Student Societies and the Problem With Controversial Invitations

Controversy is a strange thing. Simply knowing about the matter is enough to cause a reaction. Nothing needs to have occurred yet to cause offense. The implications and the possibilities can be enough.

Matters such as these that move into the wider public arena quickly draw attention. When people find out that something or someone controversial has been given a platform, opinions quickly divide. A mere invitation will cause offense, creating friction from the outset.

For student societies, that makes inviting any controversial public figure a tough job.

hot topic (photo by Enokson)

photo by Enokson – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The Oxford Union, a debating society, recently came under fire for what looked like differing views in how to handle controversial invitations. Reactions surrounding invitations to Julian Assange and Nick Griffin appeared different. Assange was granted a platform, while Griffin was dismissed as not having even been properly invited. Independent student newspaper, Cherwell, quoted an Oxford Union spokesperson: “The Oxford Union does not wish to be associated with the BNP in any way whatsoever. We strongly disagree with their views.”

Assange, however, went on to speak in late January 2013. Former president of the Oxford Union, Izzy Westbury, explained to the Guardian why invitations like these are made:

“Inviting someone controversial – be it in a political sense, a religious one or, in the case of Assange, a legal one – is the best way of showing them for what they really are. When Assange is video-linked to the union, I would expect and encourage questions that challenge both his views and his actions. We should put him in an uncomfortable position – that is the condition of the invite.”

Writing for Cherwell, Alexander Rankine pointed out that such a vocal disapproval of one person and not another is contradictory:

“A Union invitation does not condone. Guests can be cross-examined. The Union is neutral. The idea of the Union adopting a political position or pursuing an agenda goes brazenly against this principle. Now it seems that the Union’s invitations are motivated by political opinions and specific agendas after all. And if that is really the case, then the Assange invitation starts to look more like a vote of support. The Union stops being neutral.”

An invitation is not an entirely neutral move unless you invite the entire population of the world on exactly the same grounds. Invitations arise due to some form of interest or controversy or debate or fame. The matter is complex, so cannot be neutral even if the intention was innocent.

What if a society was more explicit in explaining the reasoning behind an invitation as non-politically as it could? If that happened, the situation is still political, because reasons can be argued and people can disagree with the reasoning given.

Rankine handily wraps up the difficulty and the answer in a single sentence: “I always thought that the Union was meant to be a neutral debating platform.”

That term, “Neutral debating platform“. Can a debating platform ever be entirely neutral?

Debating occurs due to political matters. That’s the point of a debate. Be it a mild discussion, or an emotionally dividing battle, opinions are not all the same.

When Marine Le Pen, president of French political party Front National, spoke at the Cambridge Union, around 200 protesters gathered in opposition. One protester told The Cambridge Student:

“I don’t object to her speaking, but I think the important thing is we make it quite clear there’s opposition. The fact that you can get up and ask her a few questions afterwards is not really enough.”

The term ‘neutral debating platform’ comes into question based not only on the handing out of invitations, but also on the format of the debate.

Yet an invitation is placed in order to bring forth further debate, rather than endorse or congratulate (or, indeed, disagree or disparage) the parties involved. An opportunity for questions may not be seen as enough.

With so much to contend with, inviting a controversial figure cannot be completely neutral. Their views and actions are a necessary part of the package. It’s a big part of why their presence was requested in the first place. Those underlying reasons cannot be temporarily removed for logistical purposes.

Debating societies wouldn’t exist without some sort of controversy. That’s why an attempt to be neutral looks anything but to some. Politics may be intended only once everyone is gathered in the debating hall. However, some decisions are already political long before many realise they are political at all.

How would you handle controversial figures and controversial invitations?

Digital Interactions and the Ways We Perceive Them As Humans

[Martin’s note: A slightly different post today. This is my submission for #edcmooc, a University of Edinburgh MOOC running via Coursera. It’s a wordy ramble about digital interactions and being human. If you are interested in that type of thing, I hope you enjoy it.]

Technology (photo by iMaturestudent - Andy Mitchell)

Technology (photo by iMaturestudent – Andy Mitchell) CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Subjectivity blurs. Without definitive meaning, terms like utopia and dystopia are not separable and boundaries between the human and the posthuman are not clear.

