Speech by Dr Michael P. Mortell,
President, University College Cork - The National University of Ireland, Cork
at the Conferring of Degrees and Diplomas,
Thursday, 11 December, 1997 at 10.00 a.m.
 
The University in the Modern World

I would like to say a few words this morning about the nature of universities, their changing role in society, and how this comes about.

In June of this year the Oireachtas enacted the Universities Act 1997. This was the first major piece of legislation dealing with universities since the founding of the National University of Ireland in 1908, ie since before the founding of the State.

Built into this Legislation are certain basic rights - traditional privileges of the university - which have been enjoyed since time immemorial. The Act says

"A University … shall have the right and responsibility to preserve and promote the traditional principles of academic freedom in the conduct of its internal and external affairs"

The Act also goes on to say that the university

"shall be entitled to regulate its affairs in accordance with its independent ethos and traditions"

but shall do so having regard to

"its obligations as to public accountability".

This latter caveat is the first indication of the basis of the universities’ traditional rights and privileges - public accountability. The Act then goes on to guarantee the freedom, within the law, of the individual member of the academic staff to "question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial … opinions."

The freedom thus explicitly accorded in law to the University as an institution, and to the individual member of the academic staff, is enormous and unprecedented.

We may well ask: what is the basis of the privileged position within society of the University and its academic staff?

It is very important that firstly we understand the need to address this question, that we in the University do not simply consider that our privileged status has been handed down on tablets of stone, and, consequently, that it cannot be brought into question.

The matter has been put very simply in recent times by the President of Princeton University. He says

"what is absolutely critical is that institutions of higher education, their curricula, and their scholarly and other programmes are all designed, or should be designed, to serve some civic purpose. To put the matter simply teaching and research are a public trust. It is the various civic purposes served by universities that provide the foundation for their social legitimacy… The special freedoms and privileges enjoyed by university communities are mechanisms to enable universities to meet their responsibilities more effectively."

And so, the autonomy enjoyed by the university as an institution, and the academic freedom enjoyed by the university community, are simply the most effective way by which the university can meet its responsibilities and serve the society of which it is a part and by which it is supported. Privileges are underpinned by service to the body politic.

These are matter which traditionally the university chose to do or not to do, as it saw fit. It is now the law of the land that these are among the objects of a university, side by side with the ancient objects of teaching and scholarship.

The core privileges of a university based on the notion of public trust, are the freedom to adopt, in President Mary Robinson’s words,

"a critical approach to the orthodoxy of the times, and the freedom to express the ideas which emerge from the restless questioning surge of the human intellect."

In an changing environment the university will inevitably be drawn into debate about its curriculum and its relevance to the needs of a rapidly changing modern society. We should welcome it and participate energetically in this debate. Such dialogue, with openness on both sides, will underpin the autonomy of the university by having an ongoing and changing awareness and understanding of the university’s role and society’s needs that can lead to a thoughtful and well grounded response on the part of the university. In this way the university fulfils the public trust upon which its core privileges are based.