Where do we find inspiration in times when Higher Education is suffering from lack of funding and Learning Development is regularly undervalued despite our best attempts to convince those around us of its benefits?? Perhaps by focussing on the things we really value in education, such as the freedom to think – and the freedom to hold out the hand of friendship. In this post Ursula Canton writes about the Council for At Risk Academics (CARA), Scholars At Risk (SAR) and the Committee of Concerned Scientists – telling us about what they do – and how we might get involved.
Venturing beyond LD
In a situation where we can struggle to engage our students or to convince our institutions of the value of our work, it can be difficult to remember that our work’s commitment to social justice is not only focused on our students. Somewhere behind the discussions about transparency and critical thinking with our students, bigger ideas and values are hiding, such as the ideals of argument- and evidence based debate and everyone’s right to participate in them. We might not feel like defenders of academic freedom when we’re (sometimes desperately) trying to carefully evaluate the reliability of information with a lecture-hall full of students whose immediate concern is not to become well-informed citizens, but to get their degree to find a decently paid job that pays their bills (also important) (Canton et al, 2018). Still, reminding ourselves of the greater values underlying our work can help to keep enthusiasm alive – and if we combine it with some relevant volunteering, we can also support colleagues around the world who often have to pay a much higher price for sticking to their values and beliefs, because their work is considered to be so dangerous they face threats and persecution because of it: People like Rahile Dawut whose research into the folklore and traditions of minorities in China led to her disappearance, the students detailed in Belarus following the protests against the regime in 2020 or Niloufar Bayani and her colleagues, who were arrested on charges of espionage when they conducted conservation research for the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation.
Please read on to find out about the work of three organisations dedicated to defending academic freedom and about ways to support our academic colleagues who are threatened because they insist on exercising this right.
Defending Academic Freedom
The oldest one of them is CARA (Council for At-Risk Academics), whose work began in the 1930s when UK-based academics supported colleagues fleeing from Nazi Germany or countries occupied by it – an astounding number of future Nobel Prize winners among them. Since the end of WWII, and under different names, CARA has supported academics persecuted by Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe, South Africa’s apartheid regime and military dictatorships in Latin America with a current focus on the Middle East and Ukraine.
Scholars at Risk (SAR) and the Committee of Concerned Scientists (CCS) are US-based and younger, but also offer Advocacy for at-risk colleagues through finding host universities for them or campaigning for their rights.
In addition SAR also produces work on academic freedom world-wide, ranging from an annual report and a MOOC that offers participants the opportunity to explore the concept of academic freedom and its relevance to their own context further. SAR Europe, based at Maynooth University, is also doing policy work and hosts regular webinars in collaboration with the Scholar Rescue Fund.
How can you get involved?
First of all there are numerous ways of finding out more about academic freedom. You could
- Sign up to SAR’s Academic Freedom Media Review and find out more about HE in other parts of the world or CARA’s newsletter to hear about positive developments as well (https://www.cara.ngo/news-events)
- Participate in SAR’s MOOC: Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters.
If you’re keen to make a difference you could volunteer
- Fundraising is an obvious option. Sharing your baking skills with your colleagues and the proceeds with CARA, SAR or CCS, or become creative and organise a sponsored paper-reading marathon (good luck!).
- If you have experience of recruiting for academic posts, SAR has a pool of volunteer proof-readers who offer feedback on job applications for scholars at risk trying to apply for academic positions in safe countries. Requests to read come in rather sporadically, so this requires a limited amount of time, but seeing the CVs can be inspiring.
- Become a mentor for a scholar hosted by a UK university through CARA and help your colleague (and sometimes their family) settle into their new environment.
- Find out whether your institution is already hosting CARA or SAR scholars and advocate for further places. The Scholar Rescue fund publishes a list of scholars looking for placements in case it is easier to argue in favour of hosting a colleague in a specific field.
Not a conclusion – but a beginning
Getting involved in this work might not seem to be immediately relevant to our everyday LD practice, but I wouldn’t be recommending volunteering if the most important aim wasn’t the impact our actions can have on our colleagues at risk. Yet, as most volunteers know: volunteering is giving and getting back. Being reminded of how precious the freedom to think is can provide a real boost to motivation during the next meeting with a student who seems rather reluctant to make ample use of it, because it feels like a chore rather than a right. If your inner defender of academic freedom feels a bit worn down by the repetitiveness of too many small battles, you could get right in there and support your colleagues who are bravely fighting the big ones.
References
Canton, Ursula, Michelle Govan, and Daniela Zahn. 2018. “Rethinking Academic Literacies. A Conceptual Development Based on Teaching Practice.” Teaching in Higher Education 23 (6): 668–684. doi:10.1080/13562517.2017.1414783.
BIO
Ursula Canton encourages students to think and write freely at Glasgow Caledonian University (SL in Academic Writing), the University of Glasgow (Associate Tutor in the School of Education) and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (Effective Learning Service). Since the only potential danger her research related to writing and education brings is to break disciplinary boundaries, she is trying her best to speak up for academic colleagues by supporting the organisations mentioned above and using her writing skills to address state leaders and attorneys general in Amnesty International Urgent Actions.