My life is shaped through the interactions that take place and my interpretations of those interactions. Digital interactions extend beyond the physical and material, yet have room for creating crossover, as demonstrated in Avatar Days.

Avatar Days highlights online characters walking around a real world, yet they do not interact with the people around them. Even waiting in line in a supermarket queue, the film does not show a transaction at the counter. Despite appearing to the outside world, the avatars looks noticeably distant and detached. What is real is unreal and vice versa.

Does this make us different as humans? And at what point do these changes allow posthumanism to exist, if not already?

I suggest that technology alters behaviours in communication more than it alters the people communicating. Learning itself hasn’t evolved into something unrecognisable, but the methods available to us to facilitate that learning have grown. What was once only possible face to face is now possible with no other living person present, or with other people participating all over the world at the same time. People must still analyse the detail, find enthusiasm to get the most out of the resources, and have reason (and the choice) to be a part of something.

Transmitting a message from one side of the world to the other has become faster, easier, more accessible, and ‘closer to the real thing’ than ever before. Break it down and it’s still transmitting a message. Conversation is still conversation. Information is still information.

Conversations and information transmit with speed and ease, reaching a growing number of people. Before publishing this artefact, I saw David Hopkins’ submission for #edcmooc. His presentation linked to a video that is rather fitting.

Isaac Asimov’s vision is playing out now. This is made possible by technology, yet it happens through our actions, interactions, and collaborations. Creative links to what has been can help create what is to come.

The Harlem Shake meme gripped the attention–and creativity–of many people around the world in a short space of time. Within days, thousands of videos were being posted online. Each video an artefact. I considered a few alternative versions in the hope that other people had already created them:

The videos existed. Other people had experienced similar thoughts to my own and I was able to see this using a single search term for each in YouTube.

Digital cultures and interactions start to show–almost in realtime–that we can get along together, create together, converse together, and experience so many things as a collective. By the same token, when overlap doesn’t appear, tensions are such that our own reality finds it difficult to make sense of another person’s reality.

Jonathan Haidt describes this in The Righteous Mind:

“Moral matrices bind people together and blind them to the coherence, or even existence, of other matrices. This makes it very difficult for people to consider the possibility that there might really be more than one form of moral truth, or more than one valid framework for judging people or running a society.” [p.110]

Under Haidt’s scenario, out goes common sense, truth, and a sense of right and wrong. However, their removal is practically impossible in our own sense of reality and in the collective (and divisive) nature of the world.

If we are so different amongst the similarity, where does being human end and posthuman begin? Indeed, at what point does a transhuman condition exist? If transhumanism is an ongoing project, when did it begin and who decided?

Don Tapscott ponders the link between human and computer:

“I have written often about today’s smartphones evolving into digital co-pilots, our constant companions that will help us get through the day. [Ray] Kurzweil sees such devices shrinking to microscopic size and residing within our bodies. Will we have tiny computers in our bloodstream, ever alert for something amiss? These devices will be our links to what is now called the cloud, the vast computing power of the Googles, the Amazons, the Apples and the IBMs of the world.”

Would these devices–inside the body–achieve posthuman wonders, and how do they compare to medical advances of the past, such as radiology, keyhole surgery, and many different drugs? The Transhumanist Declaration states, “Humanity stands to be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future”. But what of the past?

The possibilities here are theories and philosophies, despite the transhumanist desire to introduce a practical angle. They are subjective because the focus is on concepts, not facts. When answers are not forthcoming, we are left either to ask more questions or to fill in the gaps with our own answers.

Michael Stevens, of VSauce, says that “we are all alone in our minds” [at 2min 9sec].

Contradictions are at play. Are we connected or alone? How about connected *and* alone? A binary view is unsustainable. Similarly, the future will be neither utopic or dystopic. Utopian and dystopian narratives, on the other hand, will likely live on, because text is powerful. The imagination can open doors to characters and actions that we may never see with our own eyes. Does this make sense? How real is a memory? If our memories could be captured and transferred to another being, how real is any of it?

