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ABSTRACT

The Ria University Institute for Advanced Study (RUIAS) is a new, experimental research institution and graduate school now under development. The present moment is an especially opportune time for RUIAS to pre-plan the maintenance, reliability, and quality (MRQ) of its educational system. MRQ considerations or tactics have been used to help guide initial planning so as to structure RUIAS one way rather than another. (The discourse to follow seeks to encourage your critical reflection, creative feedback, and voluntary assistance. For example, will our MRQ tactics related to the structuring of RUIAS work the way hypothesised? Have we made any fatal flaws needing immediate correction? What other MRQ tactics should be considered to improve RUIAS?)
 

MRQ  PRELUDE  AND  PREREQUISITES

The Ria University Institute for Advanced Study (RUIAS)

‘Ria’ is a word taken from the Malay language and, loosely translated, means ‘lively’. One of our central goals at RUIAS is to be educationally lively, to be perpetually alive and flourishing. Both of the terms ‘universe’ and ‘university’ come from the Latin word ‘universus’ which, loosely translated, means ‘turned toward the one, the whole entirety’. Historically it has been universities, not university departments, that award degrees.

The Ria University Institute for Advanced Study (RUIAS) -- a new, experimental institution of higher learning now under development -- expects to offer four degrees, all at the Master’s level. RUIAS will offer Master’s degrees in education, in philosophy, in business administration, and in biology. Beyond this, we at RUIAS attempt to view the world in an interdisciplinary way. Only slight reflection is necessary to realise that as a society of global villagers, we fail in our educational quest if we become expert specialists without also becoming expert generalists. Thus a common core of  interdisciplinary courses is required of all RUIAS Master’s students, in addition to their specialised courses.

Knowledge Production

Before we can think properly about MRQ in terms of a concrete application, we must first have some conception of the ‘product’, ‘process’, or ‘thing’ to which the MRQ refers. If the product were a television, we might then think generally of MRQ in terms of clarity of picture and sound. For some but not others, the size of the TV set or of its picture might be important. Without meaning to be oxymoronic, many seek a large TV picture and a small TV set.

So what is, what should be, this ‘thing’ we call RUIAS? If a TV set may be described as a ‘product’, then the company that produces TV sets may be seen as a ‘process’. Likewise, if a ‘bit’ of information or a ‘wit’ of wisdom may be labelled a ‘product’, then the university that produces such knowledge may be seen as a ‘process’.

Two Kinds of Knowledge

Of relevance here we may say that there are at least two kinds of knowledge – specialised disciplinary knowledge and integrative interdisciplinary knowledge. A society cannot exist and flourish without both kinds of knowledge. An educational institution may emphasise one kind of knowledge to the exclusion of the other; another institution may explicitly seek to produce both varieties of knowledge. Presumably any of these three kinds of educational institutions may produce high- or low-quality knowledge. Grants and financing are important factors as to whether quality products (specialised knowledge, general knowledge, or both) are produced.

Knowledge Pathologies

Pathologies develop when our societies and educational institutions forget the need for producing interdisciplinary general knowledge of high quality. Typically in the States (the USA) we pay or play lip service to general education at the undergraduate (college) level and then promptly forget it. Why not get serious about producing general knowledge of high quality? The graduate school or graduate level of schooling  is a logical place to attempt this integrative type of quality activity, just as it has also been the logical place to get serious about producing specialised knowledge of high quality. RUIAS is about both kinds of excellencies. At least in the States, a graduate school with this explicit veracious dual purpose is indeed a rarity.
 

MRQ  OF  KNOWLEDGE  PRODUCTION  AT  RUIAS

Two Kinds of Courses

I have attempted to justify the need for the ‘product’ or ‘thing’ or ‘process’ called RUIAS. Now we can ask how to insure that RUIAS will be of high quality. The MRQ of RUIAS cannot be separated from its mission or aim or purpose. As previously shown, this involves the production  of new knowledge both general and specialised, as well as the teaching of both interdisciplinary and specialised courses. Accordingly, RUIAS relies on specialised expert professors to teach and produce specialised knowledge at RUIAS. On the other hand, all RUIAS professors also have the assigned task of teaching and producing general or interdisciplinary knowledge (as will be explained below). The two kinds of courses offered at RUIAS correspond to the two kinds of knowledge – general and specialised.

Three Research Divisions

C.P. Snow spoke and wrote of The Two Cultures (the arts and the sciences), and of the need to unite the two. Thus RUIAS is divided into three research divisions: 1) the Centre for Interrelation of the Disciplines; 2) the Centre for the Arts and Humanities; and, 3) the Centre for the Sciences and Medicine. This MRQ structural tactic may counter pathologies engendered in traditional universities composed of numerous departments which are too powerful or excessively territorial.

