The recent discussion prompted by the resignation of the director of the LSE has spurred some useful general, public discussion about funding and standards, but we are still a long way from being clear about the role of British universities on both the domestic and international stage and about the way that they should be funded and their activities should be managed.
For an update, see the coverage in The Guardian. The short summary is that the LSE accepted money from the Libyan regime for training of ‘future leaders,’ the director acted as an advisor to the government and the son of the Colonel (who organised the first of these) is alleged to have cheated in his PhD (from the LSE). Given how events have turned in Libya, and the end of Colonel Gadaffi’s rehabilitation, the director resigned to protect the reputation of the institution.
My own small contribution to the debate was a letter to the editor of The Guardian. My key concern is that a succession of government policy initiatives have turned England’s universities from being instruments of public service (providing education and research to the public) to instruments of the market, increasingly funded by the market, moderated somewhat by policy and rules (on access for example) and the good conscience of senior managers within the sector.
The LSE issue seems to conflate three distinct and independent issues.
- The question of conscience about accepting money from dictators.
- The question of the director’s advisory role to the Libyan government.
- The question of academic standards, including plagiarism.
Dealing with each of these in turn.
Dirty money
I am not adverse to taking money from unpleasant people and regimes if that money is used for good works. Better that it be used to fund quality education than buy our arms. This of course requires that systems are in place to ensure that standards are not compromised and that this is clearly the case (i.e., decisions about the use of the money are transparent). If the money is used to try to inculcate future leaders of unpleasant regimes with more critical approaches, then all the better. The downside is that taking any money from these sources might give them legitimacy, especially if professorships, buildings and departments are named after them. It strikes me that if the money was accepted and used without appropriate systems and the requisite transparency to ensure that standards are compromised, then this is a resignation issue. Professors Crane and Matten in their blog develop this theme.
If there is no evidence of compromise of standards, then the impetus should be on improving the transparency of the systems (which would not be a resignation issue). If an institution does not want to accept tainted money, then the management board, in broader consultation, should develop a set of criteria that determine the conditions under which money is accepted. If the sins of the Libyan regime are to be a guide, then we should not be accepting funding from many other countries (including government selected scholarships for masters and PhD students).
External Consultancy
Generally, academics (and senior academic managers are not exempt from this) are entitled, with permission, to undertake some consulting work. If the director of the LSE did not seek permission from the board for his consulting work, then some sanction (though probably not sacking) would be appropriate for a first offence. The issue here, again, is one of systems and transparency.
Academic standards
The question of academic standards, including plagiarism, is one that will become more prominent as fees rise. On the issue of plagiarism, my sympathies are with the examiners (and as a note, about the same time as an examiner I uncovered evidence of plagiarism in a PhD and the student was subsequently excluded from their university). We must always assume that our students are acting in good faith, otherwise the relationship between institution and students is poisoned. At the time of the examination, systems like Turnitin were only just coming to market and, in any case, they are not helpful at catching commissioned work.
Having said that, I do believe that plagiarism, including writing for hire, is a problem that will only increase. One the one hand, it is clear that assignment style assessment provides more incentive to intellectual development than examination only systems. One the other hand, in-hall examinations remove most, but not all, of the opportunity for cheating. When we attempt to strike a balance, the issue of good faith should be important, so I would rather risk some cheats get through the net and have assessment that helps the best students flourish than have a system that stops cheating and also limits the best students. The rationale for this is that, in the long run, those that have developed their knowledge and skills earnestly will make more of their lives, and obviously so.
Moving on
Where does this little LSE episode get us? It is not clear that we have learned any lessons. If universities are to avoid such difficulties in the future then we must embrace greater transparency, perhaps to the extent of opening key decisions to public input (or at least more general input from within the institution). This runs counter to the march of managerialism within the British university sector. The alternative is to forgo all public funding and operate on the same basis as private (for profit or not) institutions.
Previously this site was used to document some of the thoughts about China, especially when taking students there. Unfortunately, I’ve been taken off the module and so am planning to use this to document some of my thoughts about higher education more generally (teaching, research and administration). I’m prompted to do this because the UK is going through considerable change in the sector with introduction of high fees for home UG students and restructuring of research funding.
