The same structure was followed in
summarizing the debates.
The list of these case studies already gives
an idea of the relevance but also in diversity of the institutions
represented at the seminar, with a fascinating variety of institutional
backgrounds, histories, and contexts. It should also be mentioned that in
addition to the six case studies, a short presentation was made concerning
the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca where six years ago an important
strategic step was made to promote higher education in the multi-cultural
and multi-lingual [Romanian, Hungarian, and German] context of the region
and the whole country. This decision is part of the general transition to a
more open and democratic society in Romania.
From the very beginning, it was quite clear
that despite this institutional divergence, a wide range of issues were
found which are central to the origins, mission, and functioning of all
these universities. Some of the universities represented at the seminar -
Åbo Akademi University, the University of Ottawa, and the University of
Fribourg have existed in bilingual environments for a century or more.
Others, such as Free University of Bozen and the European University
Viadrina, are very recent creations, even though the "new Viadrina" was born
inside the physical shell of a much older institution. In all these
situations, the university is an academic and educational integration of the
diverse linguistic traditions, which exist, in each specific context. The
date at which this integration officially took place is an indicator of
political and social conditions in each context at a given time. What
overrides these differences in age however is that the fact that the
linguistic policies of these universities were never simply an accident, but
rather deliberate decisions involving more than just the academic community.
In the case of other universities represented at the seminar, Puerto Rico
and Babes-Bolyai, these decisions have deliberately changed over time.
Puerto Rico vacillated several times between Spanish and English before
wisely settling for both. In the case of the Babes-Bolyai University,
multi-lingualism was linked to its most recent period of institutional
reform.
The case studies also showed that such
bilingual policies are never easy to maintain, and that the complexity of
managing them is not to be underestimated, in both practical and more
philosophical terms. It would certainly be interesting to be able to compare
these cases already presented with others which could not be included in the
scope of the seminar1.
Access to education, including higher
education, is considered to be a basic human right, and access to higher
education in one's own language is a central issue in many countries. These
questions of access and language also include dimensions of civil and other
liberties, mutual understanding and tolerance, as well as individual,
collective and institutional responsibilities. All linguistic communities
need access to certain basic services, for example medical and legal, in
their own languages. This need would imply higher education in these fields
in those languages also. The contextual difference between different
countries and regions of Europe in these respects is quite large, and the
political culture and maturity depends to a large extent on historical,
political and economic factors. The gradual progress towards the goal of
higher education in a variety of languages could be made in all situations
by taking small practical steps - for example in examination procedures or
individual study programmes.
Language has always been an instrument in
the history of European nation states, and the bilingual institutions
presented during the seminar are the rare exceptions to the rule of
monolingualism within the nation state. As the role and importance of the
nation state declines at the start of this Twenty-First century, it may well
be that the role and importance of such multilingual and multicultural
institutions will increase. Increasing immigration into Europe will
certainly affect the whole issue of multicultural and multilingual
education.
On a more general language policy issue,
some participants argued during the seminar that the days of any university
operating in smaller "regional" languages - i.e., anything other than
the main international languages, are limited. Although it is clear that the
English language in particular has already assumed a dominant role in
international scientific and economic affairs, not all participants agreed
on this point, considering that this growth in the use of English could also
encourage growth in the use of smaller regional languages too. There will
always be a need for the "less important" languages, and, probably, the
trend will be for bilingual or multi-lingual universities to increase in
number, where one of the languages used will be a major international
language and the other, or others, will be languages specific or relevant to
the region of which the university is part. The experience of institutions,
which are already implementing such policies, therefore, becomes all the
more interesting and important to document.
1. Origins
The discussions around the issue of the
origins of the bilingual university outlined that, in general, the origins
of all universities are political. This is certainly true of the
universities presented during the seminar, in a variety of contexts. The
European University Viadrina is one element in the strategic political
rapprochement between Germany and Poland, while Fribourg is an essential
component in the political structures within a bilingual Canton. Another
example is that of the University of Ottawa, where the university was
specifically created in 1848 as an instrument of cohesion between the
English and French speaking populations, in order to promote bilingual
cohabitation as enshrined in the new Canadian Constitution of the time.
