Wilberne Persaud, Financial Gleaner Columnist
Persaud
The University of the West Indies (UWI) is a living, history and tradition-rich, remarkably vibrant institution that has unquestionably, contributed immensely to our 'West Indian nation'.
It is an enduring treasure for us to preserve not as a museum piece but as a live, evolving organism.
It has served and been served by so many of our highly talented and accomplished people. In the spirit of internationalism associated with the idea of a university it has also benefited (and for its evolutionary survival must continue so to do) from significant contributions of people not from our region.
It has always been a beautiful place to study, to play, to learn, to work, to teach, to research, even merely to exist and contemplate - this say so many.
The year 2008 marks its 60th year of existence. In this celebratory year, some view public airing of graduate students' concerns and their obvious internal differences among the Mona Association of Postgraduate Students (MAPS) as unfortunate.
Opportunity
While the events occasioning this public debate should preferably have been discussed and settled in the family room so to speak, I do not see this as a disaster but rather an opportunity.
Mark Lawrence's Letter to the Editor [The Sunday Gleaner, March 2] expresses the opinion that the sub-group he represents thought their article would "stir up concern in the university's administration" but not denial from MAPS.
I would be amazed if the administration is not concerned and urgently looking into these issues. Indeed, I am certain it has been agenda item number one. And I am confident it shall be prudently and judiciously resolved.
But the issue at hand is not merely graduate students' stipend. It is commonplace today to accept that it is people, knowledge and technology that truly represent the wealth of a nation. Irrespective of comments suggesting otherwise, this realisation is ancient! Think Adam Smith and 1776. His Wealth of Nations emphasises that a country's wealth consists first in the "skill, dexterity, and judgement with which its labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion between the number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed. Whatever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory of any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances." Perhaps it is easier to recognise this in the knowledge intensity of our information age.
James Duderstadt, former president of Michigan University, worried about complex challenges facing 21st-century American universities reminds us that "blending scholarship with teaching occurred first in European universities [this was] introduced into American higher education in the mid-19th-century" - a hundred years before UCWI was conceived.
On-campus "scholarship and off-campus extension activities," he points out, were "key to the agricultural development of the United States and transition to an industrial society. World War II provided the incentive for even greater activity as the universities became important partners in the war effort, achieving scientific breakthroughs in areas such as the atomic energy, radar, and computers."
Duderstadt discusses the learning curve as American universities mastered the art of transferring knowledge to society and partnering with government, enabling the practice of federal support for competitive, peer-reviewed research grants becoming the order of the day. In this way he argued the federal government "supported university faculty investigators to engage in research of their own choosing in the hope that significant benefits would accrue to American society in the forms of military security, public health and economic prosperity."
This partnership created the groundwork for entirely new industries like electronics and biotechnology.
POTENTIAL PATHWAYS
We shouldn't dwell on the obvious: basic research pays great dividends. But there are other, not so obvious facts about research. First, research tends to confront the problems a society faces. So problems of Caribbean society and economy shall not find hubs of solution-oriented groups operating in universities in Beijing or Massachusetts. Second, basic research especially in the sciences tends to be expensive.
Finally, we won't normally find international research grants seeking to fund problems we may deem to be central to our well being.
We may find grants centre on problems the granting country - including its foundations-deems to be important from its own perspective. So population move-ment and migration may be important to the USA. This might result in funding for population studies, research students, computers and labs at UWI-coincidence of interest. But this is not always the case. The rule should be: research grants accepted once a modicum of our own interest is advanced and none retarded by such work. But we move ahead of our discourse.
Experience is a great teacher; it highlights potential pathways to problem solving. Conscientious experienced academics normally have a slate of research topics, pet projects, burning questions and ideas they could never investigate to completion even if their expected useful life doubled! For a financially strapped university this fact looms larger. Two or three per cent of an institution's gifted student body, emerge as stellar postgraduate students. They are driven to path-breaking research and with guidance, take on such projects and those of their own imagination. Standing on the shoulders of others they carry forward advanced work, opening up enriching new pathways. Experience also enables mentors to spot potentially great ideas and star student performers. If our focus does not allow us to pursue these efforts, then we surely miss out on abundant potentials at UWI.
POSTGRAD VS RESEARCH STUDENTS
Postgraduate study does not necessarily generate new knowledge. The students' earlier article alludes to this fact. It points out that of the "more than 3,000 graduate students at Mona, approximately 20 per cent are research students. The vast majority [is] engaged in taught master's programmes such as the famous MBA and other MA programmes. Of the 20 per cent research students, approximately 30-40 per cent is part-time, which means that they have to pay their tuition fees and they are not given any stipend. So, the university only caters for about 400-500 full-time research students out of a total population of over 10,000 students."
A few questions: What does this mean? How has it come about? What is the focus and mission of the UWI? What is the place of graduate studies? Is UWI properly funded for its tasks?
Proliferation of higher education centres the Irvine Committee foresaw and unanimously, emphatically rejected, has come to pass. Although it is argued that this subjects the single campus to the vagaries of economic and political conditions of its territory, proves economically and financially costly for a region with so many demands upon so few resources, this development was inevitable and for a variety of reasons a good thing. Presence of a university or college with its cohort of faculty and students has significant positive spill-over effects upon its community. It would be impossible to deny any Caricom member's wish to have higher education facilities.
UHWI for instance is indisputably, a boon to Jamaica - but it costs.
Old scheme
Those guiding the institution are acutely aware that the old scheme of triennial government grants can no longer solely be relied upon to fund the essential activities a university must undertake. And there have been many initiatives aimed at remedying this situation.
The enduring solution lies in making UWI more of an entrepreneurial institution. Don't get me wrong, we are not talking of more income-earning Mona Visitors' Lodges, KFCs or Juici Pattieses.
Indisputably, the most significant asset UWI possesses is its knowledge base and more importantly, the potential to transform this into tangible income earning assets for the institution and wider society. To achieve this requires change that is underway.
Partnerships and other initiatives that recognise these potentials are possible. This is being pursued. If the graduate students' public airing of their concerns causes more of our private institutions to contemplate these possibilities and commit to longer term investment in knowledge generation they would have initiated a good thing. Estimates of the average rate of return on private investment in the USA range from 10 to 14 per cent. The rate of return on research and development investment is in the region of 30 per cent. The social rate of return on R&D is of the order of 50 per cent to 60 per cent.
Could we somehow find that R&D can become the focus of even one 'alternative investment scheme'? Is a 60 per cent social rate of return too modest?
wilbe65@yahoo.com
