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Ljuba Tarvi vuoden ensimmäisessä Acatiimissä ollutta Rod McConchien kirjoitusta.
On Flowers, Mushrooms and Fungi
An academic can broadly be defined as an advanced
degree holder who works as a researcher and/or
teacher at an institution of post-secondary education.
This paper dwells on the reflections of two foreign
academics working in Finland, Dr Rod McConchie
(Acatiimi 8/2010,1/2011) and Pr Howy Jacobs
(Acatiimi 4/2010, 9/2010) on the background of the
author’s personal impressions.
Helsinki University is hardly, believes Dr McConchie,
a worthy place for an academic since it is “lowly-
placed in the THES university survey (about 70
places below my own alma mater)” and even its being
one of the twelve LERU universities “should actually
be a cause of some red faces.”
Nonetheless, Dr McConchie has worked at the
University of Helsinki for about twenty years. But
instead of teaching in cozy classrooms, he has been
toiling his “sixteen hours a week” in an “abandoned
mine shaft,” instead of salary he has been receiving
“horse manure” from his “keepers,”, and, hence, he
has had to make an extra buck by “revising the English
of learned and not-so-learned research of my
non-fungoid Finnish colleagues.”
Despite his ‘fungoid’ status, Dr McConchie managed
to build up a career of sorts: lecturer – university
lecturer – senior researcher – docent – principle investigator.
He is, however, not satisfied: “Why should
a professional academic [are there ‘unprofessional’
ones?] feel pleased about promotion to a position
which anyone with the most rudimentary requirements
for a university job elsewhere can get?”
It is not that Dr McConchie never tried to throw off the
shackles of his ‘fungoid’ existence – he admits to have
applied for career jobs “outside the mine-shaft,” but
the attempts proved fruitless — “after all, your eyes
need to adjust to the light, and no-one was ever prepared
to help with that.” As he confesses, “Endless
applications for research funding of my own failed,”
because research funding is channeled, “as if by
magic, to the client-lists of professorial patrons, and
the rest have to beg, irrespective of merit.” Begging,
it seems, has not worked – “No-one offered to work
with me, or use me in one of the ongoing projects.”
When finally he got into a joint project, “no room
at the research unit was offered since, they said, I did
not need it because as a lecturer I already shared a
room elsewhere.” Dr McConchie was “duly outraged
and humiliated” because “Some countries mandate
by law that academics must have their own room, not
just a shared one.”
It is not that Dr McConchie never tried to do research
on his own — he did it, in his own words, “as
best as I could, now restricted for spare time and holidays.”
But even his interim results often remained
unpublished since publications were possible only
“within a narrow circle of academic and publishing
friends, all of which is a dead hand on creative research
and innovation.”
In a nutshell, concludes Dr Mc Conchie, “my chosen
university does not share my view of myself.” In
vernacular, it means that Dr McConchie, a professional
academic, has not become professor. The reason, he
believes, is that “Finnish Academia sees itself as a privileged
minority, a scholarly upper class into whose ranks
only the select few may enter.” As a result, when foreign
academics do come to Finland, all they can count
on is “polite toleration, but never full acceptance.”
Let us now have a look at a clear case of full acceptance
— Dr Howard “Howy” Jacobs has become in Finland a triple professor: Professor of Molecular Biology of
Tampere University (1996), Finnish Academy Professor
(2006), Professor of the Year (2009). Like Dr
McConchie, Pr Jacobs has problems with his publications,
but they are of a different sort: he has written
four novels, yet has no time to get them published (if
you wish to have an idea about his academic progress,
just Google his name).
Like Dr McConchie, Pr Jacobs gives his views on
the university culture in Finland, but his well-corroborated
criticism concerns problems of instruction
and is furnished with suggestions.
He, for instance, believes that (reproduced verbatim)
the local assessment methods are unprofessional,
which can be remedied by importing the British external
examiner system of peer-review; that the time
taken for students to graduate should be substantially
decreased, which can be rectified by assigning every
student an advisor from amongst the academic staff;
that all university entrance exams should be eliminated
except for foreign applicants because Finland has
the best high schools in the world; that state funding to universities should be apportioned according
to the quality of teaching rather than the quantity of
degrees awarded, etc. Pr Jacobs also suggests to replace
the current ‘hybrid’ system of using English and
Finnish (Swedish) in university-level instruction by
the wholesale use of English as the major language of
instruction with the Finnish language preserved as a
compulsory minor subject for all foreign students.
What a far cry from complaining about the lack of
an office of one’s own, or lamenting that the crucial
factors for an academic success in Finland are “ethnicity,
social background, and the academic patronage
available.” What about talent, Dr McConchie? –
“Merit is required but it is the poor relation.”
In my opinion, merit in the Finnish academy means a
lot. Russian by birth, I have been in the system for approximately
as long as the academics I cited above,
but unlike them both, I am a product of the system –
in 2004, the University of Helsinki granted me a PhD
degree in philology, which gave me a chance of performing
my lecturing duties albeit outside my native
academic system.
During my post-doctoral years, I have been actively
engaged in research projects of my own, and
I have been busy attending conferences but mostly
outside Finland where big forums are quite rare. Having
had a chance, however, of observing first-hand
how carefully merit is traced and supported at my
alma mater, I have reasons to admit that probably I am
not good enough as a researcher. As they say in Russia,
“Blame not the mirror for your imperfect face.”
Top recap, the Finnish academic system seems to
have clearly sorted out the three foreign academics
in question by distinguishing Pr Jacobs, shunning Dr
McConchie and rejecting Dr Tarvi. By way of conclusion,
let me borrow from the late J. F. Kennedy, “Ask
not what your university can do for you – ask what
you can do for your university.”
Ljuba Tarvi
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