Whatever their political origins, all
universities also need to find a social raison d'être for themselves
within a short period of time. A university cannot remain an alien social
implant in an unreceptive body, but must be accepted by its host environment
or risk being rejected. The seminar learned of the efforts of several
recently established universities to be accepted into their environments -
the open days where the population of Bozen is encouraged to discover its
new university, and the involvement of students and staff from Viadrina in
many aspects of the life of their city, to facilitate the "settling-in
period" of the university. It is clear that all universities, even the
oldest ones, are to a greater or lesser degree continuously engaged with
their host environment, since both the university and the host become
mutually dependent upon each other. The refounding of Åbo Akademi University
in 1917 occurred precisely in order to respond to the needs of the Swedish
speaking population in the newly independent Finland. In a different
context, the University of Puerto Rico served as an instrument of changing
governmental cultural and linguistic policies. These policies were generally
not assimilated by the social environment, until very recent years when
broader social and economic changes have resulted in a change in attitude
and behaviour on the part of the majority population.
The seminar did not make any particular
emphasis with regard to the economic origins of bilingual universities,
which may well be similar to those of many other universities, based on the
expectation of long-term and broadly defined economic returns.
2. Mission
The case studies presented demonstrate that
bilingual universities can have a variety of missions, closely linked to
their specific situations and regional needs:
Promoting participation
A clear mission for some institutions is to
ensure full participation by a linguistic minority group in the life of the
country, region, or city. On the basis of the evidence presented in the case
studies, such a mission requires constant monitoring and attention, in order
to respond effectively to changing social, political and other environments.
Promoting participation among the Swedish
speaking minority in the life of Finland is evidently a mission for Åbo
Akademi University, which interestingly is not strictly speaking a bilingual
university, but officially a monolingual, Swedish-speaking, university in a
bilingual city. The University does encourage integration and participation
through accepting up to 25 percent of Finnish-speaking students who must
however pass Swedish-language proficiency tests. It also co-operates closely
with the two other universities in the city to offer joint programmes in a
third language - English, especially at post-graduate level.
The bilingual policy of the University of
Ottawa has had success in promoting participation in and access to higher
education among both language groups, particularly among the smaller
Francophone population in Ontario. Increasing the participation rate among
the French speaking population represents a specific challenge, included in
the university's mandate, since this rate has traditionally been only 50
percent of that of the Anglophone population.
Similar but less explicit missions may be
observed in Bozen, where regional linguistic minorities have, because of the
course of history, felt excluded from educational and in particular higher
educational processes. Bilingual and multicultural educational policies are
seen as a key element in promoting confidence among the German and
Latin-speaking minorities respectively.
In Fribourg the bilingual policy has been
very positively evaluated for its contribution to the university as a whole
and for ensuring a good linguistic balance of students. With
Italian-speakers now accounting for nearly 10 percent of student enrolment,
the University's Commission for Bilingualism is currently making efforts to
ensure that this language group can also be more fully integrated into the
life of the institution.
Promoting coherence
A second mission identified during the
seminar is that many bilingual universities have an essential role in
promoting the coherence of a city, region, or country, often in situations
where few other institutions bridge the linguistic and sometimes cultural
gaps between different populations. This can be seen in Ottawa, where along
with the Federal Parliament and Federal Government, the university is a key
element bringing both the English and French speaking communities together
in a city and province which are otherwise dominated by the English
language.
Although four languages in Switzerland enjoy
constitutional equality, and the city and Canton of Fribourg are both
crossed by a linguistic boundary, the University remains one of the main
institutions in the Canton which actively promotes the equal use of both
German and French. The pro-active position of institutions such as the
University of Fribourg appear all the more important in ensuring some degree
of coherence between constitutional rights and the daily reality.
With the exception of a small number of
elite schools, primary and secondary education in many "bilingual" contexts
often remains divided along linguistic lines, for a variety of logistical,
pedagogical and other reasons. Bilingual universities therefore also play an
important role in the training of teachers, since the teacher training
process, including refresher training, will be one of the few opportunities
for educators at secondary and primary levels to exchange ideas and
experiences with their peers from other linguistic groups. This challenge
was explicitly mentioned during the presentation by the Free University of
Bozen, where in fact school teachers are trained in three parallel language
groups. The student teachers themselves have requested much closer
co-operation between these groups in order to promote a more coherent
approach to multi-lingual and multi-cultural issues.
