However, the spectacle of
Fagbohun taking the oath of office as vice chancellor before the governor in
Alausa Government House and not before the university council in the university
council chambers, negated everything the university as an idea stands for. That
should not have been.
If the intention of the
Visitor was to send a signal to the public or to all stakeholders about the
source of the new vice chancellor’s authority, such a public display was
unnecessary. No one can contest the ownership or even source of sustenance of
LASU! But putting up a public show of it as though the university is another
parastatal of Lagos State was wrong. If it was a matter of coincidence, as
there were other state events that day, and the appointer thought including the
new vice chancellor’s inauguration in the programme, was just a matter of
convenience, that was a grave error not mitigated by its innocence.
A university and its vice
chancellor should be, in substance and symbols, beyond the vagaries of state
politics. A university is renowned for some salient functions: teaching
nation’s future builders by providing instruction on various matters of
intellectual importance and conducting research on those same matters for the
development of humanity and the society.
A university, therefore, is
different from other educational institutions not only because of the highest
level of sophistication that attends its ideals and operations, but also
because a university derives its authenticity, its essence, from a dynamism of
ideas and constant discoveries, including repudiation of same, in an ambience
of free contest of thoughts and minds. For the formulation of ideas and
exploring them, thinking at the highest level, for unfettered creativity and
experimentation with discoveries, however, a university needs total
independence in an atmosphere that enables the best to contend with the best.
As experts say, because
intellectual work can only be done in an environment where scholars feel free
to let their imagination run from one extreme to the other, challenge ideals or
conventions and change their minds or positions from time to time depending on
quests and findings, a university must create an environment that places the
highest premium on intellectual freedom. According to those who should know,
except in cases of illegal conduct, violence, or flagrant abuse of the trust placed
in faculty members, universities should never seek to sway, silence,
intimidate, threaten, or otherwise influence faculty members to take, renounce,
or be silent on any particular position, nor to control or monitor
controversial actions. Hence academic freedom is broadly defined as the belief
that the freedom of inquiry by university teachers is essential to the mission
of the institution as well as the principles of scholarship.
Scholars should, therefore,
have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or any form of knowledge without
being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment even when those ideas
are unpalatable to external forces, stakeholders or the authorities. This is
why in words and deeds, the university must not only be free of interference
from outside forces, including those who own or fund the institution, it must
be seen to be so. What aura of independence then does a vice chancellor radiate
when he openly gets inaugurated by a state governor in Government House? What
level of academic freedom does he signal?
What has happened with the
inauguration of the LASU Vice Chancellor by the governor is, therefore, an open
advertisement of an aberration, one that ridicules the academia and has the
potential to undermine its integrity.
Once again, a university
must place a high prize on its independence and academic freedom from
governments and all other interests. And the hope is that the impropriety of
his inauguration would not be symptomatic of an era of interference in the
affairs of the university by external forces. Fagbohun, no doubt, is a sound
academic and an astute administrator. He has struck all the right notes since
his appointment, carrying along all faculty members, unions and students.
“I am only as
strong as you let me be,” he
reportedly told a gathering of the teaching staff upon assuming office. Such
humility and determination to run an inclusive administration should serve him
well as he seeks to restore dignity to the school, foster an atmosphere for
academic excellence and run a university that lives up to its ideals, insulated
from politics of its proprietors.
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