How universities can rebuild trust with their local communities, and the wider public, by becoming members of civic alliances
“Everyone hates us!” he said.
I had just come to the end of a meeting with a group of civic engagement leaders from three regionally linked universities, having been unsuccessful in my attempt to persuade them to join the local civic alliance as part of their freshly signed civic university agreement. As Academic in Residence for the UK’s largest civic alliance, Citizens UK, aiming to expand and deepen our relationships with universities, I spend a lot of time talking with civic engagement leads in the sector about the benefits of being part of local broad-based alliances. The candid remark by one of the civic leads, who I hasten to add, had taken on the civic lead role in addition to their main role, and was going above and beyond to ensure his institution impacted beneficially on its immediate community, is indicative of a wider malaise that I had picked up in my conversations. To summarise: now that the sector is trying to address the question of its impact on local communities through its place-making activity and the role of universities as anchor institutions, why is this not translating into greater appreciation and love for universities from the wider public?
Part of the answer to this is the loss of public trust in universities in the sector. Over a decade ago the British Social Attitudes survey (2013) found that loss of trust in government had reached its lowest ebb since 1986 when it began tracking this and that loss of trust in some institutions/sectors tended to lead to a diminution of trust is other institutions. Since then we have had the rise of populism and Michael Gove’s infamous comment in the Brexit campaign, that people had “had enough of experts”. The recent Times article (paywall) claiming that some universities were compromising their admissions standards in order to recruit more international students is a further indication of the loss of trust in the sector: universities claim to act in the public good, but when as much as a fifth of their income comes from international students, can they be trusted to act in the best interests of the communities they serve? A recent US survey found that there had been a marked decline in public trust for colleges and universities from 2015 to the present. While I’ve not found a similar survey in the UK, there is no reason to suppose that the same diminution of trust in sector isn’t being experienced in the UK.
“We’re doing good things!”
One very understandable response to the loss of trust in the sector is to demonstrate the public good generated by the sector through core activities like education and research and doing more good things. Speaking at the Times Higher Education World Academic Summit in Berkeley, California in the immediate aftermath of Brexit, the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge highlighted the problem of loss of trust in the sector and counselled on the need for universities to reclaim their autonomy whilst forging international partnerships that demonstrate the public good they do. The civic turn in the sector, in the aftermath of the 2019 UPP report Truly Civic, can be thought in the same light: by developing bespoke civic strategies in partnership with other public institutions, universities can demonstrate the public value they generate for their immediate geographical communities and thereby rebuild public trust in the sector.
Doing to and doing with
“Rather than doing good things to others, even where this can be compellingly shown to be in their interests, would it be better to do with others than do to?”
I don’t want to underestimate in anyway the value and impact of the many good projects that universities engage in to improve the lives of the communities they serve. Universities could and should be doing more of these under the guise of social responsibility and renewed civic purpose. But is this an effective strategy for addressing the deficit of public trust that the sector is experiencing? Here is where the sector can learn from the organising tradition developed by Saul Alinsky in Chicago in the 1930s; honed and expanded in the civil rights era; and codified and expanded in the founding of the Industrial Areas Foundation of which Citizens UK is an affiliate. Civic alliances, or broad-based alliances, are alliances of civil society organisations – faith, educational, trade unions, health organisations and other third sector institutions – that create a space for people to find common purpose and hold decision makers and office holders in the public and private sector to account. In the UK the living wage campaign is the best example of this. The campaign commenced when organised churches, schools and trade unions got together to share what was putting them under pressure and the campaign developed from there with an estimated 2.5 billion in additional pay paid by employees on a voluntary basis since the start of the campaign in 2001.
A key precept for the organising community is the ‘iron rule’: never do for others what they can do for themselves. This follows not from some ethic of self-reliance but rather from a notion of human flourishing that contends that if you act on someone’s behalf – even if this is purported to be in their interests – you rob them of the opportunity to address the injustice they experience themselves. If finding common purpose with others, whose interest and outlook are different from your own, feature in some version of the flourishing human life, as many have argued, might the problem of the loss of trust be framed differently? Rather than doing good things to others, even where this can be shown, compellingly, to be in their interests, would it be better to do with others than do to? If the response to the loss of trust is to double down on the benefits to society as a whole of the educational and research activity of universities, whilst supplementing this with place-making, socially-responsible activity, how will this work if this relies on the same public trusting the evidence brought before them? Universities need to engage in trust-building activities rather than trying assuming that the evidence of the public good they produce will do this on its own.
