<\/div>\n
I was drawn in my research towards the need to find the \u2018authentic\u2019 voices in higher education; a need prompted by the sense that in my professional role in the field of community university engagement, where my task was to create the official narrative on community university engagement, I was not altogether hearing them.<\/p>\n
Barnett reflected on the possibility of the authentic university. He explored it as a \u2018feasible utopia\u2019 but acknowledged that dystopias are never far away. He referred to a \u2018dominant self-deceiving mode of being\u2019 whereby a university exhibits \u2018bad faith\u2019. For example, when it persuades itself that it can do none other than orient itself towards income generation as its dominant mode of being. Or when the term \u2018academic community\u2019 is blithely used to capture a university\u2019s self-image, even though the physicists will have nothing to do with the sociologists, and there is a constant state of tension between the academics and the managers (Barnett 2011 p137).<\/p>\n
Barnett also asked whether the university misunderstands the truth about itself or does it understand the truth but blocks it out? He concluded that it is neither one thing nor the other and recognised that authenticity is acted out every day both in tiny occurrences at an individual level and in large activities. This is reflected in the actions of my participants who understand the nature of the institution and of their environment, and who in their different ways demonstrate a \u2018feel for the game\u2019 when negotiating their own position and dealing with situations that they are faced with. As Barnett concluded, authenticity becomes possible precisely where authenticity is threatened; it is won in a milieu of inauthenticity.<\/p>\n
References<\/strong><\/p>\nBarnett, R. (2003). Beyond All Reason: Living with Ideology in the University. Buckingham, SRHE and Open University Press.<\/p>\n
Barnett, R. (2011). Being a University. London & New York, Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.<\/p>\n
Clegg, S. (2008). \"Academic identities under threat?\" British Educational Research Journal 34(3): 329-345.<\/p>\n
Taylor, P. G. (1999). Making Sense of Academic Life: Academics, Universities and Change, Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.<\/p>\n
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Julie Bounford, University of East Anglia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAbout Julie Bountford<\/strong><\/p>\nJulie Bounford joined the University of East Anglia (UEA) in 2005, after 19 years in the Public and Voluntary & Community Sectors and has extensive management and partnership experience in homelessness, social policy and criminal justice. Her voluntary work has included the Samaritans, Cambridge Women\u2019s Aid, Norwich Leeway (women\u2019s refuge) and NORCAS (a charity helping people to overcome substance misuse and gambling addition). She is a trustee of ARVAC, the Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community Sector and a member of the Norwich RSA Education Forum. In 2005, Julie instigated UEA\u2019s Annual Community Engagement Survey and in 2007 she co-authored UEA\u2019s successful bid to become a Beacon for Public Engagement and managed the four year Beacon, CUE East, from 2008 to 2012. Julie now works as UEA\u2019s Community University Engagement Manager and is writing up her doctorate on \u2018The academy and community: seeking authentic voices inside higher education\u2019. She is a member of the project team for the Arts & Humanities Research Council funded project, \u2018UEA Research for Community Heritage Ideas Bank: Realising your idea\u2019 and is a contributing author to Bowater, L & Yeoman, K (2012), \u2018Science Communication: a practical guide for scientists\u2019, Wiley-Blackwell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The academy and community: seeking authentic voices inside higher education - A workshop on creating and sustaining an engaged research community On 11th November 2013, I facilitated a small workshop where participants explored some of the essential building blocks for creating and sustaining a research community that cultivates and delivers engaged academic practice. The session ...continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001016,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001016"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblab.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/per\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}