Perhaps it was not so bad that the demonstration was cancelled
Because the demonstration against budget cuts in university education was cancelled, Jos Verbrugge suddenly had a whole afternoon to reflect on his ambivalence about the demonstration. After all, demonstrating against budget cuts does cause some friction. “The underlying question is always: OK, and who do you think should pick up the bill?”
By digging its heels in, the academic community turns into yet another group fighting for its own interests in a society that already seems to become increasingly polarised. Us against Them. And that while for many, the motivation behind that demonstration is precisely the deeply cherished desire to be able to keep connecting and moving that same society forward.
That simple “no” also feels a bit like a weakness. The underlying question is always: OK, and who do you think should pick up the tab? It puts the onus of coming up with a constructive solution back on The Hague, the very place where the ability to come up with constructive solutions to social problems has sunk to an all-time low.
Semantic fiddling
As an academic community, we should much rather want to fight for innovation and solutions than against austerity. That may sound a bit like semantic drivel but still: words matter. The desire to roll back austerity implicitly echoes a conservative desire to preserve the status quo, a desire that in essence is little different from the conservative climate that now reigns supreme in national politics.
This feels odd. After all, science is there precisely to provide fresh ideas and progress. And besides, what is this status quo anyway? Attention to students’ personal development currently ranges from minimal to non-existent while for them, delayed studies threaten a fine. This is not due to unwillingness; the teaching load for teachers has simply been so high for years that unhealthy levels of work stress are now the norm. And the researchers? They are so busy fighting amongst themselves for grants and appointments that there is virtually no room left for any creative free-thinking, scientific debate or job satisfaction. That’s not exactly a status quo you want to take to the streets for.
Final warning
Indeed: austerity or not, something will have to change in the way we work anyway. This is not only my opinion, but also a hard demand of the Labour Inspectorate, which gave the UvA a final warning last January: within a year, the workload for employees had to be drastically reduced. By now it is November and a solution, especially with the budget cuts on the horizon, seems further away than ever. And then the question arises: Why do we still fail to create a healthy working climate within our university? We are so smart, aren't we?
It is a psychological fact that too much stress reduces our capacity for reflection and creativity. Under pressure, we instead revert to heuristics, prejudices and old habits. Thus, we seem to have fallen into the same trap in which contemporary politics now finds itself: apathy and lack of vision at a time when circumstances demand precisely that.
Let me be clear: of course it is important to demonstrate against the cuts in higher education, if only to inform Dutch voters of our dire position and alert them to the absurdity of cutting back on innovation by a government that sees in that same innovation the solution to all our problems. But even if we get our way and the cuts are reversed, we are not there yet. After all, money is only a means, not a solution.
Reflections
The reason I am capable of this reflection just now is the suddenly vacant afternoon following the cancellation of the demonstration. And perhaps that is exactly what we all need: a day of reflection, a day when we collectively take a break from the merry-go-round of grant applications, revision work and unanswered mail. A day when we don’t teach for a while, the Canvas page is unavailable, the mail servers offline, the research rooms locked.
Imagine a day when we have nothing to do but think together about how to do things differently. Without frameworks, or minutes, without obligations or constraints. A day when you work alone in your ivory tower on a brilliant all-encompassing plan, or when, instead, you muse with colleagues at the coffee machine about simplifying procedures, shedding administrative tasks, or an AI tool that gives you a chair massage.
Day of academic reflection
A day, in short, when we all take a moment to do just what the university was once founded to do: think creatively and freely about problems, this time our own, in order to come up with solutions that move us, our university, and our society forward. Because if we don’t do it, who will?
So I hereby propose that the UvA declare our next Dies Natalis, Thursday 16 January, as a Day for Academic Reflection, so that all of us, at the start of what promises to be a tumultuous year, can think about how to move healthily into the future.
Jos Verbrugge is a psychology lecturer and member of the FMG works council.
