Angeregt durch den Vortrag von Torgny Roxå (Universität Lund) auf der Jahrestagung der dghd in Karlsruhe, habe ich den Text „Agency and structure in academic development practices: are we liberating academic teachers or are we part of a machinery supressing them?” von Roxå und K. Mårtenson gelesen, 2017 erschienen im International Journal for Academic Development (22(2), 95-105.). Ein ungewöhnlicher und mutiger Text, der über die Erfahrungen berichtet, die Hochschuldidaktiker und Hochschulentwickler an der Universität Lund im Rahmen einer Selbstevaluation ihrer Arbeit (Beratung, Kursangebote etc.) gemacht haben.
In diesem Rahmen spielt der Bericht eines externen Experten eine zentrale Rolle, der eine Art ethnografische Beobachtung (so deute ich das) durchgeführt hat und zu einer Einschätzung kommt, die große Emotionen ausgelöst hat, denn: Der Bericht des Experten attestiert der Hochschuldidaktik/Hochschulentwicklung eine ausgeprägte neoliberale Haltung. Ich zitiere ein paar Passagen aus dem Text: „In his report […] Friberg takes a critical position and describes academic developers as prime agents for a suppressing machinery anchored in globalisation and economification with an agenda to control academic teachers for the benefit of economic growth linked to a neoliberal ideology of life. The courses he observed use a language aimed at formalising academic teaching and thereby depriving the system of variation and, most importantly, diminishing the academic teacher as a role model for students” (S. 97).
Auch das Constructive Alignment, bei dem ich ebenfalls die Gefahr sehe, dass es überstrapaziert wird (siehe hier), wird in Fribergs Bericht ausgesprochen kritisch beurteilt: „Constructive alignment is a design-template for university courses as cogs in an aligned educational system leaving no space of action for the disciplinary experts, the academic teachers. In this process, the student becomes a product produced by courses and examination; but they also become the prime instrument for assessing the teachers, how well these fulfil the overall intentions of the aligned system” (S. 98).
Dass man auf so einen Bericht heftig reagiert, dürfte mehr als verständlich sein. Roxå und Mårtenson beschreiben das so:„Friberg’s report stirred up emotions. We, the academic developers at Lund University, had many frustrated conversations about the report. We also organised discussions with Friberg himself, often with deadlocked positions and more frustration as an outcome. It is an understatement to say that Friberg’s report landed uncomfortably among us” (S. 98).
Umso mutiger ist die hier explizierte Selbstreflexion anlässlich der Einschätzung des externen Experten: „Arguably and so far, Friberg has a point. Academic developers are power-holders linked to expertise, institutional management, and policies, and through them the teachers encounter the language and perspectives of these forces, policies, and worldviews. This is how we interpret Friberg; this is his offer to us. These are the things that previously might have been hidden from us. The fact that he portrays academic developers in a light that some of us inside the profession would resent and others would react to with surprise, will not change the overall picture: the position occupied by academic developers affords them power through resources they sometimes control and sometimes are unaware of” (S. 102).
Als Fazit halten die Autoren fest: “With the help of a critical eye we have explored our practice in an attempt to disentangle ourselves from the power-dynamics of our institution and a present neoliberal discourse, in order to describe the power we have and to rediscover values and ideologies and a way forward: a counter discourse constructed from academic teachers’ everyday experiences of teaching and student learning“ (S. 104).