Speaking of Universities

by Stefan Collini

It is also helpful, I think, to remember that our goal should not be confined to the highly ambitious one of changing people’s fundamental convictions – our goals can rightly be more plural as well as less daunting than that. One purpose that can be too easily undervalued is that of sustaining or fortifying those who are sympathetic but dispirited, helping them to get through bad times. Another is that of encouraging people to articulate what they half believe already. And here, too, we shouldn’t be afraid of recognizing that those who work and study in universities are also among our publics. Helping the young temporary lecturer at a post-1992 university feel that there is a worth and dignity to what he or she is trying to do that is not captured by the ‘performance indicators’ against which they are being measured each day is not a negligible purpose, and nor is helping a first-year student not to feel so defenceless in discussions with relatives and peers over his or her choice of a so-called ‘useless’ degree subject.