Interrelation of the Disciplines At the Centre of the Curriculum

Our Interrelation of the Disciplines (ID) program stands at the centre of the RUIAS curriculum. The ID courses are team taught by all RUIAS professors. Ordinarily our Master’s students will complete their degree requirements over a three trimester (one year) period of full time study. Small mentor-led discussions will supplement the ID lectures. One ID course is required each trimester, as follows: 1) Yesterday’s World: Past Patterns; 2) Today’s World: Present Problems; and, 3) Tomorrow’s World: Future Possibilities.

Non-Bureaucratic Administration of RUIAS and Research Library Privileges

Another MRQ tactic assumes that (everything else being equal) a university run by a community of scholars is educationally superior or preferable to one run (in whole or part) by administrators. Thus at RUIAS it is the professors who govern the university. The Board of Governors consists of all RUIAS professors and no one else.

But a collection of scholars is not necessarily a community of scholars. Thus the MRQ tactic of limiting the number of professors to twelve (and limiting the number of students to 144). Moreover, as part of the ongoing ID program, all professors and students must learn how to engage in participatory decision-making or ethical leadership. (For example, see Working Ethics by Marvin T. Brown.) For assistance with practical decision-making as well as research endeavours (not to mention curiosity or intellectual pleasure), a research library is certainly at least desirable. All RUIAS professors and Master’s degree students will be given access and borrowing privileges to the Stanford University Libraries. (Stanford University is a world renowned research university located in Palo Alto, California, USA.)

Perpetual Flourishing

Yet another MRQ tactic of RUIAS is to not open its doors to its first cohort of students until it is prepared to keep its doors open perpetually. This means plenty of financial support up front (grants or endowments), not reliance on hopes and promises. A well endowed institution almost automatically attracts the highest quality professors and students. A sufficiently well endowed institution exists perpetually. Thus RUIAS, a perpetually existing institution of higher learning, will not have to compromise its educational principles and excellencies to either the marketplace or the bureaucrats.

MRQ  PLANNED  AND  UNPLANNED

MRQ and Human Beings

We have suggested that RUIAS may be envisioned as a process which produces new knowledge. By its very nature, we do not know the specifications of the product (new knowledge) in advance. (New knowledge may include new values, art, music, and emotions previously unknown.) The production of new knowledge, learning individuals, and evolving societies is unlike the production of TV sets and other products we can specify in advance. Moreover, TV sets lack emotions, consciousness, or the desire for autonomy and respect.

If such ‘human’ values are valuable, then the planned MRQ of learning persons, evolving societies, improved schools, and new knowledge can at least sometimes be counterproductive or ‘inhuman’. It seems that some or much MRQ  of  knowledge production requires freedom, lack of planning, room for imperfection and thus perhaps numerous actual imperfections and failures. If memory serves, Gene McCarthy, in a USA presidential election year, once responded to a proposal by Jimmy Carter by suggesting that if Carter could think up 10 new government agencies to achieve a perfect society, then he could come up with 15. Perhaps the point he was making was that freedom is of value to human beings (if not to TV sets), and this means permitting the possibility and actuality of imperfection. Humans perceive ‘humanness’ as involving freedom to fail and freedom to make immoral decisions.

I infer from the above that the partially-planned MRQ of a society or school should be different from the totally-planned MRQ of TV sets and other mere objects. Planned MRQ of a society or school can sometimes be productive and sometimes be counterproductive. The hypothesis is that the MRQ tactics used to structure RUIAS are on the whole productive and desirable, given our ‘human’ values and our mission to produce learning persons and new knowledge, both interdisciplinary and specialised.

MRQ and New Knowledge

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been the leading book now for decades in the field of philosophy of science. An earlier book with somewhat similar ideas about the production of new knowledge, persons, societies, and world-views was The Image by Kenneth Boulding. Ordinary advances in knowledge are simple and straightforward – or so it seems. We add new knowledge. And we subtract the old when it is finally falsified. Revolutionary advances in knowledge are more complicated. The models or stories or emotions or values or world-views we use (to differentiate between good/true and bad/false knowledge) change. Based on the Boulding and Kuhn interpretation of how new knowledge is produced by humans and their societies, I again conclude 1) that totally-planned MRQ of societies and schools is counterproductive and inhumane; and, 2) that partially-planned MRQ can on the whole and in the long run sometimes be productive and sometimes be counterproductive.  (On the whole and in the long run, totally-unplanned MRQ  does not appear to be a viable option.)