"Continuous improvement." Phrase commonly used by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). This phrase, and others, have been used frequently within universities perhaps because it is in the interests of invididual universities to ingratiate themselves with AUQA, and to indicate conformity with Government policy, by adopting the jargon and language used by those agencies.

"Quality is fitness for purpose." This is the formal definition of the meaning of the word "quality" by AUQA. This should be compared with the standard meaning the word has - a typical dictionary definition is that it means "degree of excellence" or "general excellence". AUQA's definition conflates "quality" with procedures. The effect of this conflation is not hard to see - on the one hand, "quality" has the positive connotation of being concerned with excellence, while in fact AUQA has not been concerned with quality as such, but with the existence of procedures and whether they are "fit for purpose". The effect, therefore, is to provide a disguise of "excellence" and "quality" for mediocrity and the mundane and unimaginative activity of looking at processes.

Looked at another way, we could say the technique enables mere procedures to masquerade as excellence or quality. This is not to say that there is no connection between procedures and quality, but of course it seems to be in AUQA's interest to collapse the distinction between the two. Why? Because procedures are easy to ascertain and comment upon, quality is not. Besides, the obsession with quantifying judgments means that "quality" must be reduced to "quantity", or at least to something that may be easily and explicitly observed. Also quality, conceived of as excellence, has a so-called "elitist" aspect, and this must be avoided at all costs, so the thinking goes, so as to avoid inequity and to produce "equality of outcomes".

The latter issue has been mentioned indirectly by Professor Bradley as reported in the The Australian Higher Education Supplement of December 17th 2008:

Bradley says the concept of excellence has to be rethought as higher education expands to embrace not just the traditional scholarly elite but those who can't easily conjure up an image of themselves on campus.

The definition of quality as "fitness for purpose" is a technique for replacing traditional concepts of quality and excellence, in many cases allowing mediocrity and linguistic mumbo-jumbo to parade as excellence. But our notions of quality and excellence do not have to be "rethought" -- these changes have been going on for 20 years, since the Dawkins white paper. Of course, even in a university context, the word "quality" may have a legitimate meaning or meanings beyond intellectual or academic matters -- but that is a separate issue, not to be confused with defining quality as "fitness for purpose".

This general technique of using a high sounding word but, in practice, only giving it a very technical and narrow meaning, is a standard one -- the words "integrity" (reduced to meaning plagiarism), and "internationalization" (meaning fee-paying international students), come to mind.

"Room 101." Room 101 is the room for interrogation (and worse) of politically "unsound" persons in the novel 1984, by George Orwell.

"Attitude changing sessions." A phrase actually used in Universities in the earlier days of the Dawkins era, to indicate that academic staff should be put under pressure to adopt "corporately correct" attitudes.

"When we find out what the Government wants, we'll do it." Expresses the typical attitude of many universities in anticipating and responding to Government policy. A cynic might say that the more successful a university is in operating in this way, the more it is considered to be exercising "leadership". That subservience and conformity have been the general attitude of universities towards government over a long period is confirmed by comments made by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, as reported in the Australian Higher Education Supplement (HES) of 24th September 2008:

University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis ... told the HES this was the first time in living memory universities had decided to take charge of their own futures rather than allow government to determine policy. [This was in reference to possible course changes prior to the Rudd government's presumed policy overhaul].

Compare this with the press release from the League of European Research Universities (LERU) of 18th September 2008, on the occasion of the publication of the paper What are universities for?, by Geoffrey Bolton and Colin Lucas:

The challenge for universities is to articulate clearly what they stand for, speak truth to authority and be steadfast in upholding their freedom and autonomy as crucial values to safeguard societies' future.

"Quality assurance." One might imagine this refers to some sort of guarantee or assurance of actual quality, but this would show great naivety. Once the words are combined, each loses its normal meaning and the term comes to mean procedures designed to ensure quality, but only "quality" as in AUQA's definition of the word (see above). The "logic" of it is something like this: "whatever your purpose is, if your procedures are suited to the purpose, then you automatically achieve that purpose at a high level of quality. After all, quality is no more than having correct procedures in place, even if your purposes are mediocre". In fact, "quality assurance" does not assure quality at all, but it does ensure a proliferation of procedures that are frequently inimical to actual quality.

"Creativity." A word heard ad nauseam in universities over the last 20 years. To the extent that it has any serious meaning, it seems to mean "do whatever you like". But whatever meaning one chooses to give it, logic, analysis and intellectual rigour play no part.

"Standards do not exist." A view known to be expressed at senior levels in universities. But of course if one believes university courses should do no more than cater for the market, then the standards of courses will simply reflect market taste. Then, since the market is fickle, and has a preference for easier courses, standards do not exist. The general abandonment of pre-requisties for subjects is an indication of a similar line of thought.

"Innovation", "change" and "diversity". Other words heard ad nauseam over the last 20 years. It is often implicitly implied that all academics should be "innovating", and carries with it the implication that all academics should somehow be involved in technical innovations for the sake of helping the corporate sector along, by helping it produce new commercial products. There is the implication that helping corporations, government and industry is the primary function of The University. In the way the word is used, it narrows our conception of the role and purposes of The University, and indicates that academic activity directed to the corporate goals of The University will be valued over others. Far from encouraging intellectual diversity, language in universities is largely designed to induce conformity, so as to maximize institutional performance against the criteria by which universities are judged and funded.

A major role of the language used in universities is to induce conformity with the "corporate objectives" of The University. Again, that is a reason why "change" is considered to be such a good thing in The University - because when the corporate goals change as the result of changed Government trends or fashions, or due to the arrival of an international "league table" for universities such as the Jiao-Tong index, the academic community can then change as well. The actual merit of any changes has become largely irrelevant.

Conclusion. The language that has established itself in universities is aptly described by Don Watson in his Death Sentence: the decay of public language (Knopf 2003, page 12):

In the information age, the public language is coming down to an ugly, sub-literate universal form with a fraction of the richness that living English has. Relative to the potential of language, the new form approximates a parrot's usage. It is cliché ridden and lacks meaning, energy, imagery and rythm. It also lacks words. It struggles to express the human. Buzz words abound in it. Platitudes iron it flat. The language is hostile to communion, which is the purpose of language....It stifles reason, imagination and the promise of truth.

Further reading.

1. Shelley Gare, The Triumph of the Airheads: the retreat from commonsense, Park Street Press, 2006.

2. Rod Nillsen, Don't do what Australia has done, Quadrant, November 2004.

3. Malcolm Saunders, The madness and malady of managerialism, Quadrant, March, 2006.

4. Don Watson, Death Sentence: the decay of public language, Knopf, 2003.

5. Don Watson, Weasel Words: Watson's dictionary of contemporary clichés, cant and management jargon, Knopf, 2004.

6. Francis Wheen, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, Harper Perennial, 2004.

Rod Nillsen, January, 2009

© 2009