GLOBAL: Opening ivory tower's doors

The Talloires Network conference in Madrid closed last Thursday with slowly settling amazement among delegates at how topical civic engagement of higher education had become. With Tufts University in the lead, the Talloires founders were genuinely baffled to see how much their baby had grown in just six years. Many of the hundreds of other network members were surprised to find just how wide the doors of the ivory towers have been flung open in a great range of countries.

In 2005, they were 29 universities and they met, by invitation only, in the French alpine town of Talloires where Tufts have a hideout, discussing how universities could better engage with their surrounding communities. Six years later, at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid at only their second general meeting, they were 220 participants, a dazzling 130 out of whom were vice-chancellors, rectors and presidents from all over the world.

"If, back in Talloires, you had told me that in six years this would span across more than 100 countries on six continents I would have thought this to be impossible," said incoming network president Mark Gearan.

Asked for a comment, LineoVuyisaMazwi-Tanga, Vice-chancellor of Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa, said it would have been easier to sum up the weather (baking hot) than what she had picked up from the conference but she would try:

"Universities are the recipients of hundreds of thousands of young minds with a virtually unlimited capacity for change," she said. "But how do we develop it? We seem to agree that we must; in spite of our tremendous diversity, we share the belief that we should change the academic paradigm from the image of an ivory tower to an open space for learning and development. Policy alone is not enough to achieve this. We need decisive leadership, an alignment of all university processes and active student involvement, to critically embed the culture of an engaged university."

There was overwhelming agreement in Madrid that this must be done. Equally overwhelming was the disagreement on how this should be done but that did not seem to matter much.

Some universities fully integrate civic engagement in the curriculum, citing that this has dramatically increased the sense of community among students. Others do exactly the opposite: trying to develop a culture of social engagement without making any of it obligatory for fear of losing the spirit and goodwill of socially active students. It all depends on the setting: a global movement cannot dictate form and protocol for such culturally sensitive issues.

The conference resolution, see here, to be signed by its participants, is set out in two parts, the second of which contains the actual commitments.

These generally advocate a push for more civic engagement globally, awareness raising, sharing best practice and developing peer learning networks. They also specifically refer to new initiatives launched or presented at the conference, such as the Walmart Foundation's small grants programme for Chilean universities, The MasterCard Foundation's project to increase economic opportunity and participation for disadvantaged youth and the cooperation between Talloires, Pearson and TakingITGlobal.

The refreshingly informal atmosphere, in part the product of the network's very strong American roots but certainly also a consequence of the lack of politicians among the participants made for a lot more free and open debate than is always cited at the closure of conferences.

There might well be an argument against the European trend to measure the success of conferences by the breadth of representation. Collegial workshops among academics, industry representatives, politicians and other stakeholders separately, followed up by an engagement meeting of all stakeholdersis is probably a better recipe.

Closing the conference, together with the heir to the Spanish throne Prince Felipe, Education Minister Angel GabilondoPujol gave full endorsement of the network's activities too:"I came here to say yes," he said. "At a time when we hear no all the time, I came to say yes. We need a positive discourse...We must listen to everyone; even those who do not have a spokesperson, because there is no exclusion that is worse than exclusion from knowledge. "

Prince Felipe noted the network promoted aspects he felt were integral to higher education: "Higher education and social commitment are terms that are intrinsically united," he said. "Universities are the key to human progress, culture and cohesion. Talloires promotes these aspects.

The EU 2020 strategy places education at the heart of European policies and not just for economic reasons but also to make our societies more fair and increase solidarity among our citizens.I hope and believe the debates of these days will contribute to making our universities even more committed, more involved and more responsible."

One key challenge for the network in the immediate future will be to broaden its ownership across the hundreds of new members and countries. It understandably bears the strong footprints of its founding members who hit the jackpot through a combination of admirable zeal and good timing.

Their ability in the years ahead to pass over the ownership of the network will be crucial for its continued success. As for the conference in Madrid, this was by all standards a resounding success.

"I am sure this will stand as a historic moment in the development of community engagement in higher education," said President Gearan. Only time can tell but he might well be right.