Updates

Co-operative universities mailing list

If you are interested in discussing, researching, keeping up-to-date and even creating a co-operative university, there is a mailing list you can join.

https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/co-op-universities

The list was first set up by a group of us who attended the Co-operative Education Against the Crises conference earlier in the year. Since Dan Cook published his report and the Institute of Education hosted a seminar, people have been in touch via this blog, Twitter and email, asking me how to stay involved.

Please join the mailing list and introduce yourself. As I write this post (17th Dec 2013), it has a membership of 14 people.

The mailing list is hosted by Mayfirst/People Link, a politically progressive member-run collective of technologists.

Cinétracts. Revolutionary filmmaking

The Ciné-Tracts [1968] project was undertaken by a number of French directors as a means of taking direct revolutionary action during and after the events of May 1968. Contributions were made by Godard, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and others during this period. Each of the Ciné-Tracts consists of 100 feet of 16mm black and white silent film shot at 24 FPS, equalling a projection-time of 2 minutes and 50 seconds. The films were made available for purchase at the production cost, which at the time was fifty francs.

As part of the prescription for the making of the films, the director was to self-produce, self-edit, be the cinematographer, ensuring that each film was shot in one day. Godard had undergone a series of encounters on the barricades during the ‘Langlois Affair’ in February of 1968, and during May was seen actively involved in labour marches, photographing the riots in the Latin Quarter. He also took time to shoot some material at the University of Paris campus at Nanterre.

Source: Cinétracts

I first learned of the Cinétracts through Abé Mark Nornes, whose class I attended during my time in Ann Arbor. On his course, Nornes discussed the documentaries of Ogawa Shinsuke (and later wrote the only book in English about him) and I spent hours watching those superb films about Ogawa’s film collective living and working in rural Japan. I really wish they were available on DVD. Nornes also put me on to Chris Marker and said that Marker, Godard and other French filmmakers had made a series of ‘Cinétracts’ which they distributed to Ogawa in Japan and in return Ogawa sent them his films of the student-worker struggle against the development of Narita airport during the same period of the late 1960s. I think I have that story right.

At any rate, the Japanese film class with Nornes, which was not directly related to the rest of my degree in Buddhism (the wonder of the liberal arts model), had me watching bootleg copies of Ogawa and Marker for much of my last summer in the USA. I left to go to live in rural Japan for three years, where, in my spare time, I would run my own small Cinematheque.

Some of Godard’s Cinétracts are in the British Film Institute’s archive, where I later worked as a film archivist (and met my wife), and I see that someone has done us all a favour and uploaded a compilation to YouTube.

This is revolutionary filmmaking, not just its content, but also its scale and form. Godard used still images to compose his Cinétract. Six years earlier, Marker had used this technique in La Jetée.

The Song

Two continents – two sons,

Leaves a father here contemplating

How time runs

Off and away with everything

We ever call our own

 

The time and tide that ebbs away

Taking the uncertainty of youth

To return one day,

With new grown men who stand and gaze,

Politely bemused, at figures once tall but now diminished

Since their being away.

 

And parents having to let go, yet still holding on,

To little boys they shaped and moulded

In days long gone,

Don’t always through their eyes

See the face the shape they recognise.

But sometimes with eyes closed, sons and parents both,

Recognise the song.

by Nigel Winn (1950-2006). Dated October 20th 1996.

Co-operative principles in higher education?

Yesterday, around 30 people attended the Co-operative University seminar at the Institute of Education, University of London. As I was there, I thought about how just a day before, University of London students were protesting about the  lack of democratic control over the university. Increasingly, questions are being asked along the lines of how to “reconfigure the ownership of the university, and seize democratic forms of governance.”  Outside the university sector, the answer to that question has traditionally been co-operatives of one sort or another, and although the co-operative group in the UK has rightfully had some bad press recently, the co-operative movement, its principles and its widespread presence remain a source of inspiration and a concrete example of a historical tradition of co-operation.

Stephen Yeo, the first speaker at yesterday’s seminar, said that his talk, in effect began with the International Co-operative Alliance’s Statement of Identity, Values and Principles and ended there, too. Take a look at the ICA statement now. Read it carefully and you’ll see what he means. What does higher education look like through the lens of those seven brief principles? Does the university you work or study at  embody those principles?

Off the top of my head…

Open membership? Taking into account both entry requirements and a 30 year repayment of over £150,000, a three-year degree can hardly be called open. What is open is the opportunity to obtain credit in order to attend university. This is not the same as raising capital in order to join a worker co-operative, or membership of a consumer co-operative.

Democratic member control? Universities are typically comprised of committees with partially elected members, which pass recommendations to higher committees, ultimately leading to an academic board. Membership of that board will comprise of senior management and some democratically elected academic representatives. Decisions which require financial resourcing will be passed to the senior management team to deliberate. It is not democratic nor fully representative and far from one-member, one-vote.

