I attended the International Conference on the Philippines (ICOPHIL-9) at Michigan State University this year. Afterwards, I was fortunate enough to be able to have conversations with academics at a dinner party held by some of the Filipino community in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I also met with an old professor of mine, Sarita See, and we talked about a project she is working on called the Center for Art and Thought based in University of California Davis which aims to bridge the gap between academics and artists. According to her, the project is fueled by her disappointment, and in fact rage, in witnessing and experiencing a kind of devaluing of some academics by university administration. Since then I have been thinking about some of the things that we talked about regarding academia and how it treats the people within its walls, and how it relates to conversations I've had with my friends in graduate school for social sciences and humanities, and also with my work now with the Kapwa Collective.
More and more I am coming to the conclusion that, in this world we now occupy which stands on the brink of ecological disaster, academics have an important and immediate role to play to become leaders in society. But, despite the fact that academics are some of the more brilliant minds in society, who are the most educated and highly skilled in different areas, they are also some of the unhappiest and I dare say, oppressed people I know. On the one hand, academia has become its own self-sustaining system that feasts on the intellectual powers of its students and educators, but also their complicity in their own powerlessness with regards to things like fair wages and job security and how they can play a more active role in society. On the other hand, in my experience, the larger community has a sense of disconnection from academics--for some reason, the communication gap between academics and the community has become de rigueur. For the average person, unless academics make a conscious decision to do so, the work produced by academia is inacessible. And it this kind of double structure that is in place and which prevents academics from playing a larger role in the transformation of society for the better, in helping create a society that could have been used to resist the capitalistic system which works to take money from people and which abuses Nature and her resources in order to do so. I recognize that leadership can also come from people who are not academic, and that not all academics may want to take on that leadership role in the community. Nevertheless, academics are people who devote most of their working life in learning and becoming the most knowledgeable about specific subjects. Right now, besides teaching, researching and publishing are the main means by which academics make their mark in the world. But as my recently-graduated sister reminds me, these publications are generally not available to people in the public. And I also want to acknowledge that academics are some of the most overworked people I know. This too impinges upon their ability to work with and make an impact on the community. All of these factors have led me to believe that there is a great untapped potential in academics and their capacity as leaders for social transformation--in fact there is a system in place in academia which prevents them from fulfilling that potential. What I know for certain is that all people, including academics, need and want to have that connection with other people and with a greater power, and most people desire for their work to be relevant and in accordance with a greater cause, whatever that may be. My question is, how could academics start playing a more active role in transforming society? How can they recognize the similarities in their situation and to mobilize so that they can, in the words of Paulo Freire, "struggle to change the structures of society that until now have served to oppress" them?
0 Comments
|
Words, images, & fripperies by Christine Balmes unless otherwise stated. Archives
November 2014
Categories
All
|