As I am outside the prison walls on another visit I look at the high walls that keep people inside incarcerated.  This is an institution designed to keep people in and it is obvious from the outside.  This made me wonder what is a University designed for?  Are we equally obvious to the communities in which we live as to what we are there for?  These questions have been posed before but as we embark in a new educational environment I begin to wonder.     

There are city universities, campuses in towns and the countryside, new universities and of course old, even, medieval universities.  All these institutions have an educational purpose in common at a high level but that is more or less it.  Traditionally, academia had a specific mandate of what they were meant to be doing but this original focus was coming from a era when computers, the electronic revolution and the knowledge explosion were unheard of.  I still amuse my students by my recollections of going through an old library, looking at their card catalogue in order to find the books I wanted for my essay.

Since then, email has become the main tool for communication and blackboard or other virtual learning environments are growing into becoming an alternative learning tool in the arsenal of each academic.  In this technologically advanced, modern world it is pertinent to ask if the University is the environment that it once was.  The introduction of fees, and the subsequent political debates on whether to raise the fees or get rid of them altogether.  This debate has also introduced an consumerist dimension to higher education that previous learners did not encounter.  For some colleagues this was a watershed moment in the mandate of higher education and the relationship between tutor and tutee.  Recently, a well respected colleague told me how inspired she was to pursue a career in academia when she watched Willy Russell’s theatrical masterpiece Educating Rita.  It seems likely that this cultural reference will be lost to current students and academics. A clear sign of things moving on.

So what is a University for in the 21st century?  In my mind, the university is an institution of education that is open to its community and accessible to all people, even those who never thought that Higher Education is for them.  Physically, there may not be walls around but for many people who never had the opportunity to enjoy a higher education, there may be barriers.  It is perhaps the purpose of the new university to engage with the community and invite the people to embrace it as their community space.  Our University’s relocation to the heart of the town will make our presence more visible in town and it is a great opportunity for the University to be reintroduced to the local community.  As one of the few Changemaker universities in the country, a title that focuses on social change and entrepreneurship, connecting with the community is definitely a fundamental objective. In this way it will offer its space up for meaningful discussions on a variety of issues, academic or not, to the community saying we are a public institution for all.  After all, this is part of how we understand  criminology’s role.  In a recent discussion we have been talking about criminology in the community; a public criminology.  One of the many reasons why we work so hard to teach criminology in prisons.