Distinguished speakers from Rhodes and other universities will be meeting this week to debate academic freedom and its relationship to social responsibility at a roundtable discussion at Rhodes.
The roundtable discussions, the first of which commences on 17 February, are intended to enable discussants to engage with the Centre for Higher Education (CHE) report, published in August 2008, entitled Report of the Independent Task Team on Higher Education, Institutional Autonomy and Academic Freedom (HEIAAF): Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy and Public Accountability in South African Higher Education.
Delegates will deal directly with the alleged conflict between academic freedom and social responsibility and at least one candidate will question the very idea of academic freedom. The next roundtable, to be held later this year, will deal with the issue of managerialism and the third, to be held in 2011, on issues relating to diversity.
The issues discussed in the three roundtables are expected to intersect in rich ways and the final result will be far more clarity regarding the fundamental principles that ought to be guiding academic life, in South Africa specifically and more generally.
The CHE report was completed by the independent Task Team on Higher Education in mid-2005. The Task Team investigated the nature of regulation of South African higher education by government and other agencies since 1994. This investigation was initiated as a result of growing concern and claims that government is steering higher education which risked becoming ‘interference’.
The roundtable events are generously supported by the Ford Foundation.
PROGRAMME
Interdisciplinary Engagements with the CHE Report on Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy and Public Accountability in South African Higher Education
17-19 February 2010, Rhodes University
Organiser: Pedro A. Tabensky
Email: p.tabensky@ru.ac.za
Cell: 0737063753
CHE report URL: http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000183/
This event forms part of a series of three roundtable discussions on issues relating to higher education to be held in 2010 and 2011. The second roundtable will be on managerialism and the third on diversity. The series is generously sponsored by the Ford Foundation.
Location: CEC (Continuing Education Centre). You can download a campus map from:
http://www.ru.ac.za/conferences/venues/overheadviewofrhodescampus
Each speaker has up to 45 minutes to deliver their argument followed by another 45 minutes of questions and answers. Members of the audience will be allowed to ask questions but, given the nature of the event, priority will be given to questions from official delegates.
Times, topics and speakers:
Wednesday 17 Feb
9.30am-10.00am
Introductory words: Saleem Badat (VC of Rhodes University) and John Butler-Adam (Ford Foundation)
10am-11.30am
Taking Stock of South African Academic Freedom Discourse in Theory and Practice
André du Toit (UCT)
(Chair: Tom Martin)
12.00pm-1.30pm
Beyond the Devil’s Alternative: Academic Freedom, Transformation and Social Accountability
’Jìmí O. Adésínà (Rhodes)
(Chair: du Toit)
Lunch: 1.30-2.30
2.30pm-4.00pm
The University Vice-Chancellor and Academic Freedom
Barney Pityana (UNISA)
(Chair: du Toit)
4.30pm-6.00pm
Maintaining the Tension: Public Accountability and Academic Freedom
Steven Friedman (Rhodes/UJ)
(Chair: Higgins)
Thursday 18 February
9.00am-10.30am
The Politics of Academic Freedom
John Higgins (UCT)
(Chair: Friedman)
11.00am-12.30pm
A Dilemma Regarding the Idea of a University: African and Western Views of Academic Freedom and Public Accountability
Thaddeus Metz (UJ)
(Chair: Jones)
Lunch: 12.30pm-1.30pm
1.30pm-3.00pm
Facing Up to the Realities of the Post-Apartheid State
Richard Pithouse (Rhodes)
(Chair: )
3.30-5.00pm
The Making of the Knowledge Commons: From Lobsters to Ideas
C. George Caffentzis (University of Southern Maine)
(Chair: Pithouse)
Friday 19 February
9.00am-10.30am
The Source of Academic Freedom
Ward E. Jones (Rhodes)
(Chair: Metz)
11.00am-12.30pm
Against Academic Freedom Discourse
Pedro Alexis Tabensky (Rhodes)
(Chair: Metz)
For more information: