Public knowledge (and some passing thoughts on waiting)

"The instrumental nature of ordinary waiting – where we usually wait for something that is supposed to be better than waiting – conceals this intimate, existential aspect of waiting…" Harold Schweizer On Waiting

I'm writing this from Bergen airport, where I am waiting for my delayed flight home to London after what has been a fabulous four or five days in Norway. Today I completed my various duties at the University of Bergen, where I've been examining a PhD (a successful PhD, I should say, so congratulations to the very gracious Dr. Heng Wu who defended her thesis today), and so I caught the bus up to the airport ready for the flight home.

Being involved in the PhD process in Norway reminded me of my own PhD at Staffordshire University. One striking difference is that in the UK there is almost no public element to the doctoral process, whilst the defence in Norway, as in much of Europe, is a public defence. The public nature of PhD exams here, as in much of Europe, seems to me to be a good thing. My own PhD exam was in a small room in a draughty tower-block in Stoke-on-Trent; and whilst the examiners were very good and raised lots of interesting questions, there was not much in the way of ceremony, nor was there any public dimension to the whole process. We shuffled into the room in the same way that we might do if we were about to spend an hour or two discussing the departmental coffee and biscuits budget, and we shuffled out later in much the same way. It seems to me that this is a weakness of our system: scholarship and study are not, whatever the authors of the Brown Report (cue pantomime-style boos from the audience…) may think, purely private affairs, nor should they be. Having at least an element of openness to the public might do a lot to help to convince people that what goes on in universities is, in fact, of wider public concern.

Anyway, after a few days meeting and working with colleagues here in Bergen – which has been an absolute pleasure – I arrived at the airport to find my flight delayed, hence the quote with which I began this blog post (one of those posts that you only write because, well, you have time on your hands, and writing seems like as good a thing to do as anything else). To tell the truth, I'm not sure if actually being on the BMI flight to Heathrow qualifies as being 'better than waiting'; but in the meantime, I'm waiting in the hope that the already delayed plane will turn up sooner or later, and that it will get me into Heathrow in time to catch the bus home. I've got a fortieth birthday party in Leicester tomorrow, and I feel that if at all possible, I should strive to be there…