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Performing the university as foolish institution

Management academic Donncha Kavanagh recently argued that the university should be regarded as a ‘foolish institution’ (2009). While this will hardly be news to many readers of this journal, Kavanagh’s concern is not with university decision-making, foolish as it might sometimes appear, or with the seemingly foolish practice of parading university ‘employees’ and ‘customers’ in garish costumes through the streets of major cities. His argument is with the university as an institution – as a macro-level historical actor. There are some benefits when thinking about the university as a foolish institution. It helps us sketch out some of the university’s possible futures. Sociologists have often argued that playing the fool is in fact a serious business and a role much valued by groups (Klapp, 1949). The ‘fool’ is the group’s storyteller, confidante, entertainer, critic and the narrator of its symbolic world. In the medieval court the fool’s role was of course assigned to the jester, who told the stories of the court and from time to time criticised the sovereign. Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603) is said to have rebuked one of her fools for not being severe enough. Set at a macro level or in a meta-institutional context, the fool’s job is to maintain the institutions’ shared symbolic universe and to recognise and affirm the power, position and wealth of the sovereign institution (for example the church, state or corporation). What might this tell us about the university’s current state, and its possible futures? For one thing it helps us explain the rise of the business school. Why would a university have a business school? Surely the established disciplines of economics, psychology, sociology, as well as the professional schools of law and engineering were more than up to the challenge of working with students interested in business? Yet most universities now have dedicated and powerful business schools. In our reading here, the rise of university business schools together with the university’s mimicking of corporate practices are part of the university’s efforts to recognise and recommend itself to society’s contemporary institutional sovereign. But what of the future? What form will the ‘next’ sovereign’ take and what will the university need to do to recommend itself to the next master? Kavanagh does not address this directly. He provides an excellent account of the university’s long history without turning to address the institution’s possible futures as the fool. But he does suggest that the university’s role as ‘narrator’ seems to be less pervasive nowadays. I would agree and would also suggest two explanations for this. The first and most popular among critical commentators is