Introduction: "Impacting" Higher Education?

"Men living under the domination of catchwords live in a hell of their own making."

- Ezra Pound (22)

The modern university, inspired by the German model envisioned by Wilhelm von Humboldt, is often considered an "ivory tower," since it seems to position itself outside of political and economic influences. By refusing any external impact on its freedom to organize research and teaching, it has the tendency to cut itself off from the rest of society. But it is this very freedom that nurtures the civic model of social apprenticeship. Outside of immediate political or religious interests, outside of economic investments in the formation solely of elites, is the necessary Bildung: edification by the knowledge of individuals who can live, in a just manner, with others. The university does not just form brilliant researchers, but also devoted citizens. The ivory tower of the university has in fact as its paradoxical task the assured integration of individuals into the cultural model of the nation—a way not only to get beyond immediate politico-economical stakes, but also to get beyond time itself in order to better control it.

The university as understood by Humboldt breaks with a certain control of time, loosely linked to the thinking current in German scientific circles at the time. Up until the beginning of the 18^th century, Protestant countries preferred to keep the Julian calendar rather than concede to the Gregorian one, as Catholic countries had done since 1582. Hence religious factions were under different orderings of time. Nevertheless, the need for adjustments won out for political and economic reasons¹—perhaps also as a way of secularizing the relation to time. In Prussia, Frederick I created the Academy of Sciences, and assigned it the responsibility of coming up with a new calendar. Leibniz himself was given the direction of this task. He labored to create a calendar that would be as complete as possible for both peasants and businessmen, and wanted to make it a "library of the common man"—social consciousness must henceforth be structured like an agenda. Previously, the priests in Rome had determined feast days and ordinary days; henceforth it would be scientists of the Academy who would play the role of priests of their time.³ There was another trump card: the Academy, with a monopoly on its publications, was assured significant income. It was with this resource that the modern University of Humboldt broke away in order to better distance itself from any form of interest, be it that of the State or the economic productions of the scientists themselves. The university likewise ostensibly withdrew from the influence of religious dogmatism. One must go beyond the temporal calculations controlled by the Academy of Sciences in order to better constitute the place for producing citizens. In other words, this is how to truly constitute a "library of the common man," without partisan interest, in order to better build a common national culture. Thus higher education springs from the public domain, even if private universities exploit the model to produce social elites.

Today, in subjecting universities more and more to calculations of their impact on society or on the "general public," it is not certain that we are truly pursuing the education of the public and the construction of a common ground. On the contrary, it seems that this allows the university to be appropriated by those with the means to do so. In a world obsessed with measurement, it seems indispensable to calculate "impact." But with what criteria?

I would like to pursue this inquiry into the concept of "impact," which is at the heart of the "measurement" of the university. If we follow this logic of calculation that is imposed upon us, with its ramifications in the area of academic management, we can get a glimpse of the university of the future.

First of all, the "measurers" rigorously separate research from teaching, with the claim that this will allow a better redistribution of tasks and greater productivity in both areas. Between these areas, to a greater and greater extent, administrators intervene, the majority of whom...