The struggle to decide what is real will never go away because we cannot know anything beyond our own self. Adding to the confusion, perceptions of self are liable to change with every new experience. The tendency toward narrative explanations of what we encounter in life skews reality anyway. My reality is mine alone. Your reality is foreign, no matter how much we seem to agree. Empathy can enhance the simulation, but does not make it real.

Our individual minds cannot penetrate another, yet control over others is apparent at the same time. Theory of mind has, by definition, not reached reality. Correspondingly, perceptions of the material do not give way to the digital, even though technology brings greater choice and ease over (attempts at) personal exchanges. It is our sentience that stops the binary of one thing over another. Be it utopia and dystopia, human and posthuman, or otherwise. Subjectivity blurs.

Levels of Advice, and Understanding When It’s Not Needed

When you know what you want and have a good plan of how you want to achieve it, be careful before you blindly follow more general advice.

After my last post on reputation, I read an interesting Guardian piece on whether students should be encouraged to set their sights on Russell Group universities:

“…teachers now have an explicit incentive to focus on the “big brand” universities, following a controversial decision in the Department for Education last summer to collect data on how many pupils each school was sending to Russell Group universities. At a roundtable in the department this month, leading figures from outside the group will fight to derail this new measure – which has sparked a fierce row behind the scenes.”

The article mentions Sophie Cousens, who has been interested in marine biology since she was a child. Her main focus was to study the subject at Plymouth University. Cousens explains that she researched beforehand and was careful about making the right decision for her.

What interests you (photo by AlphachimpStudio)

What interests you? Where are you headed? (photo by AlphachimpStudio)

However, the Guardian reports that Cousens felt pressured to apply to a Russell Group university. The advice was seemingly for her own good, but she had already done the necessary research. Cousens had looked at Russell Group universities and found they either did not provide a marine biology course or that the course did not appeal.

Teachers had an incentive, as well as a piece of general advice which Cousens appears to have long surpassed. That advice may have been useful to some, but not to a person with clear plans. Unsurprisingly, there was a conflict of interests here. I doubt the pressure Cousens faced was spiteful. However, it does highlight that advice works on different levels.

When you have a detailed understanding of your aims, you’re in a good position. General aims are more likely, if not finding you draw a blank completely. None of this is to be ashamed of.

What’s important is to be aware of where you stand one way or the other.

Sophie Cousens knew what she wanted. General advice wasn’t helpful in this situation. Consider this point made by the Russell Group’s director, Wendy Piatt:

“All Russell Group universities demonstrate excellence and critical mass in research as well as a first-class educational experience, and excellence in enterprise and innovation.”

And the following comment from Vice-Chancellor of Exeter University, Steve Smith (Exeter being a member of the Russell Group):

“It does matter which institution you go to. The evidence is clear that it does affect your future, and we should encourage students to go to the best institution they can.”

Both Piatt and Smith provide a general argument to the situation. Whether or not ‘the evidence is clear’, this is different to Cousens’ individual research. These two perspectives view reputation in very different ways. In both cases, reputation has legs. There is no right or wrong.

As general advice, a push toward a Russell Group university may help a student with good grades and few plans ahead of them. I’m not saying the advice is correct, but it is one way to help someone think about the future, consider what they can achieve, and focus on a specific set of universities so they’re not overwhelmed. The question is, how many people are best served with this level of advice?

Cousens didn’t need pushing in that direction. As Steve Smith explains:

“I think it is a mistake to assume that everyone should aspire to go to a Russell Group university…There are other good institutions doing different things, and some great subjects that aren’t offered at Russell Group institutions.”

So where do you stand?

  • For students with a bold plan, advice should be about giving them the best chance of reaching that goal;
  • For students with a vague plan, advice needs to be tailored carefully to help them build something more concrete;
  • For students with good grades but poor plans, more general advice may be reasonable. Not everybody knows what they want, but that doesn’t make them a lost cause. At the same time, general advice should still be varied and not based on pressure toward a single goal, such as attending a Russell Group institution.

Excellence is apparent in different ways, just like reputation. Whatever level of advice you need, find what seems most useful to you and act on it accordingly, because that’s what matters.

