Follow Steven Schwartz All the world is a stage
Written by Steven Schwartz on November 19th, 2009
In the heart of Berlin, just off the famous tree-lined boulevard Unter den Linden, sits Humboldt University. Among its alumni and faculty are people who helped to change the course of modern history: Albert Einstein, Marx and Engles, Max Planck, Erwin Schrodinger and Werner Heisenberg, to name just a few. And of course Wilhelm von Humboldt, after whom the institution is named, bequeathed to us the modern research-based university.
Twenty years ago this month Berlin was the stage for one of those increasingly frequent world-changing eruptions – the collapse of the Berlin Wall, an event that ultimately brought about the fall of the Soviet empire and which saw communism consigned to history’s garbage bin.
Ineluctably, history moves on and its perceived centre of gravity shifts.
For centuries, western historians saw Europe as the mover and shaker of world events.
In the Oxford University Press A History of Europe, published in 1927, its authors proclaimed that European civilisation “sets the standard for all the peoples of the earth” (cited in Norman Davies Europe: A History). Then came the rise of the United States in what the journalist and publisher Henry Luce termed the American Century.
The United States and Europe remain strong economically, culturally and militarily. It is hard to see them becoming irrelevant backwaters any time soon.
But times are changing. Among this month’s plethora of articles analyzing and commenting on the fall of the Berlin Wall, is a perceptive piece by Professor Timothy Garton Ash.
Writing in the New York Review of Books, Garton Ash speculates that the fall of the Berlin Wall may have been the last occasion when world history was made in Europe.
A popular meeting place at Humboldt University is the Café Weltgeist (Weltgeist roughly translates as world spirit). But today, says Garton Ash, the Weltgeist has moved on and world history is being made elsewhere.
Garton Ash is at least partly right. China and India are becoming important world powers, and Russia itself is undergoing a transformation that may see it re-emerge as a major power.
Along with their economic and military might, these countries are also growing their universities. Both teaching and research are improving rapidly. We may soon reach the day when Australian academics no longer flock to Europe and the USA on their sabbaticals, but opt instead for Beijing or Delhi.
- Steven Schwartz
This reminds me of my Ancient history class this year. Studying Greek history with the Athens and Sparta as Major players in Greece and have been from 8th BC to 5th BC. At that time they had major players like Plato and Themistocles. However like today there were rising powers in the Greek world. Example is Thebes and Macedon. Which we could argue are like China and India with Sparta being USA and Athens as Europe. My point is that in time the power of major players will shift as Thebe and Macedon will give way to Philip and Alexander the Great who are father and son in the 4th BC. As time will tell that sooner or later China and India will produce greats like those of Europe and USA it’s just a matter of time.
Allan Reply:
More like in just a matter of time China & India ‘greats’ will soon be noticed.
Yes, there is no doubt that global competition for academics is increasing. And what are Australian universities doing about it? Uhh… casualising the academic workforce, a solution which, according to researchers from the L.H. Martin Institute, ACER and EPI, “lacks coherence, strength and vision.” (Coates, Dobson, Edwards, Friedman, Goedegebuure & Meek, 2009) They also found that Australian academics have lower job satisfaction than their international colleagues, are amongst the least satisfied with institutional management and support, have less opportunity to do research than they would like, and work among the longest hours per week.
Where is the University’s Workforce Development Plan? Why, given the situation outlined in the paper cited above and the many publications by people like Graeme Hugo over the last 15 years, is the University so keen to prevent systematic examination of academic workloads? Why is there so little evidence of a real intention to eliminate expectations of excessive academic workload and hours? Instead, positions are not being filled, we are looking to INCREASE student load, and management proposes to “require” up to 60% of academic workload to be taken up by teaching!
We are already seeing high staff turnover due to retirements. How is the policy of screwing academics to the floor with excessive workloads going to result in a sustainable workforce (and therefore a sustainable research program and quality teaching)??
Dear VC,
Fall of berlin wall was considered the most significant change in its own time. It was Fokoyama who discussed end of history immediately but we soon realized that History doesnt end with one fall as we were about to experience the ethnic cleansing in Africa and central Europe.
Dear VC,
Its 42 C and Im sitting in middle of the road preparing for my exam tomorrow simply because there are no ceiling fans in our rooms, no air conditioning in University owned accommodation.
these lines on fall of berlin wall are from the reader… Let me disagree with you as long as universities in Australia think of students as commodities and money making machines without providing basic amenities such as Internet, Cooling systems etc. Not only the scholars but students also will run away. Even a B grade university in States offer fully airconditioning units to its students. Dont understand what excellence you are talking about.