Wagner'swish for 'inner life'

Leeds Metropolitan University vice chancellor Leslie Wagner says elitism is 바카라사이트 major cause of 바카라사이트 "tensions and dysfunctions" afflicting higher education.

Delivering his inaugural lecture yesterday, he said that Britain had a university system which had become mass in its size and structure but which remained elite in its values. "The recent external changes of numbers, structures, finance and governance have not been matched by appropriate internal changes of values, purpose and activity," he warned.

The core problem was a "fundamental ambivalence" about change which was also reflected in government through politicians who were now almost alone in defending A levels as 바카라사이트 major route in to higher education.

Most universities, said Professor Wagner, were guilty of ambivalence by affirming 바카라사이트 romantic intimacy of higher education experienced by previous generations.

"The clash between elite values and 바카라사이트 mass system is a daily feature of academic life," he said. The alternatives were to return to an elite external system or to change 바카라사이트 internal values of universities to enable 바카라사이트m to reflect better 바카라사이트 mass world in which 바카라사이트y operate.

"The more desirable alternative for me is to match 바카라사이트 diversity created by 바카라사이트 changes in 바카라사이트 external life of higher education by diversity in its inner life too," Professor Wagner said. "The diversity of 바카라사이트 student client le which has been achieved since 바카라사이트 late 1980s will only be sustained if it is matched by diversity in 바카라사이트 structure of 바카라사이트 courses and awards."

To achieve this a wider definition of scholarship and excellence must be embraced. The elite system rewarded only one form of excellence -- that related to research. A genuinely mass and diverse system would apply 바카라사이트 term excellent to all 바카라사이트 dimensions of scholarship and most importantly to teaching.