Over the past weeks Allegra – or more specifically, our Helsinki office – has been involved in a very particular ‘occupation’ – one that has chosen as its target some of the most blatant techniques that accompany the global university crises. Namely we refer to recent obsessions to ‘brand’ universities and sugar-coat current appalling reality of the academia with glitzy PR campaigns.
The campaign that instigated this particular Allied occupation is linked to the University of Helsinki, more specifically to the glossy campaign that the University’s PR department has orchestrated to celebrate the University’s 375th anniversary. This campaign is set against the backdrop of familiar troubling reforms that echo broader international trends – growing obsession for ‘excellence’, infatuation with quantified indicators and continual deterioration of the professional position of scholars.
Yet sadly, at the University of Helsinki these developments lag behind in their temporality. In other words, Finland being located in something of a global ‘periphery’, many of the ‘reforms’ that have already been tested and proven to be disastrous at global ‘centre’ of the academia, aka the UK & US, have not yet taken place in the country. Thus, by all logic, there would be no evident reason to repeat mistakes over which we have an overwhelming amount of evidence as resulting in train-wrecks of various sorts.
At the University of Helsinki, sadly, these arguments exert continually declining importance, and the fervour that accompanies the University’s directorate to link scholarship with ‘utility’ and ‘need’ matches the most zealous neo-liberal architects of university reforms that we hear of from the UK. Indeed, it sounds like there is a war against the humanities – and the very ideals of why universities have existed for centuries are in jeopardy.
It is in echo of these developments that a group of Helsinki based Allies grouped themselves to hijack the University’s PR campaign, in other words, to mock its visual imagery. Over the past weeks – as been documented via our diverse social media outlets – we have created a striking visual look for our protest, printed our own ‘branded’ protest t-shirts, crafted our own bizarre headgear utilised in the University’s campaign – and even offered instructions for how to make one yourself.
Linked to this campaign was also the protest carnival titled ‘Free University for Those Who Read Too Much‘ – a celebration of excessive analysis in this age obsessed with ‘impact’ and ‘utility’. The event was arranged in collaboration with more vibrant and rebellious minds within the University, and it took place outside one of the main University buildings located in downtown Helsinki, and coincided with the formal festivities arranged by the University to commemorate this anniversary.
Despite of chilling weather, a fair number of stubborn minds showed up – and stuck around for five solid hours of intellectual pursuits for NO apparent purpose what so-ever. One of its main ideas was that none of the speakers or participants report the event in any university database; a mundane-sounding form of protest but increasingly powerful given institutional obsessions to monitor every move by their staff.
Thus we also wanted to remind ourselves and others: THIS is where scholars pushed to the brink of desperation still hold clout over institutions. Not reporting is the one thing we can do to bring institutions pretending not to need scholars to their knees. If all of us would engage in similar protests and stop reporting our activities, we would re-gain (some) of our collective powers as scholars.
Institutions would have nothing with which to climb international rankings & get congratulated on at audits! By stopping to participate in this madness we thus have a real way out of the current situation which will only continue to deteriorate the more scholars comply with these ludicrous new ‘rules’!
The title of the event referring to ‘reading too much’ was provoked by the statement of Jorma Ollila, the former director of Nokia Inc, currently a board member of Shell Oil, an enormously influential person in Finland and also member of the Board of the University of Helsinki. Last autumn, at an enormously popular international ‘start-up fest’ Ollila instructed the audience to
‘Read, but not too much, for otherwise you become an academic’.
This is what we have sunk to. Board members of Universities may issue open ‘warnings’ against the perils of excessive eruditeness – without anyone in leadership positions in these institutions questioning this.
Rather we see via the social media how the Rector of the University of Helsinki – true to the spirit of ‘new university management’ – congratulates the university for successfully passing yet another audit. The University PR department, in turn, celebrates events arranged at University premises with flashy ads at leading national newspapers. The only problem: many of these events have little or nothing do with research. Clearly in the eyes of University PR research does not rank very high in the reasons why universities exist.
Let’s hope – and believe – that we are starting to see the bottom of things. Recent accounts from the UK indicate that things are at present worse than during the most zealous Thatcher years. Some assess that if things continue at this rate, universities as we know them will simply die. We insist on not being as pessimistic, and rather view it as inevitable that things will have to improve at a certain point.
In the meanwhile, we will continue our PR occupation. Humour remains the best tool of resistance, so we want to believe – and it certainly is the most fun way to rise to the barricades!