Member economic participation? There is no equitable, democratic control of the capital of any university in the UK that I am aware of. Actual ownership of the capital of universities is ambiguous, although control of that capital usually comes down to its Governors. It’s worth pointing out that the co-operative form allows for both capitalist and anti-capitalist organisations. We were reminded later in the seminar that Mondragon co-operative university in Spain is proudly capitalist. As I have discussed before, the configuration of a co-operative with regards to the role of wage-labour is, at best, a transitional form of post-capitalist organisation.

Autonomy and independence? Universities are not autonomous, nor are changes to marketise the higher education sector increasing the autonomy of universities. They are still subject to state regulation and undemocratic government policy-making. This has been made clear in the recent tripling of tuition-fees and new system of loans (See McGettingan (2013) for more on this). Members of staff – academics, student support staff, IT staff, catering staff, had no say in the acceptance of these changes, nor did students. There was no opportunity for debate. No vote called for. We should be clear that a co-operative is a private concern. A co-operative university is not a defence of the public university. The usual distinctions of ‘private’ and ‘public’ are reframed in terms of ‘open’, ‘democratic’, ‘autonomous’.

Education, training and Information? Yes, universities concern themselves with this. It is in their interest to do so. Personal development opportunities through education will vary across the sector, but I suspect they are generally quite good.  It is not uncommon for a university department to pay the tuition fees for one of its members of staff to undertake a part-time degree. However, casual staff are not given this opportunity and increasingly teaching in tertiary education is being casualised, second only to the catering industry in the UK << do you know the reference for this statement? I heard it at a conference and read it in an article, but I can’t find it right now.

Co-operation among co-operatives? Although not co-operatives, there is a form of ‘co-operation’ among universities (usually, when I use that term here, I specifically mean co-operation in terms defined by the co-operative movement, rather than ‘collaboration’). There are various ‘mission groups’ and Universities UK. Whether these configurations will survive the recent marketisation of the higher education sector in the UK is not yet clear. There have been some reshuffles recently. Let’s be clear though: these groups are not co-operatives, but better described as mission/interest/lobby groups.

Concern for community? Yes, though the relationship with the local community differs from one institution to the next and the outlook of higher education is primarily national and increasingly global. I think that most universities acknowledge this responsibility and they are certainly major employers in the local community, bringing economic and cultural benefits.

The second speaker of the evening was Mervyn Wilson, Director of the Co-operative College [download his slides]. In recent years, much of his attention has been given to the conversion of state schools to co-operatives. We were told that by January 2014, there will be 700 state schools which have chosen to become co-operatives rather than academies. In contrast, the ‘free school movement‘ in the UK, championed by Michael Gove, has so-far reached around around 150 schools in roughly the same time.

Mervyn talked mostly about drawing lessons learned from the recent co-operative movement in state schooling and applying them to the higher education sector. He also talked about the need to look for international examples, such as Mondragon in the Basque region of Spain, and Florida university in Valencia, and the need for much more research into the diversity of co-operative models that might be applied to higher education.  As we know from Mondragon, a ‘co-operative university’ need not be a single co-operative institution, but a federation of co-operative faculties or departments. Professional services could be run co-operatively, too.

The main presentation of the evening was from Dan Cook, who had recently finished a report for the Co-operative College, which was part of his MBA degree. His report is called ‘Realising the Co-operative University‘ and his slides can be found on his website. As I’ve noted before, Dan’s report is important work in understanding the range of practical considerations and further research questions when pursuing the idea of a co-operative university. Dan spent quite a lot of time talking about the constraints/obligations/requirements of being a ‘co-operative’ and of the title of ‘university’ in England. These are clearly very important considerations, although personally, having worked on the Social Science Centre for almost three years, I am less concerned with the need for ‘university’ title and more concerned with meeting the definition of a ‘co-operative’ for higher education. A ‘university’ may point to ‘higher education’, but ‘higher education’ does not necessarily point to a ‘university’.

Similarly, in the UK, degree-awarding powers require that the institution meet certain legislative requirements, but we must reflect on what a ‘higher education’ is defined by and in essence, it is a consensus over the production of knowledge among scholars – among peers. A group of scholars can form a collective and offer higher education, establishing their own standards, which will be judged on their own merit.

Dan’s presentation and report also highlights an important point: co-operative values are more often akin to academic values. There is a great deal of ‘co-operation’ (or rather ‘collegiality’ and ‘collaboration’) happening within the higher education sector. In terms of values and practices, the transition to co-operation within academia may not be much of a leap. To begin with, the real work, said Dan, is defining what a co-operative university is and in the process, recognising that the co-operative university might grow out of other related ventures, such as open access publishing organisations. Although the end goal may be a co-operative university, the route to that objective and the form it might take is varied and not strictly defined.