Promoting a wider outlook for the
university and its graduates
The continuous use of two working languages
is seen as a central element in the university's mission to promote a broad
intellectual and social outlook. In certain cases, there is a need to
facilitate contact between language groups in order to help overcome some
basic historical issues, and contacts between students can certainly create
positive outcomes. Such a policy helps to ease future relations between
groups, rather than erase past history. In order for this to be successful,
there may be a special need to promote a greater awareness and use of the
minority culture by the majority.
In this respect, the University of Ottawa
argued that equal use of both French and English has been a successful tool
in encouraging close cultural co-operation and exchange between the language
groups, among both students and professors. The bilingual approach is also
important in promoting greater international activity at the university,
within English, French and other international academic, cultural or
language networks. Participants in the seminar emphasized that although
bilingual universities often have to focus on specific regional needs, they
must also ensure that they are present and active in the wider international
context.
At the University of Puerto Rico, constant
monitoring has shown a direct correlation between the bilingual proficiency
of students and their family income, where Spanish is the predominant
everyday language and English a second language for families with a higher
socio-economic position. The University therefore makes efforts to ensure
that a wider variety of students are able to access and finish the study
programmes offered, and its bilingual policy promotes an improved academic,
social, and economic outlook for the country as a whole, with enhanced
possibilities for exchange and co-operation with partners in both Latin and
North America.
The European University Viadrina has
explicitly included the need to promote a wider outlook in its formal
mission statement – "to explore cultural diversity, to teach with cultural
competence and to act as a bridge of intellectual co-operation between East
and West", with an emphasis on providing practical experiences for students.
This statement clearly addresses a real need for the university to act as a
catalyst in promoting exchange, understanding, and diversity, not just
within the university walls, but for the specific regional environment of
which it is part.
At a more practical level, the presenters of
the Fribourg case study mentioned that university graduates in certain
disciplines - medicine, law, engineering, for example, who stay in the city
of Fribourg, will, in any case, be obliged to operate in a bilingual context
if they wish to be successful in their various professions. This aspect of
the university mission was therefore of direct relevance to the lives of an
important sector of its graduates.
Promoting bilingualism as an
objective, not a condition
Many seminar participants expressed this
aspect of their mission, acknowledging the fact that a significant
proportion of their students is not bilingual when it enters the university.
The university can play an important role in helping individuals from both
language groups to become bilingual - especially since in certain cases the
minority group is usually much more bilingual than the majority.
Part of the challenge is therefore to ensure
that students can quickly operate in a bilingual environment, which requires
a number of special measures, including intensive language courses where
necessary. In general, more would appear to be required of students than of
teaching staff in the field of bilingual proficiency. In the case of the
Free University of Bozen for example, teaching staff members are not
required to be bilingual, but students must understand all three languages
used, and courses and examinations are given in the language of the
professor.
Universities such as Ottawa however reserve
permanent tenured positions for bilingual staff only. In some cases, this
policy results in excellent monolingual staff not being eligible for
promotion, but would otherwise appear to be coherent with the aims and
principles of the university. In practice, both staff and students now have
increasing flexibility in the choice of which language they use in different
academic courses.
At the University of Fribourg, students must
obtain a minimum of 25 percent of their credits using the "second" language,
but at the same time the university aims to ensure that all subjects can be
studied in either language, in order to meet any combination of demands.
Meeting this objective requires careful preparation of all documents and
teaching materials and has a certain impact on the internal organization and
policies of the university.
Such an approach would not be possible at
the European University Viadrina, since very few students would be able to
meet these requirements, and the current level of bilingual proficiency
among staff and students is quite heterogeneous. However, all courses have
compulsory language elements, and important efforts are being made to
develop bilingual didactic methods. The university also helps promote
language training for other regional bodies.
The University of Puerto Rico has no formal
language policy at all, which results in a completely open use of both
Spanish and English, to which all students and staff must adapt. Proficiency
in both languages is however a pre-requisite for all incoming students, with
special programmes to enable incoming students with weak language skills to
improve these during the summer preceding their first semester.