“People always talk about, reputation...“

The Stickiness of Reputation

Reputation brings baggage with it. Baggage is unavoidable. A once prestigious university would have to experience a high-profile disaster before it took down the generally high opinion of it amongst the public and/or anyone previously associated with the institution. By high-profile, I’m talking stratospheric.

For this reason, it’s no surprise that reputation is still seen as important from many perspectives, despite it meaning little in reality when it comes to teaching quality.

“Reputation measures are largely invalid as indicators of educational quality. Institutions with an existing high reputation may have a vested interest in resisting the introduction of more valid indicators of educational quality.” [HEA: ‘Implications of ‘Dimensions of quality’ in a market environment, p.13]

From an admissions point of view, parents and prospective students will be interested to find out which places have historical positive benefits attached to it, since both employers and alumni will see the subsequent benefit of the graduates emerging from the university each year. This may have little bearing on reality, but it’s where baggage comes into play.

Baggage (photo by striatic) CC BY 2.0

Taking it all with you. (photo by striatic)

No matter how hard you try, this mystical reputation is hard to shift. Reputation isn’t generally altered on a year by year basis either. For sake of ease, let’s take Oxford. You’re unlikely to find a situation where an employer quibbles over whether a job candidate graduated in 2010 or 2011.

That type of reputation consideration would be nonsense, unless a scandal was discovered on a grand scale in a particular year. It would also have to be the type of scandal impacting upon everyone attending. Or at least all members of a certain course. This is highly unlikely. The context would have to be pretty good and the employer would have to be pretty bothered about it to make those distinctions.

“It is uncertain whether the use of more valid indicators of educational quality will gradually change perceptions of what reputation is about, and turn it into a more useful guide to student choice.” [HEA: ‘Implications of ‘Dimensions of quality’ in a market environment, p.8]

So we’re stuck with reputation for now. Like it or not, it makes a difference. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. Either way, you won’t find out on which occasions it swayed decisions, so much of it happens covertly.

Will perceptions change regarding what reputation is about? I don’t see it around the corner any time soon, because perceptions run deeper than more detailed information and statistical analysis. In addition, reputations go deeper than institution level. And each institution can have all sorts of reputational perspectives that mean different things to different people.

The reputational baggage may be from hundreds of years in the past or all about last year’s results from a particular course. Undergraduate success may rest indirectly in past research findings or it may be down to a recent mutual partnership. One person may ride with the baggage positively, while another person gets thrown to the sharks.

“An increasing number of institutions are using data to track progress in emphasising the ‘institutional USP’. They are marketing themselves as distinctive in relation to a particular indicator, such as employability, and emphasising that variable in programme-level learning outcomes and in institution-wide quality enhancement efforts, and then collecting better data than are currently available in order to monitor progress.” [HEA: ‘Implications of ‘Dimensions of quality’ in a market environment, p.10]

An institutional USP [Unique Selling Point] is useful to sell the university and course, but can it act as a reputational selling point? Can the ideal of what makes an institution tick be captured in the essence of a brief USP? It may cement opinions that are already held, but how quickly could it sway opinions more favourably?

While I believe universities have an increasing need to specialise, I’m not sure reputation will change that easily for the vast majority. Over time–dependent on too many variables to allow predictions other than complete guesswork–the situation may improve (or, indeed, falter) due to priorities based on USP. Still, nothing is clear.

For now, reputation seems to fall very roughly into two camps. The historical and the recent. Some universities have the reputation in place due to age and the sheer amount of past baggage. Other universities have the reputation in place due to more recent events that caused a reaction that was often beyond their own planning or expectation. Historical narratives are more likely to hold their place in the long run, because that baggage just doesn’t disappear. In other words, baggage is helpful for those who are already helped by it.

As the HEA report discusses, more/better/greater data can assist staff to an extent, but reputation is never a given. That’s why I call it mystical. Good or bad, when perceptions are firmly in place, they are hard to change. And when there’s a blank (or indifferent) slate, change is unlikely to arrive overnight unless through unintended fluke. For the sake of the university, hopefully a positive fluke!