The Q&A which followed the presentations was lively and extended 45 minutes beyond the arrange time of the seminar. There was a range of expertise in the room and a handful of people have clearly been working on the idea of a co-operative university for two or three years now. It feels like momentum is building and there was a recognition that concrete activities now need to be co-ordinated and worked on. At the moment, unlike the uptake of co-operative schools, co-operation in higher education is unlikely to happen quickly. It needs to be preceded by a range of research into the issues I have raised above as well as reaching back into the radical and potentially pre-figurative history of both comprehensive education and co-operation.

In the few meetings around co-operatives that I have attended, there has been a strong sentiment that is critical of capitalism and at times is clearly Socialist. This was the case in last night’s seminar, too, yet with a long tradition to draw upon, there is a great deal of experience and wisdom in the co-operative movement that is grounded in the reality of capitalist social relations and more often there seems to be cynicism rather than utopianism.  This is understandable. Most important to me is there is an acute understanding that there actually is an alternative.

Finally, I want to end on a couple of points that were raised when discussing what steps might be taken next:

1) A co-operative teaching and learning strategy. This was brought up as something that could and should be undertaken in working towards a co-operative university. I agree, although I would argue that a focus on co-operative ownership and governance of higher education is more fundamental. Co-operative teaching and learning can take place within non-co-operative institutions. On this matter, I would recommend looking at Lincoln’s Student as Producer project. This is the teaching and learning strategy for Lincoln, led by my colleague, Prof. Mike Neary, Dean of Teaching and Learning. I think that it could easily be re-articulated in terms of co-operation without deviating from its organising principles. I recommend you read the ‘User Guide‘ and an early book chapter that sets the context. There are at least three more related articles by Mike, here, here and here.

2) Future workshops and seminars: I was told that there will be a future event organised at the Institute of Education. At Lincoln, we also intend to convene a workshop and seminar sometime in February/March 2014, so as to help take this work forward. Watch this space.

My raw, unedited notes from the seminar can be found here.

This storm is what we call progress

Angelus Novus

Angelus Novus is a copper etching plate, Intaglio printing with acidic watercolor on drypoint by Paul Klee, painted in 1920, and now in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

In his ninth thesis in the essay “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Walter Benjamin, who owned the print for many years, describes:

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.[1]

Otto Karl Werckmeister has commented that Benjamin’s interpretation of the angel has led to it becoming “an icon of the left“.[2]

The name and concept of the angel has inspired works by other artists and musicians.[3][4]

From Wikipedia

Co-operative university seminar

Reposted from the Co-operative College website:

A free seminar on the potential for co-operative approaches in higher education will take place on Thursday 12 December in Room 804 of the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, from 5.30pm-7.30pm.

Recent years have seen the dramatic growth of ‘co-operative schools’, which have adopted and adapted co-operative values and principles in working with key stakeholder groups such as learners, staff, parents and community. Co-operative and mutual models have also been developed across other areas of civil society including health, leisure and care. Given the dramatic transformation of higher education in recent years, the potential for universities to be remodelled along co-operative lines is being assessed. This approach offers a new take on debates over privatisation, marketisation and the defence of the ‘public university’. Our three speakers will examine these contested claims and outline ideas for a co-operative university, drawing upon historical and international perspectives.

Speakers at the seminar will include:

  • Professor Stephen Yeo (formerly of Ruskin College): The Co-operative University: Problems and Opportunities, some experience and ideas
  • Mervyn Wilson (Principal and Chief Executive, Co-operative College): From Schools to Universities – Co-operative Solutions?
  • Dan Cook (University of Bristol): Realising the Co-operative University?

Higher Education (HE) has become a massive global industry. On one hand HE now attracts significant public and private investment and the interest of policymakers in expanding the benefits it offers. On the other hand, casualisation of the workforce, spiralling fees and managerialism threaten to undermine traditional vocational and educational values. The co-operative movement’s commitment to education is a deep and long-standing one, yet co-operatives have only a minimal formal presence in the higher education sector. What are the factors acting as barriers and enablers to increasing co-operative presence in the Higher Education Sector? Focusing on the UK, Dan will examine the legal, financial and cultural factors that bear on co-operative presence in the Higher Education Sector. Dan will also explore some of the implications of his investigations for an increased co-operative presence in UK Higher Education, and indicate the future direction for inquiry.

For more information please see flier below. To reserve a place contact Tom Woodin at t.woodin@ioe.ac.uk.

Realising the Co-operative University

Dan Cook has written a report for the Co-operative College that will be of great interest to anyone thinking about and working towards co-operation in higher education. You can download the report on his university web page. I met Dan when we attended the ‘Co-operative Education Against the Crisis‘ conference organised with the Co-operative College in May 2013. Dan said that he was working on the report for his MBA and he has just made it publicly available. I have added his report and some other references to the bibliography I began recently.