Encouraging students to stay in the
region
Although this aspect was not developed
specifically in any of the case studies, it appeared as an underlying
element on several occasions and is linked to the issue of promoting
participation. All universities, bilingual or otherwise, are happy to see
students from the local and regional community stay at home to study,
instead of leaving - often forever - elsewhere.
In the case of universities serving specific
linguistic or other minority groups, this aspect of their mission becomes
more important, or at least more sensitive, as already mentioned. The issue
becomes even more complicated when the only alternative for students wishing
to study in a minority language is to go to a neighbouring country where the
same language happens to be the majority language. The brain drain from
small and often isolated communities is always a worrying trend which
inevitably has implications for the work of educational institutions in
these communities. It is or used to be a potential situation in the context
of Åbo, Bozen, and others, where issues of ethnic and linguistic balance,
local and regional representation, and economic and social opportunities
have all been hot topics at various moments.
For Åbo Akademi University, there certainly
used to be an emphasis on providing opportunities for young Swedish speakers
to stay in Finland for their university studies and afterwards in the job
market. The general situation there has now changed substantially, and this
mission no longer needs to be central to the work of the university. The
Swedish language is now seen in Finland as the key to the rest of
Scandinavia and to wider economic possibilities, and the specific mission of
preserving minority access has now broadened considerably.
In the case of the University of Ottawa, the
university has a special mandate to preserve bilingualism and to foster the
French language in the province of Ontario - something it cannot do unless
it successfully promotes participation at the university among the
Francophone population. The main alternative for this population if seeking
higher education in French would be to leave the province and attend a
university in the neighbouring province of Quebec, something that many
Francophone Ontario residents would not wish to do, and something the
provincial government would prefer to discourage.
A slightly different interpretation of this
type of mission can be found in the examples of the European University
Viadrina and the Free University of Bozen, both of which import significant
numbers of students from other regions, indeed other countries, into a
sometimes difficult local context. This "third element" is certainly seen as
positive in helping students from the local community study at the
university, in that it introduces a new element without the student being
obliged to leave and study elsewhere. It also helps overcome mutually poor
knowledge of and confidence in the other community.
3. Functioning
The case studies threw up a series of issues
and challenges that were shared by most universities present. It was clear
from the outset that establishing, maintaining, and developing a bilingual
policy at a university is a complex and delicate operation. There will
always be a majority and a minority group or groups, the relative sizes of
which vary from situation to situation, and language will always remain a
central issue. As the presenters from the University of Fribourg eloquently
put it, "the majority speakers must be prudent and sensitive", and the
university itself needs to be careful at all levels - admissions,
appointments, procedures, documents, teaching materials, services; the list
of these sensitive areas is a long one indeed.
Three challenges specific to the functioning
and managing of the bilingual university were however identified from among
the case studies:
The issue was raised by a number of the
participants in the seminar. Different cultural approaches and traditions
vary according to language, but also according to academic subject - there
are likely to be greater differences in the teaching of philosophy than in
physics. Differences in secondary school education will also lead to
different learning cultures among students, as can easily be observed in
countries with diverse traditions in the school system. The organizational
differences between non-academic units, for example the student residence
halls on the Polish and German sides of the Oder river at the European
University, Viadrina, is located were also explicitly mentioned. This
arrangement is directly linked to the fact that a principal partner on "the
Polish side" is the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan.
However, different languages do not
automatically imply different cultural approaches. In Finland, in general
and in particular in the region where Åbo Akademi University is located,
leaving the language aside, there are few cultural differences between the
Finnish and Swedish-speaking groups. The linguistic, religious, and cultural
boundaries which criss-cross the map of Switzerland are not the same, and
rarely super-impose themselves one on the other. This results in a highly
complex situation that has been the key to the peaceful and stable
development of the country over the last 700 years. The University of
Fribourg finds itself on or near a variety of these boundaries, with a large
number of smaller cultural sub-groups, rather than two or three large
blocks. These nuances in different cultural approaches are therefore all the
more important for the educational process.
