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My statement diverges somewhat from the proposed topic of academic careers in the US and Germany: I will be speaking about the student strikes which took place across Germany in the fall of 1997. Though this subject may at first seem far afield from the matter at hand, it does in fact have relevance to the work of this panel, as these topics share a central concern: namely, the relationship between the university curriculum and the job market. The strikes spawned an intense national dialogue about the aims of education and the changing role of the university in society, a dialogue in which the example of American higher education was frequently invoked, for good and ill. For an outsider such as myself, the strikes presented a fascinating snapshot of attitudes towards education in Germany and German perceptions of education in America, and in the next few minutes, I will try to convey to you some of my observations. I should mention up front that my statement will be more anecdotal than analytical; I base my observations not on extensive research so much as my own experience as witness to and participant in the strike in Freiburg. I hope my comments might provide the basis for an interesting discussion. So how did these strikes begin? The ball started rolling in Gießen in late October 1997, when students turned away from an oversubscribed course refused to leave the lecture hall. Students quickly immobilized the university by occupying other buildings, and very soon the strike spread to other campuses, aided by internet communication. By the time the strikes subsided in late December, students at over 100 universities across Germany had taken part, rallying under the banner of "Gegen Bildungs- und Sozialabbau" (more on that later). In Freiburg, the protest took many forms, all of them creative, good-humored and positive. Students crowded the streets with clever protest actions designed to raise public awareness of the situation - they shuffled through the Bächle in galoshes with banners reading "Bildung geht das Bach herunter;" they crammed into a phonebooth to dramatize the overcrowding of classrooms, etc. They established a "Shadow-Uni" as a surrogate for the one they had paralyzed, complete with its own strike-related lectures, discussion panels, and workgroups. The strike organizers had a strong, perhaps overblown, sense of the events' historical moment: volunteer archivists dutifully kept records of each day's goings-on for the putative historians of the future. And with the 30th anniversary of the 1968 protests looming, many fell prey to the temptation of seeing the student protests as heir to the legacy of the "'68ers." Wishing to carve out a suitably broad legacy of their own, strike leaders gradually expanded their rhetoric to take on a sea of social ills outside the scope of the strike, including discriminatory hiring and the dismantling of the welfare state. This creeping growth of the agenda generally met with amusement or dismay from the "rank and file" strikers. Still, in spite of the occasional missteps and grandstanding, I was impressed: I have never seen so many people work so hard and so well together for so noble a cause. Certainly not at an American university. So what exactly was their cause: what were the students striking for, and against? At the top of the list of greivances were the government's cost-cutting measures in education and the resulting "schlecte Studienbedingungen:" overcrowded classes, reduced access to professors, outdated facilities and resources, and so forth. Students also drew a bead on proposed changes to the Hochschulrahmungsgesetz aimed at rationalizing the education system, by eliminating redundant programs, introducing a streamlined "Bachelor's" degree, orienting the curriculum more towards the demands of the labor market and, perhaps most radically, instituting tuition fees. But beneath these policy issues resonated deeper questions about the raison d'etre of the university and its role in society. In the eyes of many students, skirmishes over Studienbedingungen belonged to a bigger battle: the fight against what might best be described as the Americanization of the German university system. Though like most things American, US higher education exerted a certain fascination over German students, many were repelled by the exorbitant tuition fees, the great variance in quality among institutions, and the preponderance of preprofessional programs, all of which they saw as evidence of the penetration of the sacrosanct and unworldly academic realm by petty market forces. Thus, the strike prompted all those involved with the universities to consider the differences between American and German approaches to higher education. I was caught somewhere in the middle of all this, having just emerged from the American system German students eyed with some suspicion into the German system convulsed by an existential crisis. It was a very interesting place to be: I was fascinated to discuss the different approaches to higher education with my German friends and colleagues. Without venturing too far into the precarious territory of unsubstantiated generalizations, I would like to offer a few thoughts on the priorities and assumptions underlying approaches to education in the US and Germany. The German students I knew took these two propositions as articles of faith, and they formed the foundation of their thinking about education: 1) that the value of education is inherent, and 2) that education is a right - that is, that citizens have a right to education, which it is the government's duty to uphold. And their university system enshrines these beliefs, is built around them, providing solid education in a variety of disciplines to a broad segment of the population for free. No such articles of faith would receive universal assent in the United States, but most involved with higher education would probably subscribe to the market-oriented propositions that 1) the value of education is determined by the market, and 2) education is a commodity, subject to the law of supply and demand. Thus, an outfit which efficiently provides education considered useful by a large number of people with resources can command a high price. So, the big questions remain: To what extent will the marketplace be allowed to dictate what is taught and who will learn it? How can the university balance its mandate to cultivate the mind of a nation with the need to produce a capable work force in a world increasingly fixated on productivity and the bottom line? The answers will not be easy to come by. It is clear that the German university system does need reform, and it could learn from the market responsiveness of its American counterpart. As it stands, German students have no incentive to complete their studies in a timely manner or push themselves to the limits of their potential. The universities could speed students' entry into the workforce and reduce the budgetary burden by strenuously promoting the Bachelor's degree as an attractive alternative to the unduly long Magister, though if the Bachelor's is perceived as a second-rate degree, nothing will be accomplished by its introduction. I do hope Germany's system can adapt to meet the demands of a changing world, but think perhaps the greatest danger is that Germany's remarkable accomplishment - of institutionalizing humanistic and egalitarian ideals in education - will be forgotten and abandoned in the rush to reform. |