Dan’s report is an excellent summary of the initial issues to consider when thinking about co-operation in higher education: the practical considerations about converting existing universities to co-operatives as well as starting wholly new co-operative institutions for higher education. After my initial reading, here are a few points/quotes I would highlight:

  •  “The Co-operative University is an institution in potentia, which already possesses the legal basis to acquire form. The central concepts of ‘Co- operative’ and ‘University’ are defined in legislation in most states, and this report will explore the case in England. A Co-operative University would necessarily meet the legal definitions of a co-operative and a university, simultaneously. What are these definitions?” [Paragraph 3.1]
  • “Co-operative principles are academic principles. There is arguably a close alignment between co-operative principles and mainstream academic values.” [Paragraph 3.2]
  • In a future co-operative university, who would the members be? A multi-stakeholder co-operative is the most natural form for the university as currently conceived. [Paragraph 4.1.4] A student-run co-operative university is not inconceivable. [Paragraph 4.1.3]
  • “The requirements of workplace democracy may be considered as either an onerous burden, or as a source of strength; depending on arguments around efficiency and transaction costs. A traditional view is that the costs of operating an internal democracy are a burden upon co-operatives, making them less efficient than organisations which do not undertake this sort of activity. However, in ‘professionally argumentative’ organisations like universities this argument is untenable: purposeful internal debate is more efficient than attempting to manage dissent.” [Paragraph 4.1.13]
  • “The very high approval ratings for workplace democracy among all categories of respondent indicate that universities should consider workplace democracy a potent offer for recruiting and retaining tomorrow’s academic staff.” [Paragraph 4.1.14]
  • What size should the co-operative be? Should the university be a co-operative group of co-operative faculties/departments, like Mondragon? [Paragraph 4.2]
  • A ‘network co-operative structure’ “possesses greater co-operative advantages.” The classic example of a network university is the Open University. [Paragraph 4.6]
  • “Unionised academic staff are likely to find the idea of a co-operative university appealing and given the broad literature about and largely against managerialism, there is prima facie evidence of the potential for a dialogue with staff about establishing a co-operative university.” [Paragraph 5.1]
  • “Respondents to our survey demonstrated that co-operative values are attractive to current and recent research students.” [Paragraph 5.4]
  • “All co-operative values received an overall approval rating above 50% when considered as ways that universities could become more attractive places to work, and women found the values marginally more attractive than men. We found no correlation with respondent perceptions of the competitiveness of their own discipline of study. Solidarity was the most attractive value with over 90% approval, and was the only value to attract more than 50% strong approval.” [Paragraph 5.5]
  • “Further research is required into this prima facie evidence that the culture of universities already seeks closer alignment with co-operative values.” [Paragraph 5.6]
  • “I found that the characteristics of co-operatives are largely independent of corporate form, and can realistically be incorporated into existing or replacement governing documents.” [Paragraph 8]
  • “The Industrial and Provident Society (I&PS) corporate form is a rational choice for a genuinely co-operative university startup.” [Paragraph 8.1.2]
  • “The benefits are multiple, and I offer arguments and examples that demonstrate the co-operative advantage that universities might enjoy: more committed staff, better connections with community and business, and an organisational character that puts education at its core.” [Paragraph 9]
  • “My investigation shows that in many ways the Higher Education sector already is co-operative. Many of the preferences, assumptions and behaviours preferred in universities are co-operative ones. Despite this the possibility of a co-operative university has not been considered by the sector. I suggest that this can change, and must change: the challenges universities face are too great, and the opportunities co-operative working offers are too pregnant with potential, to do otherwise. [Paragraph 9.5]
  • “The Co-operative University offers a distinctive and radical model of mainstream higher education with the potential to provide a peerless higher education, secure public benefits and increased access, with affordable fees, and provides an institutional form to address the concerns and ambitions of the ‘the great age of participation coming’.” [Paragraph 9.6]

Finally, Dan offers a useful table of enabling factors and barriers to the co-operative university. His report also includes a list of immediate recommendations in pursuit of this project as well as a series of appendices with useful discussions around the policy and funding environment for UK HE, how a co-operative university might be capitalised, and reflections on his survey, his methodology and the (lack of) literature in this area.

This is an excellent basis on which to seriously develop a real co-operative university and I hope that with Dan and the Co-operative College, we can build on his work. I know that my colleagues at Lincoln are keen to do so.

Dan will be discussing his report at a seminar in London on December 12th.

