Actually, I had been planning to write about something else. For quite a while now, I have been thinking about a seriously playful piece on the games some academics at our beloved Alma Mater play.
A shrinking economy... means... less money for our state-owned and only University- Mario Vella
The advantage of being a mere visiting lecturer for quite a while, and as a casual lecturer for quite a while longer, is that one becomes practically invisible to one’s colleagues. One is there but one is not quite there. One is able to observe at close quarters, without being involved, the manoeuvring and jockeying for promotion, power, prestige and, ultimately, for sinecure.
Dummies might be excused for imagining that there are no such games and that the careers of academics at the completely meritocratic University of Malta are determined purely by their intellectual brilliance or lack of it. Others, less naïve but, nevertheless, misguided, might be forgiven for believing that, although such possibly ruthless games do occur, they are of the esoteric sort played by the adepts of the Glass Bead Game in Hermann Hesse’s lofty Castalia, that land reserved by political decision for the life of the intellect unsullied by Mammon.
There are others, even less naïve but certainly one sided in their views. There are those that concede that our academics do occasionally stoop to plot, consort and otherwise conspire to seize and secure material advantages but always independently of politics, which is safely banished from the ivory tower. These might be absolved for piously refusing to contemplate the possibility of, say, someone at Castille (no, not Castalia, C-a-s-t-i-l-l-e) working the phones to canvass for this or that academic.
On the opposite side there are those that attribute all power games at the University of Malta to politics, full stop. This current of opinion reduces all the tactical movements on campus – especially evident in the run up to nominations or elections of deans, heads of department, institute directors, academic representatives on faculties and Council and the creation of new faculties, departments and institutes – to the strategies of the party in government and the party in opposition. This too is a one sided and naïve view. Now, there is no doubt that the games academics play are of interest to those that consider Malta, its one University not excluded, as a patchwork of social spaces to be defended at all costs from the political “enemy” or annexed to one’s own political territory.
If truth be told, however, what you actually get is a mixture of the political and the personal. The teams competing in these games are hardly ever politically homogenous. They tend to consist of networks of individuals identified as “blue”, “red”, even “green”, including those that sport carefully cultivated politically ambiguous identities, as well as those affecting a superior air of world-weary impatience with politicians. The members of these coalitions are bound to each other by common (one-off or long-term) interests. One need not be sociologically or anthropologically sophisticated to see that it’s a matter of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”.
One’s stake and standing in the network reflects the influence one has – or claims to have – outside of the University, the social capital one brings to the network. Anti-political pretences of some players notwithstanding, this is pragmatic village politicking at its purest. Appearing to reject the dualism of provincial politics (the “we” versus “them” syndrome) it replaces it with the dualism of those inside the coalition and those excluded from it. Worse, it reinforces what some claim to be our irreducible tribalism. Worst of all, it is a conservative strategy to resist the advance of new talent through attrition, side tracking, bullying and occasional co-option. Luckily, these games sometimes misfire.
But here I am, I have exhausted my fortnightly quota of words and have not begun to discuss what is much more important today: the state of our economy.
A shrinking economy, after all, means less revenue for the state and, therefore, less money for our state-owned and only University. It would be different if we had seriously set out to attract to Malta campuses of top (and I mean top) US, European and Asian universities known to be interested in the regional market for high-end higher education. Given the right infrastructure and conditions, it can be done.
With this sort of foreign direct investment – because that is what it is – Maltese academics would have more employment opportunities. They would not need to depend completely on the rare openings in our state-owned and only University, short of leaving Malta. They would be less likely to resort to the sort of games they play to get on in their career or to defend their turf from younger academics.
The University of Malta would have the healthy competition it badly needs – not for financial resources, on the contrary it would benefit from the inflow of foreign direct investment involved – and Maltese students, given suitable arrangements, will have a choice in Malta.
Such high added value foreign direct investment would contribute to making our economy less vulnerable to international crises and, therefore, less likely to slide into recession.
This is what I really wanted to write about today. And about Josef Bonnici’s doubt as to whether official figures are painting a true picture of the economy. And about Malta Employers Association’s Joseph Farrugia wondering if, perhaps, “we have just ‘brushed’ with a recession”.
Dr Vella blogs at http://watersbroken.wordpress.com .