ABSTRACT
I am privileged to be part of this project to honour Professor Bert van der Zwaan as he steps down as the vice-chancellor of Utrecht University this year. I met Professor Van der Zwaan in 2017 and was introduced to his book, Higher Education in 2040 — A Global Approach (2017). Since then, I have revisited this wonderful book many times. This essay is inspired by Bert van der Zwaan’s ideas, picking up on just one thread: the very important but difficult question of ‘the idea of the university’ in the face of both present and future challenges. He indicates that this matter will require broad debate: ‘… a debate in which society and the university look one another squarely in the eye to discuss the question of what would be desirable in future, not only for the university, but also for society’. (Van der Zwaan 2017: 8) 2 Are universities ivory towers or national assets? In my view, this is a false dichotomy — one does not preclude the other. A caveat: the phrase, ‘the university’ suggests a homogeneous entity, but as Van der Zwaan has correctly pointed out, ‘The university does not exist and there are many diffferences in the national contexts’ (p. 29). Hence ‘the university’ is at best an abstraction, and ‘the idea’ of the university is only an idea, or an imagined state of afffairs. For the rest of this essay, while we will allude to ‘the university’, it is crucial to bear in mind that universities across the world may prioritize diffferent roles and purposes.