Co-operative universities: A bibliography

Framework for Co-operative Higher Education
Framework for Co-operative Higher Education

Here, I maintain a bibliography of articles, reports, presentations and book chapters that discuss the idea of a ‘co-operative university’, with a specific focus on co-operative ownership and co-operative governance of higher education institutions. If you know of any other research, please leave a comment or email me. Thank you.

Last updated 29th February 2024

Boden, R. et al (2012) Trust Universities? Governance for Post-Capitalist Futures. Journal of Co-operative Studies, Volume 45, Number 2, Autumn 2012, pp. 16-24(9) (Related slides)

Boden, R. et al (2011) Shopping around for a better way to operate? Try John Lewis. Times Higher Education, 13th January 2011.

Bothwell, Ellie (2016) Plan to ‘recreate public higher education’ in cooperative university, Times Higher Education, 17 August 2016.

Cook, Dan (2013) Realising the Co-operative University. A consultancy report for The Co-operative College.

Cunningham. (1874). Higher Education on Co-operative Principles. In Co-operative Congress Proceedings (pp. 54–55 & 89–90). Presented at the Co-operative Congress, Halifax: The Co-operative College.

Dilger, A 2007, ‘German Universities as State-sponsored Co-operatives‘, Management Revue, 18, 2, pp. 102-116.

Mariona Espinet, German Llerena, Laísa M. Freire dos Santos, S. Lizette, Ramos de Robles & Mariona Massip (2023) Co-operatives for learning in higher education: experiences of undergraduate students from environmental sciences, Teaching in Higher Education, 28:5, 1005-1023.

Findlay, L. (2010). Academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and the co-operative university. In J. Newson & C. Polster (Eds.), Academic callings: The university we have had, now have, and could have (pp. 212-218). Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.

Glaser, E. (2017) A cooperative university must ensure high standards. Times Higher Education. 30/11/17

Goodman, J. et al. (2021) What Artists Want, What Artists Need: A Critical History of the Feral Art School, Hull, UK 2018 – Present. The International Journal of Art and Design Education.

Hall, Richard & Winn, Joss (eds.) (2017) Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury.

Hall, Richard & Winn (2017) Social co-operatives and the democratisation of higher education. The Co-operative Education and Research Conference, 5-6 April 2017, Manchester.

Haubert, Maxime (1986). Adult education and grass-roots organisations in Latin America: The contribution of the International Co-operative University.  International Labour Review. 1986, Vol. 125 Issue 2, p177. 16p.

James, E. & Neuberger, E. (1981) The University Department as a Non-Profit Labor Cooperative. In: Public Choice, 36: 585-612.

Juby, P. (2011, September 3). A Co-operative University? Conference presentation at the Society for Co-operative Studies Conference, Cardiff.

Kosmaoglou, Sophia (2020) A co-operative art school?

Matthews, David (2014) All together now: higher education and the cooperative model. Times Higher Education. 14th August 2014.

Matthews, David (2013) Inside a co-operative university. Times Higher Education, 29th August 2013.

McLaren, Peter (2021) Critical Pedagogy Manifesto. Teachers of the world unite. DIO Press Inc. New York.

McQuillan, M. (2017) Co-operative challenger rises in Manchester, *Research.

Myers, Jan (2018) Co-operative University: An Antidote to Academic Capitalism? Journal of Co-operati Studies, 51(3), 17-30. 

Neary, Mike and Joss Winn (2021) Co-operative Higher Education. Impact Case Study. REF 2021.

Neary, Mike and Joss Winn (2019) Making a Co-operative University: a new form of knowing – not public but social. FORUM, 61 (2). pp. 271-279.

Neary, Mike and Joss Winn (2019) The co-operative university now! In: Learning for a Co-operative World: Education, social change and the Co-operative College. UCL Institute of Education Press, London, pp. 169-186.

Neary, Mike, Katia Valenzuela Fuentes and Joss Winn (2018) Co-operative Leadership for Higher Education. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.

Neary, Mike, Katia Valenzuela Fuentes and Joss Winn (2017) Co-operative Leadership and Higher Education: four case studies. The Co-operative Education and Research Conference, 5-6 April 2017, Manchester.

Neary, Mike and Winn, Joss (2017) The Social Science Centre, Lincoln: the theory and practice of a radical idea, Roars Transactions, 5(1) 1-12.

Neary, Mike and Winn, Joss (2017) Beyond Public and Private: A Framework for Co-operative Higher Education. Open Library of Humanities, 3(2): 2, 1–36.

Neary, Mike and Winn, Joss (2017) There is an alternative: A report on an action research project to develop a framework for co-operative higher education, Learning and Teaching. The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, 10 (1) 87-105.

Neary, Mike, Simon Parkinson, Cilla Ross and Joss Winn (2016) Co-operative Universities: A chance to re-imagine higher education? Co-operative Party blog, 01/09/2016. See related Co-op Party policy on education (October 2017, p.25)

Neary, Mike (2016) Teaching Excellence Framework: a critical response and an alternative future. Journal of Contemporary European Research, 12 (3) 690-695.

