Editorial

University Institution — Shadowy Outskirts and Glamorous Centre

In the third part of his autobiographical trilogy, Moi universitety (1923, My Universities), Maksim Gorki depicts the life he led in a city by the river Volga during the final decades of the 1800s. In his typically naturalistic style, he describes his attempts at a study place at the University, which resulted in a failure. Instead of academic studies, Gorki ended up working in a bakery. There he encountered a group of radical students, whose study circles induced in him much intellectual turmoil, including both new revelations and feelings of doubt. Gorki considered this period as compensation for the University education that he actually lacked. He also maintained that the period radicalized his ethos as a writer.

Academic career in Finland can also be observed and conducted both from the shadowy outskirts of the system and from its illuminated centre. When the facade of the University establishment is contemplated from the outside, it shows itself as an Institution that potentially enables a glorious career. It has provided people not only with salaried work, but also with fresh challenges. Furthermore, solutions to new research questions have brought visibility and coverage to researchers.

The ragged careers of many University employees afford another kind of vista. In addition to permanent and semi-permanent personnel, there are a lot of people with academic activity on the outer fringes of the system. The work of these people does not always show when results and achievements are downloaded into databases.

There are always people who have become dropouts due to a recently terminated employment and who are now searching for possibilities for continuing their work by participating in the bingo for research funding. Few drop-outs find their way into a bakery, however; without the hygiene proficiency certificate, you are not qualified for that line of work.

The career path system has not been applied in the Finnish Universities to the extent it could have. The system favours early-stage-researchers, but the entering into the system of more advanced researchers from the intermediate levels is difficult and often impossible. On the other hand, dropping out of a career path is like getting the silver medal or becoming fourth in a sports cup: it is always a failure. There is no respectable alternative for exit.

The recent retirement age -debate should not leave University people with guilty conscience: the average retirement age is already over 65 years, and with Professors over 67. Let us hope that the recently perpetrated normative solutions will not dilute the willingness to stay in working life as long as possible.

But how to serve those University pensioners, who are in good health and willing to work? If they have enough academic competence, they can enter contracts as researchers or Adjunct Professors. But pensioners may not lead research projects. This is odd. It is small wonder that many academics who have either become drop-outs, or have been forced into retiment by circumstances, have established cooperatives for the purposes of conducting research. Via cooperatives, the leading of an international research project is allowed also for retired academics.

There are those, who are of the view that Universities no longer offer proper career prospects. Some of these people leave the scene and change the trade. Others put up a company or act as sole traders to apply for funding from the various foundations, or to make contracts with companies to earn a living and to keep up with the intense competition.

What to do about all this, then? Gorki wondered, why these subdued people do not act together, but compete and even fight with each other. A University should be like a garden, on the fringes of which various kinds of crop and runner germinate. And the gardener should not weed out growth that does not immediately fit the garden strategy, but rather encourage common growth as part of the same community.

And what if Universities were in the form of cooperatives? There could be Faculties and working space cooperatives. All this would require would be a slight legislative alteration. Besides, one would think that this format could not only enhance academic efforts, but also endorse democracy more constantly than it is followed today.

Tapani Kaakkuriniemi
president, The Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers

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