The role of a university is to offer intellectual leadership through

OPEN VIEW

Revisiting John Henry Newman's discourses on The Idea of a University recently was a delight, but it was also a reminder that anyone who sets out to describe "the" idea of a university is bound to fail. I am reminded of an occasion when somebody asked Gandhi what he thought of western civilisation, and he said he thought it would be a good idea. It is very much like that with a university. Most of us have some concept, maybe an idea (not an ideal) of a university - but the reality of today struggles to hold our idea in concert with the original.

We live in a vastly different landscape than that which most of us who work in higher education knew when we started our university careers. More attention to social justice has meant that we try much harder to increase levels of participation in higher education - and I think Newman would have approved of that. The exponential increase in knowledge has meant that more people need to be educated and indeed to participate in continuing education if they are to keep abreast of their chosen fields - and I think Newman would have been comfortable with that as well.

Technology and the wonders of the internet have made access to information and knowledge immeasurably greater - and not necessarily mediated by universities. Newman could never have imagined the internet. He talked about the "prodigious powers of the press" and was approving of its role in more fairly dispensing information. All this is good and indeed I would argue that The Open University has been part of this large and positive sweep of the history of higher education. It will continue to play its part. The need for education is so great that one can truly say that the opportunities are almost limitless and the contribution we can make is profound.

Newman might not have been quite so approving, in my view, of how we conceptualise the educational endeavour. He was quite against a utilitarian view of higher education - although he might have been persuaded that in this complicated world we may need both. He did, however, refer to education cultivating the "hospitality" of the mind, "standing on good terms with all kinds of knowledge", and understanding different branches of knowledge to have some relationship with other branches.

Newman might also not have approved (and indeed who does) of the swing towards the market, that is being seen by many as the solution to all problems. This has been reinforced in many respects by a public that has come to increasingly view education as a private good. That should not be a view that is allowed to go unchallenged. Universities have always served public purposes as well as private. Strategic interventions, be they by government or other funders, need to recognise that the market can be a force supporting the public purpose - but it can also be a force undermining it. It seems to me that we haven't got a bad balance in the UK at the moment, given the percentage of the population participating in higher education.

And what of the intellectual leadership that Newman displayed in his writing and indeed his life? It is the universities' special calling, it seems to me, to provide intellectual leadership, public intellectual leadership and to place on the agenda the most difficult and intractable problems of our times.

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