The second challenge facing bilingual
universities concerns finance. It is clear that in strictly monetary
terms, a bilingual university is more expensive than a monolingual one, not
only because bilingual policies imply a certain doubling-up of
administrative and other functions, but because these policies must also be
actively promoted among all members of the university. The various models
presented in the case studies - from completely integrated teaching in both
languages, to parallel language tracks under the same roof, have different
financial implications. The University of Ottawa receives a special
mission-related government grant each year, since the traditional funding
formula used for monolingual universities cannot cope with the challenges of
bilingualism. This "bilingual envelope" amounts to about 8 percent of the
annual budget. One of the potential problems of this policy is that,
especially in countries where the state budget is already insufficient,
there is a constant risk that the "majority" monolingual institutions will
not accept such preferential funding schemes.
At Åbo Akademi University, given the overall
finite number of Swedish-speaking students available, the university has
deliberately limited its educational offer since it would be impossible for
it to cover all fields with the available human and financial resources.
This has led to close co-operation with other suppliers of higher education,
in both the Swedish and the Finnish languages, and increasingly in English.
The question of finance is obviously linked
to educational policy and financial structures at state and regional levels.
In the case of the Free University of Bozen for example, the regional and
local governments contribute heavily to the university's finance, where as
in case of the Babes-Bolyai University, the majority of funds comes directly
from the Ministry of National Education.
Although bilingual and multicultural
education is certainly more expensive in financial terms than a monolingual
and monocultural system, the question of finance should be viewed
differently in complicated situations with minority groups: what are the
costs of not having a university to cater to linguistic minorities? Will one
group go elsewhere to obtain higher education? Or will it not obtain any?
And what are the consequences of these for the population in question and
for the region and state in which they live?
Is a bi- or multilingual university a better
and cheaper long-term policy than nothing at all? And is such an integrated
institution cheaper and better than having two separate institutions? These
questions involve a wide variety of factors and considerations, many of
which are certainly not financial. As mentioned by several participants, the
main rationale behind a bilingual university is, above all, political and
social, and once a decision has been made along these lines, then the
finance must be provided so that the policy can be implemented properly.
This situation would appear to characterize
the case of the European University Viadrina and the Free University of
Bozen, where the decisions taken to create bilingual universities have been
robustly followed up with the necessary financial and other resources.
Education is never a cheap option, but it is the only solid long-term
investment in economic, social, and cultural development.
The third challenge, which faces bilingual
universities, is one of "ownership", in the social sense of the word.
To what extent do the local and regional communities assume ownership of the
institution and integrate it into their communities and daily realities? How
do students, parents, and staff "own" the university and become fully
involved in the life of the institution? Language can be a powerful
motivating factor in such contexts, and it would appear from some of the
case studies that a monolingual university could provoke a more intense
sense of ownership among the relevant linguistic group than a bilingual
university, which risks being less than half-owned by either group.
Participants noted that many students and
professors do not "own" or even wish to "own" the semi-political agenda that
guides some bilingual institutions. These possibilities and misperceptions
were mentioned when the seminar discussed the case-study of the University
of Ottawa, where elements of the Anglophone population see the university as
a French-speaking institution, and part of the Francophone population
considers that the university is not sufficiently French-speaking. These
challenges were also being actively addressed in the case of the Free
University of Bozen, where the university is positioning itself as an
instrument of "language continuum" and not of "language separateness". This
survey conveys in a nutshell the policies the university must adopt in order
to ensure "ownership" by the local and regional communities.
In the case of the University of Ottawa
again, the aspirations of a very small minority which requests a French-only
university are seen as legitimate, but the lack of necessary critical mass
would not justify any reasonably comprehensive programme of teaching and
learning. As also mentioned during the discussion following the presentation
of the case study of the Åbo Academi University, starting a new university
is exceedingly expensive, requiring both extensive resources and solid
traditions on which to build such an institution. Even though in several
cases it could be legitimately argued that bilingualism is only a second
best solution to monolingualism, the realities that this latter solution
implies in the creation of new institutions are usually far beyond the
possibilities available.
III. Conclusions
It would be imprudent to draw hard and fast
conclusions after this first exploratory seminar examining the issues and
rationale behind the concept of the bilingual university. The very diverse
case studies presented have helped identify an equally diverse set of
solutions to each individual situation. The seminar has succeeded however in
identifying a series of common factors and challenges regarding the origins,
mission, and functioning of these universities, as outlined above.
As was already stated, the influence of the
precise political and social environments in which these institutions are
created and then operate should not be underestimated. These environments as
they evolve, together with the economic climate and financial realities,
will continue to directly affect the mission and functioning of each
bilingual university.
