This is the week when the Rector’s post is up for grabs.  As one would expect that a new Rector will bring in new practices, innovative ideas and perhaps focus on fresh subject matters.  I would anticipate that a newfangled head will consolidate the strengths of our University but will most certainly also seek to address the complex challenges that encase academia and what it represents and endeavor to position it within present-day society.  I believe that a University is at its best when it manages to congregate tradition with novel needs and is able to respond to a high-speed culture.
However in terms of what an academic role should be I believe that by-and-large it remains mainly unchanged.  As a matter of fact academics are compelled to teach and impart knowledge, to research and also mentor and support their students.  Lecturers and professors are required to democratize knowledge, hand back research findings to the community with the intent of providing for an enriched society constantly ensuring we strive towards an improved quality of life and a decent standard of living. 

At the risk of sounding cliché, University is about formation and not simply pouring data into our students.  Whilst I believe that this core business of lecturing needs to be strengthened we are also about being critical, judicious and an analytical voice ready to question and face up to all that is happening around us - yes even just for the sake of doing so.  That is why the influence that academics have on society is so weighty.  For us, doing the right thing is laying it on the line. 

This dimension of an academic’s work at times might go unnoticed even though now-a-days it has also been embedded in our collective agreement.  Engaging the community is pivotal and of the essence, and this has been recognized by all including the State.

Naturally I’m not only talking about political commentators but many others who have spoken on areas that are as varied as they come, environmental issues, heritage matters, public policy, social issues, international relations, media and the list can go on.  

I know of so many academics who are immensely committed to different matters whether it’s a social cause like ‘disability’ or ‘fostering’, environmental, political, social, linguistic, heritage, governance, educational, gender or anything in-between.  Public intellectuals like Professor Oliver Friggieri and Professor Joe Friggieri or Professor Carmel Borg and Professor Peter Mayo who have dedicated themselves to the issues of justice and education, Dr Josanne Cutajar who has worked tirelessly in the South to democratize knowledge.  To these we can also add sociologists like Dr Michael Briguglio, Dr Albert Bell and environmentalists like Dr Marie Briguglio and Professor Alan Deidun, historians like Aleks Farrugia, Professor Henry Frendo and Professor Ray Mangion, media experts like Rev Dr Joe Borg, Dr Brenda Murphy and Dr Gorg Mallia, ethicists and moralists like Rev Professor Emmanuel Agius, Rev Rene’ Camilleri.  But this is not all, constitutional and legal experts like Dr Austin Bencini, Professor Kevin Aquilina and Professor David Attard, social work and social policy connoisseurs like Dr Marceline Naudi and Dr Sue Vella, specialists in the field of criminality and addictions like Professor Marilyn Clark and Professor Saviour Formosa,  politicians like Professor Arnold Cassola and Professor Edward Scicluna, experts in migration like Dr Maria Pisani and the list could go on forever - have all been closely rooted with the people.

If there ever was a reason for academics to speak their mind this is the moment to do so even because of the many controversies that are enveloping our country.  Issues like governance, environmental concerns, politics and social policy are vital matters that merit the attention of scholars.  Naturally there are speckled ways how academics can enunciate their opinions.  It could be through media contributions of one sort or other, research, commitment in the neighborhood and involvement with NGOs.   

In actual fact I was stirred to write this column because lately an academic colleague of mine was roughed up for taking a position that didn’t go down well with a blogger. It is even worse when citing that ‘he’ is paid by Government funds suggesting that people need to be silenced.  Sad indeed if this becomes the case.

Singling out citizens shrewdly or not is a no-go. 

To add insult to injury the academic in question speaks with a great deal of clarity and much as I don’t always agree with him it is gloomy and poignant that we have bowed down to such a level of despotic discourse  in this country.  Mind you, I’ve had the share of diatribe coming my way.  I must say I get it regularly from people who do not merely question my arguments, which is not only fair but expected and appreciated.  Whilst I do respect the differing positions, even though some are not even argued plainly, I get people expecting me to fit into their pigeonhole, something that will never happen. 

Academics have a right and a responsibility to share their thoughts and engage with the concerns at hand.  It is imperative that University staff not only put their research and empirical knowledge to good use and contribute towards public consumption but also critically appraise the norms.

It is absolutely imperative that academics dare to speak and no one has a right to overawe this social given duty.