Quo vadis university? ( ¿ Q uo vadis universidad? )

Abstract

The topics in this special issue and my own experience as a university teacher and researcher, now emerita, have led me to revisit a series of questions which have interested me for some time on the role, meaning and challenges of the university in today’s society. In the past 40 years, the unprecedented development of digital information and communication technologies, globalization and the increasing power of large corporations have disrupted value scales that were believed to be solidly entrenched. The way we create, store, access and assess information and knowledge; the world of work and knowledge; the competences and skills needed to access and remain in the university; and the ways we research and the very meaning of research have all been transformed. And the question is: What role does the university play today? Because the issues related to the ways academic responsibility and quality are assessed, the mechanisms of hiring and promoting teaching and research staff, support for innovation and scientific advancement and the role of scholarly publications in academic promotion may have very different answers depending on the institution’s mission, vision and ambition. In this text, I examine the four challenges of today’s university which I consider the most important, related to ‘excessive’ numbers of students, the exponential growth in information, the influence of business management and the bureaucratization of university work.