of
money. The department is doing quite well in terms of both status
and money.
So those of us in the lowly professional training track should
be really well treated, right? Wrong.
On a personal level, I think we have been well treated. On the
institutional level, it is fair to say that many of us think we
have been given the shaft.
Let us talk specifically about class size. For our graduate
level classes there are often approximately 50 students crowded
with one professor.
Obviously, the chances of substantive discourse are diminished
by a high student to faculty ratio. Why does this happen? I do not
know that any of us have been given a satisfactory answer, but to
me it must be about money.
Despite over $17 million per annum of research money coursing
through Moore Hall, the department does not want to have to pay for
such a triviality as teacher instruction.
The research wallet is fat and the instruction wallet is
thin.
Undergraduates – moving like cattle into overcrowded lecture
halls for most of their education – can relate. Such overcrowded
and impersonal conditions only lead to greater and greater
competition between students for the rare good grade.
This has a dual function for the university, whether intentional
or not. First, it helps maintain the university’s reputation for
quality. Second, and perhaps more subtly, it directs and consumes
students’ energies, leaving the threat of action never
realized.
Finally, the University of California has, in the spirit of
business re-organization and capitalization on economies of scale,
decided to specialize. No longer is there duplication in academic
programs within the larger system. For example, if you want to
study medical anthropology you should go to Berkeley. If you want
to study psychological anthropology you go down to San Diego. If
you want to study strictly socio-cultural anthropology, go to Santa
Barbara.
Similarly, the university has developed specialties in types of
students and done well in marketing specifically different types of
student experiences at different college campuses.
If you want to be a highly intellectual, functioning iconoclast,
go to Berkeley. If you want to surf and smoke a lot of bud, check
out Santa Cruz. If you want to live an environmentally friendly
existence, go to Davis. I am not sure I am comfortable saying
exactly what UCLA’s niche is, but I am quite sure concern and
action are not large factors in the equation.
Ultimately, of course, that remains the decision of individuals
living their disparate lives. I just want to make clear how the
university operates and is structured to obscure that
decision-making responsibility and capability from students.
Without awareness, none of us have power.
Comments, feedback, problems?
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