Neary, Mike and Winn, Joss (2016) The University of Utopia, Post-16 Educator, (84) 13-15.

Neary, Mike and Winn, Joss (2016) Beyond public and private: a framework for co-operative higher education. Conference paper.

Neary, Mike and Winn, Joss (2015) Beyond public and private: a model for co-operative higher educationKrisis: Journal for contemporary philosophy.

Noble, Malcolm and Ross, Cilla (2021) From principles to participation: ‘The Statement on the Cooperative Identity’ and Higher Education Co-operatives. Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management, 9 (2).

Noble, Malcolm and Ross, Cilla (Eds.) (2019) Reclaiming the University for the Public Good: Experiments and Futures in Co-operative Higher Education, Palgrave Macmillan. (14 chapters on Co-op HE)

Noble, Malcolm (2019) Co-operative Higher Education is the Answer: How to Save Adult Education for the Last Time, Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 21, 1, pp. 139-44.

Perez Ruiz, P. (2015) What is university for?, The Columnist.

Puukka, J. et al (2013) Higher Education 
in Regional and City Development: Basque Country, Spain. OECD.

Reed, D. (2014). Occupy the University! Leveraging Value Coherence to Engage Higher Education as a Strategic Partner in Cooperative Development. In L. Hammond Ketilson & M. -P. Robichaud Villettaz (under the direction of), Cooperatives’ Power to Innovate: Texts Selected from the International Call for Papers (p.193 – 206). Lévis: International Summit of Cooperatives.

Ridley, David (2017) Institutionalising critical pedagogy: Lessons from against and beyond the neo-liberal university, Power and Education, 9 (1) 65-81.

Ridley-Duff, R. (2011) Co-operative University and Business School: Developing an institutional and educational offer. UK Society for Co-operative Studies.

Ridley-Duff, R. (2012, November 1). Developing Co-operative Universities. Presented at the ICA Expo, Manchester, UK

Saunders, Gary (2020) Re-Imagining the Idea of the University for a Post-Capitalist Society. PhD Thesis, University of Lincoln. See also, the revised published version.

Saunders, Gary (2017) Somewhere Between Reform and Revolution: Alternative Higher Education and ‘The Unfinished’. In: Hall, Richard & Winn, Joss (eds.) (2017) Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury.

Social Science Centre, Lincoln (2017) Making a co-operative university, WonkHE 8th August 2017.

Social Science Centre, Lincoln (2013) An experiment in free, co-operative higher education. Radical Philosophy, No.182.

Somerville, P & Saunders, G. (2013) Beyond Public and Private: the transformation of higher education. Conference paper.

Somerville, P. (2014) Towards co-operative higher education. Presentation at the Department of Politics and Public Policy, De Montfort University, May 7th.

Somerville, P. (2014) Prospects for co-operative higher education. Conference paper for Society of Co-operative Studies, Colchester 6-7th September 2014.

Sperlinger, Tom (2014) Is a co-operative university model a sustainable alternative? Guardian, 26th March, 2014.

Swain, Harriet (2017) Coming soon, a university where students could set their own tuition fees, Guardian, 12th September 2017.

Szadkowski, Krystian (2019) The common in higher education: a conceptual approach. High Education 78, 241–255.

Williamson, Bill (2017) The Co-operative University: Notes towards an achievable ideal.

Wilma van der Veen, E. (2010) The New University Cooperative: Reclaiming Higher Education: Prioritizing Social Justice and Ecological Sustainability, Affinities journal, Vol. 4 No. 1.

Winn, Joss (2014) The co-operative university: labour, property and pedagogy. Governing Academic Life, 25-26 June 2014, London School of Economics.

Winn, Joss (2014) Reimagining the University. Keynote talk for Reimagining the University conference, University of Gloucester. 17-18 October 2014.

Winn, Joss (2014) Social solidarity co-operatives for higher educationLearning Together: Perspectives in Co-operative Education. 9th December 2014, People’s History Museum.

Winn, Joss (2015) The co-operative university: Labour, property and pedagogy. Power and Education, 7 (1).

Winn, Joss (2015) Democratically controlled, co-operative higher educationopenDemocracy.

Woodhouse, Howard (2011) Learning for Life: The People’s Free University and the Civil Commons. Studies in Social Justice. Vol. 5, Issue 1, 77-90

Woodin, T; (2019) Useable pasts for a co-operative university: as different as light from darkness? In: Noble, M and Ross, C, (eds.) Reclaiming the University for the Public Good Experiments and Futures in Co-operative Higher Education. (pp. 23-43). Palgrave Macmillan

Woodin, Tom (2018) Co-operative approaches to leading and learning: ideas for democratic innovation from the UK and beyond. In L. Gornall, B. Thomas, L. Sweetman (Eds.), Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education Co-operation, Collaboration and Partnership. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic.

