Cannibals, Divas

I've been thinking a lot lately about the meaning and etymology of the word "collegium". Most dictionaries define the word as a "college" but also--surprisingly--as either a board of officials that administered a commissariat in the former Soviet Union or The College of Cardinals in the Vatican. Signs taken for wonders. I certainly didn't expect the last two definitions. But in a way I shouldn't have been that surprised, given the nature of the academic community. We are both a collective and a hierarchy. We are both/and, and not either/or. We were always a community of scholars who shared certain common goals, and in this sense we were something of a community collective. But as a "vocation" or calling, academia has always had an air of evangelicalism about it and, as such, has always had its share of extraordinary, virtually shamanistic practitioners. Some good (Newman), some not so much (Svengali). As highly complex organizations, moreover, universities have always had political dynamics that at times bordered on both the autocratic and the democratic. Both/and.

What fascinates me in thinking about the contemporary Collegium is, not so much how such noble roots continue to underpin our enterprise, but how often these ancient roots have also, simultaneously, been allowed to wither. I am mesmerized by how many of our founding ideals both persevere, yet have also become corrupted in the 21st-century university. Consider, for example, two founding principles: collectivism and evangelical enthusiasm.

The sense of a collective enterprise with common goals is extraordinarily difficult to sustain in a resource starved environment. The notion of a cooperative where everyone works for the common good can (and has) easily become an individualistic marketplace of competing aspirations and ambitions. There are obvious examples like the high-marks-at-any-cost oriented student, or the erstwhile former colleagues who now fiercely compete for the gold rings of tenure, research fame, or public awards. People on desert islands revert to cannibalism; in lean times academic citizens become territorial, baronial, or at worst, utterly indifferent to the good of the whole. And who can blame a demented Head, driven mad by hunger, who sacrifices the good of the whole for his or her own particular slice of the world? The imperative, then, for all members of the Collegium is to clearly articulate their common goals and directions, and then to demand that we collectively put our money where our mouth is and allocate resources fairly--which does not necessarily mean equally.

Another wrinkle on this notion of an old root persisting, yet simultaneously deforming in its contemporary manifestation, is the notion of being "sacred" or "special". Needless to say, not all university people in the past were saints, but I want to acknowledge how post-secondary participation in the past WAS reserved for an elite body of students taught by an elite professoriate that held a position of social privilege. That this elitism is no longer the norm is a good thing. But the deformed legacy of this past is the narcissistic sense of entitlement that has replaced respect as a way of being in the Collegium. Make no mistake: the vast majority of academic citizens are salt of the earth people who work and study hard, care about each other, and do the right thing. But a small percentage has mistaken "privilege" for "right". Hence the individual who disses a staff member, or another who disrespects a colleague. Hence the sad need for a policy around a respectful workplace and learning environment. A sad day when we need a policy to ensure that our citizens act in a civil manner to each other. But better a policy and civility than no policy and brutish behaviour.

The short version is that as we move into the future at Trent our Collegium should have no time for divas, no time for the sense of entitlement that leads to disrespect or toxicity. No time for cannibals either for that matter.