As was rigorously emphasized during the
seminar, the academic foundations of the bilingual university should be
equally solid as those of any other university, and its basic activities as
excellent as anywhere else. Otherwise the university is not providing a real
service, either to the specific linguistic groups it attempts to address, or
to the wider regional, national, and global academic communities of which it
must be part.
In terms of recommendations, the
participants considered that the complex issues raised and only partially
discussed in the framework of this seminar need further consideration. They
suggested that similar debates should continue to be organized in the near
future and saluted the initiative of UNESCO-CEPES in publishing the selected
papers and other documents based on the work of this meeting in the
forthcoming issue of its quarterly review Higher Education in Europe
(Volume 25, No. 4) and in disseminating the work and the findings of the
seminar.
- The Bilingual University: Issues and
Challenges
The bilingual university or the
equivalent to it like other higher education institutions, is a product
of certain linguistic contexts and traditions as well as the political
and social conditions at the time of its founding. Despite the variety
of institutional backgrounds, certain issues are central to the origin,
mission, and functioning of such a university:
The origins
of bilingual universities are more often political, without excluding
their social raison d'être;
The missions
of bilingual universities are closely linked to their specific
situations and regional needs, referring to such commitments as:
promoting the participation of all linguistic communities; promoting the
coherence of cities, regions, or countries by acting as linguistic,
cultural, and cognitive bridges; promoting a wider outlook for
universities and their graduates; promoting bilingualism as an
objective, not a condition; encouraging students to stay in given
regions;
Establishing,
maintaining, and developing
a bilingual policy at a university is a complex and delicate question,
for instance, keeping the balance between the majority and the minority
group(s); paying attention to issues like admissions, appointments,
procedures, documents, teaching materials, student services, etc.;
harmonizing different organizational, teaching and learning cultures as
well as funding procedures that are specific. Although bilingual
universities are more expensive financially, they are cheaper when
considering other costs. There is the question of the ownership of
bilingual universities: politics versus substantive matters.
Even if English is gradually becoming
a lingua franca of higher education and science, universities operating
in smaller regional languages stand good chance of being multiplied. In
such a context, the bilingual university might be an institutional
alternative to the prevailing monolingualism of higher education
institutions.
In view of the accelerated processes
related to globalization and pan-regional integration, the issue of
multicultural and multilingual education will become more visible. In
this context, the idea of the bilingual university gains a new
dimension.
|
List of Participants
I. Presenters of institutional
case-studies:
|
1. |
Dr. Jean-Michel Beillard,
Vice-Rector, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada |
|
2. |
Professor Olle Anckar,
Vice-Rector, Abo Akademi University , Turku/Abo, Finland |
|
3. |
Professor Rüdi Imbach,
Vice-Rector, University of Friburg, Switzerland |
|
4. |
Dr. Michael Langner,
Maître-assistant in charge of bilingualism, Fribourg University,
Fribourg, Switzerland |
|
5. |
Professor Norman I.
Maldonado, President, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico |
|
6. |
Dr. Thomas Vogel,
Director Language Centre, European University Viadrina,
Frankfurt (Oder), Germany |
|
7. |
Dr. Sandra Campisi,
Director of the Language Center, Free University of
Bozen/Bolzano, Italy |
II. Participants:
|
8. |
Dr. Jochen Fried,
Director ,Universities Project, Salzburg Seminar, Salzburg,
Austria |
|
9. |
Mr. Lewis Purser,
Programme Officer, European University Association (EUA),
Geneva, Switzerland |
|
10. |
Dr. Walter Kemp, Senior
Advisor, OSCE, Office of the High Commissioner on National
Minorities, The Hague, The Netherlands |
|
11. |
Professor Tamas Kozma,
Director, Hungarian Institute for Educational Research,
Budapest, Hungary |
|
12. |
Jef Van der Perre,
Secretary-General-Elect, International Association of University
Presidents (I.A.U.P.), Brussels, Belgium |
|
13. |
Professor Vladimir
Ortakovski, Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje,
Republic of Macedonia |
|
14. |
Ms. Irina Konchits,
Leading Expert, Ministry of Education, Minsk, Republic of
Belarus |
