Two weeks ago we held an event here at Cumberland Lodge called The Crisis in the University? The aim of the day was to examine the meaning of universities, their role in society, and how they should respond to the many challenges they face.
One of the speakers (in keeping with the Chatham House rule I will not say which) made the point that it was a mistake for universities to try and make, or remake, themselves in the image of Oxford and Cambridge. For example, universities that try to create the impression of a long history through acquiring buildings far older than themselves. They do this, so the theory goes, to capitalise on a cultural myth of what a university should be like, a myth that has its distant origins in the dreaming spires and cloistered quads of Oxbridge.
That new universities attempt this is ironic, as the students from non-traditional backgrounds who make up the mainstay of their attendees are likely to find this image inimical. Research suggests that many young people find these environments alien and feel they are not for people ‘like them’ (For example see Reay et al, 2005). The implication is that architecture matches aspiration, that particular types of student feel they are best suited to particular types of institutions.
So some universities need to rethink the way they present themselves. Rather than all attempting to be Oxbridge, universities should be honest and clear about their various strengths; whether they be access to specialist equipment, industry practioners, welfare support systems or the greatest researchers in the field. Honesty on this scale would encourage people to value the assets of these institutions on their own terms, and enable them to enter the doors of the institution that best suits them and their ambitions, whether it is framed by red brick or stainless steel. Students would feel at home surrounded by people like them, would thrive and achieve.
The problem with this type of approach to higher education marketing is that it could exacerbate the existing homogeneity within the system. The students attending the new universities may well receive opportunities for development and success, but might some of them have accessed greater possibilities if they had been made to feel like they could belong at a different type of institution?
Universities of all kinds need to be more inclusive. I am not suggesting that academic standards should be lowered, nor am I suggesting that the responsibility for this lies solely at universities’ doors. Schools also have a part to play in helping people achieve the standards needed to enter the elite universities as well as encouraging them to aspire to do so. It is also important not to patronise students from non-traditional backgrounds, after all some do quite correctly, feel they have as much right to belong in an elite institution as anyone else. Unfortunately they are often the exception rather than the rule. People from all backgrounds need to feel that they can aspire not only to attend university, but to attend the most prestigious, that these institutions are for people ‘like them’. Just because a university’s buildings may look a certain way, does not mean that their students should feel that they should too.
Annie Gosling
King George VI Fellow
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