“We’re doing good things!” Paradigm shift: ‘doing with’ as opposed to ‘doing to’
This calls for a paradigm shift in the way that the sector responds to the loss of public trust in my view. Where they seek to rebuild trust with the communities that they serve they should consider refraining from acting in their best interests, dispense with the persona of disinterested neutral broker in local and regional issues, and get around the table and act with its community. Universities should in other words resist the temptation to act in the interests of others and instead create structures and ways in which academics, professional staff and students can act with others to find common purpose and challenge the multiple injustice they experience in their day to day life. University communities are not of course free from these injustices: precarity, lack of affordable housing, poor quality of services civic and environment degradation are common experiences for people working and studying in universities. What is needed is a recognition on the part university senior leaders that they don’t have all the answers, despite the immense resources and capabilities they bring to the table, and greater humility in their work with the communities they purport to serve.
To be clear this is not a call for the sector to refrain from doing good things domestically and internationally in addition to, or as an extension of, its core activity of teaching and research. Long may the increased importance of social responsibility and civic purpose last in the sector. However, if we expect this to reduce the deficit in public trust that the sector is experiencing, we are going to be disappointed as the strategy relies on the very commodity that it is seeking to produce. To address the loss of public trust, so very evident is recent reporting on the sector, it should consider engaging in trust-building activities and acting with rather than on its communities.
A growing number of universities are choosing to do this. There are now over 30 universities that are members of civic alliances, leveraging their not inconsiderable local and regional institutional power to support people, through their institutions, to find common purpose and win change in their communities. They do this be engaging in a broader range of civic action on transport, mental health, homelessness and affordable housing. Ultimately the problem of trust in the sector relates to the democratic function and purpose of universities which tends to get overlooked when their civic function is seen purely in terms of place-making activities or their actions as anchor institutions. If it is trust they want they should create structures that enable staff and students to work with others, through their institutions to build relational power and win change.
How universities can rebuild trust with their local communities, and the wider public, by becoming members of civic alliances
“Everyone hates us!” he said.
I had just come to the end of a meeting with a group of civic engagement leaders from three regionally linked universities, having been unsuccessful in my attempt to persuade them to join the local civic alliance as part of their freshly signed civic university agreement. As Academic in Residence for the UK’s largest civic alliance, Citizens UK, aiming to expand and deepen our relationships with universities, I spend a lot of time talking with civic engagement leads in the sector about the benefits of being part of local broad-based alliances. The candid remark by one of the civic leads, who I hasten to add, had taken on the civic lead role in addition to their main role, and was going above and beyond to ensure his institution impacted beneficially on its immediate community, is indicative of a wider malaise that I had picked up in my conversations. To summarise: now that the sector is trying to address the question of its impact on local communities through its place-making activity and the role of universities as anchor institutions, why is this not translating into greater appreciation and love for universities from the wider public?
Part of the answer to this is the loss of public trust in universities in the sector. Over a decade ago the British Social Attitudes survey (2013) found that loss of trust in government had reached its lowest ebb since 1986 when it began tracking this and that loss of trust in some institutions/sectors tended to lead to a diminution of trust is other institutions. Since then we have had the rise of populism and Michael Gove’s infamous comment in the Brexit campaign, that people had “had enough of experts”. The recent Times article (paywall) claiming that some universities were compromising their admissions standards in order to recruit more international students is a further indication of the loss of trust in the sector: universities claim to act in the public good, but when as much as a fifth of their income comes from international students, can they be trusted to act in the best interests of the communities they serve? A recent US survey found that there had been a marked decline in public trust for colleges and universities from 2015 to the present. While I’ve not found a similar survey in the UK, there is no reason to suppose that the same diminution of trust in sector isn’t being experienced in the UK.
“We’re doing good things!”