Woodin, Tom (2017) Co-operation, leadership and learning: Fred Hall and the Co-operative College before 1939. In: Hall, Richard & Winn, Joss (eds.) (2017) Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury.

Woodin, Tom (2018) Co-operative Approaches to Leading and Learning: Ideas for Democratic Innovation from the UK and Beyond. In: Gornall, Thomas and Steetman (Eds.) Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education, London: Bloomsbury.

Wright, S. et al (2011) Report on a field visit to 
Mondragón University:
 a cooperative experience/experiment. Learning and Teaching. Vol. 4, Issue 3.

Yeo, Stephen (2014) The co-operative university? Transforming higher education. In: Woodin, Tom (Ed.) Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values, London: Routledge.

Reports from Making the Co-operative University conference, 9th November 2017, Manchester. 

Hall, R. (2017) In, Against and Beyond the Co-operative University

Macintyre, R. (2017) The Co-op Uni: From Pedagogy to Governance and Back

Nerantzi, C. (2017) What are our big ideas about a #coopuni?

Winn, J. (2017) Making the Co-operative University

Voinea, A. (2017) Setting a vision for a co-operative university.

Elsewhere…

You may also be interested in articles written about the Social Science Centre, a co-operative for higher education in Lincoln.

Dan Cook also maintains a website about Co-operative Universities.

Examples of co-operative higher education

Mondragon University

Social Science Centre

UnivSSE

Leicester Vaughan College

Feral Art School

Related research into co-operative schools

Davidge, Gail (2014) For “getting it”: an ethnographic study of co-operative schools. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University. (see also Davidge’s subsequent book).

Special issue of Forum journal (2013) edited by Tom Woodin: Co-operative education for a new age?

Special issue of the Journal of Co-operative Studies (2011) edited by Maureen Breeze: Co-operation in Education.

Woodin, Tom (Ed.) Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values, London: Routledge.

A co-operative university

The Social Science Centre

In 2011, I helped set up a co-operative for higher education. It began as an idea that my colleague, Mike Neary, and I had been discussing the previous summer, and was partly influenced by the network of social centres that exist across the UK and elsewhere. In May this year, the co-operative had its second AGM and we are currently running a Social Science Imagination course for the second year, two arts-based community projects, as well as regular public talks. You can read more about the Social Science Centre (SSC) in a recent article published in Radical Philosophy. The SSC remains an experiment – on our own terms a successful one – that has allowed its members to not only teach and learn at the level of higher education, but also, reflect on, discuss and critique alternative and utopian forms of higher education. In academia, we might formally describe the SSC as an ‘action research‘ project:

Action research is simply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out (Carr and Kemmis 1986: 162).

I shall return to this in a moment.

Free software, free society?

Since 2007, I have worked at my local university where I focus on the role of technology in higher education. My work is a mixture of technical, theoretical and historical research, as well as some teaching and supporting staff and students in their use of technology. For many years, I have been interested in and an advocate for free and open source software and consequently, in 2008, I established and continue to run a large WordPress network at the university, too. Despite my advocacy for free and open source software, I am also quite critical of the technological determinism, cyber-utopianism and rampant liberalism that often characterises the discourse in this area. Nevertheless, the practice of collectively producing, owning and controlling the means of production remains a very important objective for me and any criticism I have of the free and open source software movement(s) and free culture movement in general, are so as to develop the purpose and practice of common ownership and collective production, and help defend it from being subsumed by the dominant mode of production i.e. capitalism: a highly productive form of social coercion for the private accumulation of value.

The WordPress network that I maintain at my university appears to be an example of the means of production being collectively produced, owned and controlled. It is used freely by staff and students across the university for publishing and communicating their work and providing services to other people. WordPress is ‘free software’ developed and shared under the General Public License (GPL). It has a large number of people from around the world contributing to the development of the software who mutually recognise the ‘copyleft’ terms and conditions of the license. As such, we can say that it is collectively produced and having installed WordPress at the university without the need for recurrent license agreements, we can say that my university owns the software that we run. The software runs on university servers and a small number of people at the university, including me, control our WordPress installation on behalf of all other users. Using this example of WordPress, we might say that the university reproduces, owns and controls a means of production (i.e., web publishing).

This is the aspiration for many free and open source advocates: to campaign for and promote the use of free and open source software among their friends, family, in public services and in their workplace. Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, campaigns for schools and universities to use free software. I think this is both necessary and good.

