Academic Freedom?

There is the common misconception that academics at Rhodes University promote academic freedom. Of course they do, it sounds good and they punt it in their lectures. We are encouraged to create our own arguments and take a strong stand on our views. Isn’t this great I first thought! But the reality is something quite different and first year students, specifically BA students suffer under a system which suppresses academic freedom. You find yourself having to choose between either making a stand and promoting your own arguments or getting a first. Getting a first involves, as I eventually discovered, providing a strong argument but using the viewpoint of your lecturer or tutor.

Academic freedom is the freedom of students and academics to enquire openly and to express their arguments without being targeted by anyone to whom these views may be inconvenient (i.e. political groups or other authorities.) An article by the Council of Higher Education on academic freedom says that “Institutional autonomy could in the end empower the institutional bureaucrat to such an extent that the freedom of individual academics could be imperilled.”

Last week I wrote and essay about a play called Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, for English 1. As much as I would have loved to write 600 words on exactly what I felt the play was about I knew that my tutor would not agree with my views and I would get marked down. So I hauled out my lecture notes and regurgitated everything that my lecturer had said on the topic. Needless to say I got my first, but was not at all proud of the fact that it had entailed me using someone else’s opinion rather than my own.

When I confronted my English tutor about my feelings he brushed them off saying that as long as we think critically we will do well. Thinking critically is all fine and well, but it is our lecturer’s or tutor’s thinking that seems to count and as long as we write that down religiously we are seen as critical thinkers.

First year BJourn student Caeri Dunnell agrees: “I certainly think we are encouraged to believe in specific ways and I do think that if we went against these ideologies that we are being taught you wouldn’t get the marks for it. For example, our tutor never lets us disagree with her in tuts and therefore we don’t contradict her view in essays because we realize we will loose out.”

Drama is another subject that restricts our creative academic freedom. When people hear that I take drama as a subject they think it’s wonderful “because I am able to express myself.” But even drama at Rhodes brainwashes its students into performing in a certain way and using styles that are liked by “those who mark.” Rhodes Drama department has a very specific and distinct taste and as soon as one breaks that mould, or uses styles that are looked down upon by the department, you are immediately at a disadvantage. You would not have thought this to be the case with a subject like drama.

In the light of this is university really just one big scam to brainwash us? Bring your children to get an education, hoorah! Meanwhile we are being taught how to use someone else’s ideas as our own. We are being brainwashed into abiding by certain conventions and being educated to believe in ideologies unquestioningly.

The above might not hold true for the other faculties and other years at Rhodes, but it certainly seems to hold true for the first year Humanities students. Whether or not this will change in second year I don’t know. But I continue to ask myself should I be aiming for that first or should I be aiming for complete academic freedom even if that means I don’t achieve as well.