One very understandable response to the loss of trust in the sector is to demonstrate the public good generated by the sector through core activities like education and research and doing more good things. Speaking at the Times Higher Education World Academic Summit in Berkeley, California in the immediate aftermath of Brexit, the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge highlighted the problem of loss of trust in the sector and counselled on the need for universities to reclaim their autonomy whilst forging international partnerships that demonstrate the public good they do. The civic turn in the sector, in the aftermath of the 2019 UPP report Truly Civic, can be thought in the same light: by developing bespoke civic strategies in partnership with other public institutions, universities can demonstrate the public value they generate for their immediate geographical communities and thereby rebuild public trust in the sector.
Doing to and doing with
“Rather than doing good things to others, even where this can be compellingly shown to be in their interests, would it be better to do with others than do to?”
I don’t want to underestimate in anyway the value and impact of the many good projects that universities engage in to improve the lives of the communities they serve. Universities could and should be doing more of these under the guise of social responsibility and renewed civic purpose. But is this an effective strategy for addressing the deficit of public trust that the sector is experiencing? Here is where the sector can learn from the organising tradition developed by Saul Alinsky in Chicago in the 1930s; honed and expanded in the civil rights era; and codified and expanded in the founding of the Industrial Areas Foundation of which Citizens UK is an affiliate. Civic alliances, or broad-based alliances, are alliances of civil society organisations – faith, educational, trade unions, health organisations and other third sector institutions – that create a space for people to find common purpose and hold decision makers and office holders in the public and private sector to account. In the UK the living wage campaign is the best example of this. The campaign commenced when organised churches, schools and trade unions got together to share what was putting them under pressure and the campaign developed from there with an estimated 2.5 billion in additional pay paid by employees on a voluntary basis since the start of the campaign in 2001.
A key precept for the organising community is the ‘iron rule’: never do for others what they can do for themselves. This follows not from some ethic of self-reliance but rather from a notion of human flourishing that contends that if you act on someone’s behalf – even if this is purported to be in their interests – you rob them of the opportunity to address the injustice they experience themselves. If finding common purpose with others, whose interest and outlook are different from your own, feature in some version of the flourishing human life, as many have argued, might the problem of the loss of trust be framed differently? Rather than doing good things to others, even where this can be shown, compellingly, to be in their interests, would it be better to do with others than do to? If the response to the loss of trust is to double down on the benefits to society as a whole of the educational and research activity of universities, whilst supplementing this with place-making, socially-responsible activity, how will this work if this relies on the same public trusting the evidence brought before them? Universities need to engage in trust-building activities rather than trying assuming that the evidence of the public good they produce will do this on its own.
“We’re doing good things!” Paradigm shift: ‘doing with’ as opposed to ‘doing to’
This calls for a paradigm shift in the way that the sector responds to the loss of public trust in my view. Where they seek to rebuild trust with the communities that they serve they should consider refraining from acting in their best interests, dispense with the persona of disinterested neutral broker in local and regional issues, and get around the table and act with its community. Universities should in other words resist the temptation to act in the interests of others and instead create structures and ways in which academics, professional staff and students can act with others to find common purpose and challenge the multiple injustice they experience in their day to day life. University communities are not of course free from these injustices: precarity, lack of affordable housing, poor quality of services civic and environment degradation are common experiences for people working and studying in universities. What is needed is a recognition on the part university senior leaders that they don’t have all the answers, despite the immense resources and capabilities they bring to the table, and greater humility in their work with the communities they purport to serve.
To be clear this is not a call for the sector to refrain from doing good things domestically and internationally in addition to, or as an extension of, its core activity of teaching and research. Long may the increased importance of social responsibility and civic purpose last in the sector. However, if we expect this to reduce the deficit in public trust that the sector is experiencing, we are going to be disappointed as the strategy relies on the very commodity that it is seeking to produce. To address the loss of public trust, so very evident is recent reporting on the sector, it should consider engaging in trust-building activities and acting with rather than on its communities.
A growing number of universities are choosing to do this. There are now over 30 universities that are members of civic alliances, leveraging their not inconsiderable local and regional institutional power to support people, through their institutions, to find common purpose and win change in their communities. They do this be engaging in a broader range of civic action on transport, mental health, homelessness and affordable housing. Ultimately the problem of trust in the sector relates to the democratic function and purpose of universities which tends to get overlooked when their civic function is seen purely in terms of place-making activities or their actions as anchor institutions. If it is trust they want they should create structures that enable staff and students to work with others, through their institutions to build relational power and win change.