However, my aspirations go beyond the installation of free software in my workplace. Through my work and my involvement with the Social Science Centre, I have come to see that freedom in the use, study of, re-use, and distribution of technologies can co-exist with institutional, political and social structures that do not guarantee control over the means of production. In other words, a university might run nothing but free and open source software, but ownership and control over the means of knowledge production can remain unaffected. Committee structures, hierarchies among staff and students, ownership of the university’s capital, sources of funding, and institutional governance, can all function the same regardless of whether free and open source software is in widespread use.  Free software does not necessarily lead to a free society or a free university. It is in this sense, that we can observe that technology does not determine society, but that society shapes technology. The ‘freedoms’ offered by free software are clearly limited (only the wildest techno-utopian would disagree) and as Lawrence Lessig notes in his introduction to Stallman’s book, Free Software, Free Society, free software is as much an attempt to preserve existing freedoms, as it is to extend them: ““Free software” would assure that the world governed by code is as “free” as our tradition that built the world before code.” According to this statement, the free software movement aims to preserve the liberal status quo established before the early 1980s when “free software” emerged.

By contrast, as I’ve noted before, Christopher Kelty’s idea of a ‘recursive public’, appeals to me because it acknowledges that by defending something that we might value, such as free and open source software, we often find ourselves ‘recursively’ campaigning for underlying freedoms, such as open standards, open hardware, etc. and campaigning against that which threatens these objectives such as SOPA and PRISM. In this way, free software may actually, recursively, lead to a free society in that it politicises people who otherwise might not have questioned broader social and political forces. The contingent nature of this is important. Perhaps this is free software’s revolutionary potential. My point is though, that without more fundamental freedoms in society, free software does not offer freedom. Social, political and institutional structures can remain the same.

A co-operatively owned and governed university

This brings me back to the Social Science Centre and the idea of a ‘co-operative university’.

Thought of as an ‘action research project’, some members, including myself, are looking to take the next step in Lewin’s research cycle.

Lewin's action research steps

While not wishing to disrupt the continuation of the Social Science Centre in Lincoln, some of us are embarking on a second phase of research and action focusing on the idea of a ‘co-operative university’. The SSC is not a university but rather a co-operative model of free, higher education. It is a free association of people who come together to collectively produce knowledge. It is also a political project. We always intended that the SSC remains small and sustainable in recognition of our existing commitments of work and family, etc. However, the ideas and ambitions that our work on the SSC has produced are now more ambitious and have led to discussions among some of us around the idea of a ‘co-operative university’. We spoke with people about this at the ‘Co-operative Education Against the Crisis‘ conference organised with the Co-operative College in May and, as time allows, we have been reading and writing about the idea (e.g. here and here).

We are not the only people considering this. In August, the Times Higher Education magazine published a feature article about co-operative universities, focusing on Mondragon in Spain (and acknowledging the SSC). They ran a leading article about the idea, too. They referenced a field trip by Wright, S. et al (2011), who also visited Mondragon to study the university.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to have been very much written about co-operative universities over the years. Yesterday, I spent some time doing cross-catalogue and Google Scholar searches but it didn’t turn up very much (<< I will publish references I find via that link). There is, of course, a great deal of research into various forms of co-operatives, co-operative governance, co-operative history, education within the co-operative movement, etc. There was a special issue of the Journal for Co-operative Studies (2011, 44:3) which focused on co-operative education, though mostly schooling. A number of articles have been written about co-operative education in the state school system. Most recently, this reflects the growth of co-operative schooling as a real alternative to academy schools in the UK. A number of articles have also been written about ‘co-operative learning’, but do not appear to touch upon co-operative ownership and governance of higher education institutions, which I consider key to the idea of a co-operative university. Pedagogy based on the idea of co-operation is not enough. In my view, a co-operative university must encompass (1) co-operative ownership of the institution’s capital in common; (2) co-operative, flat and fully democratic governance; as well as (3) co-operative practices in research, teaching and learning.

My past work on ‘openness’ in higher education relates directly to collaborative (though not specifically co-operative) practices in research, teaching and learning, but as I have explained above, my interest is now shifting (recursively??) to academic labour and its role in co-operative ownership and governance within higher education. I see this as a direct and natural outcome of my work on the role of technology in higher education as we cannot fully critique and develop the role of technology without understanding the dialectical role of labour. I am certain that this will become more apparent to advocates of open education and open science as we all reflect on the affordances of open technologies and open practices in contrast to the limitations and constraints of existing  institutional and organisational models, themselves expressions of embedded social relations and political economy.

This was my reason for critiquing the work of Egan and Jossa, and, despite my reservations of Jossa in particular, I still regard a focus on co-operative production (i.e. ‘worker co-operatives’), to be the best way to “attack the groundwork” of the present political and economic system that higher education is part of.

If you are also working in this area or are interested in working with us on this project, please do get in touch. Co-operation cannot occur in isolation!