Many a times, academics have been accused of huddling up in the comfort and security of their Ivory Tower, completely detached and alienated from what is happening around them. This cannot be further from the truth even because more and more research and teaching is directly linked with the industry and the services sector, whether it’s in engineering, science or education, financial services or social welfare. In fact, ‘society’ and academia have understood that they can’t exist in a vacuum and depend hugely on each other. Not only that, but many academics are regularly contributing their empirical research, professional insights and pragmatic reflections for public consumption. Who knows, maybe if our politicians were to take heed of what many university lecturers are telling them in the innumerable issues they are involved in, there might be a better chance of getting it right.
Two academics I value highly and caught up with recently are Dr Jacqueline Azzopardi, outgoing Deputy Dean and Head of the Department of Criminology in the Faculty for Social Wellbeing and Professor Charles Scerri a researcher and expert in the field of dementia in the Faculty of Medicine. They come from two very diverse sectors but equally vital and affianced in the community (the former ‘criminology’ and the latter ‘medicine’). What they also have in common is their passion to take what they teach, learn and write back to the community. The fact that both are very good communicators is a plus point. Their ability to converse copiously both in the media and within the different fora they are occupied with is deep-seated.
Let me start with Dr Jacqueline Azzopardi whom I’ve known for almost 25 years.
She started, like me, reading a first degree in education, at the end of the 1980s when going to university was still a relatively uncommon venture considering we were coming out of a period when tertiary education was for the privileged. Her ability to convey her ideas and to understand the people she has around her are all natural qualities she has developed for herself. Not only that but her bubbly cheerful character is a quality that has helped her to continue seeing the bright side of the countless dark and grey situations she faced in her life.
Jacqueline spoke to me about the loss of her mother, a circumstance that occurred when she was still relatively young. She considers this as being one of the lowest points in her life. Her mother died of a heart attack at a comparatively young age. To add to this she realised she got cancer probably triggered by the stressful period she faced at the time. Added to this as she was raising her son Ramon she went through a rough time as she separated from her former husband. She is now the sole carer of her father (a jocular gentleman). In the midst of all of this she was reading for her PhD and running the Institute turned Department of Criminology and in fact Jacqueline was amongst the first in Malta to set the benchmark of criminology as a discipline. She also served as Deputy Dean of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing.
However, her resilience and high spirits are a quality that light up in Jacqueline. The skills she developed as an educator were used in abundance with her students at university till this day. Her pastoral care is second to none. She went on to teach and research in the field of criminology and has since worked tirelessly in developing courses, bringing regular conferences and seminars to Malta, offered study programmes to the Police Force and hosted Masters and Doctoral degrees.
Jacqueline always valued the need to return the knowledge she amassed back to the community. She says that academia makes sense when it is returned to the people, because in her words, ‘we are here to serve and perform’. Jacqueline claims that one way of carrying out this calling is through her involvement in politics at local government level. In fact, she served the Nationalist Party on the minority list in Dingli. Her arbitration skills and her ability to connect even with those who ideologically might be very different were in all probability what triggered the Nationalist Party to encourage Jacqueline to run for MP on the seventh district.
Not only that, but her commitment to the social agenda especially the field of LGBTQi got the party to turn its head towards her. Her pledge to those who are at the margins of society distinguish her. She has worked incessantly in the area of minority issues even because a close relative of hers is a gay person and she soon realised the tough deal this minority has to face up to. ‘My values of social justice and equality drive me forward. Yes the Nationalist Party is transforming into a progressive party and is well led by Dr Simon Busuttil’. Jacqueline feels that every academic has his or her own way of supporting the cause and politics and academia are most certainly a good mix that works for her.
The other academic I would like to flag up is Professor Charles Scerri.
Charles is another of those academics who regularly contributes in the media and is engaged in policy and has consistently championed the dementia agenda, a condition which is draining off enormous resources in terms of productivity, treatment and rehabilitation. To add to this, families are under enormous pressure to take care of their relatives with dementia and this pressure is apt to keep growing especially when one considers the circumstance that our life expectancy is ever-increasing.
The financial pressure on the families and on the State are enormous and this could lead to dent our health and social care systems when you consider that locally 1% of out GDP goes to dementia. We really need to take a long hard look at what is happening. Charles says that the world wide cost of dementia is estimated at $880 billion a year which is more than the GDP of Saudi Arabia and equals 1% of the World’s GDP. It is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2018 (that is 2 years from now!).
Charles informed me that currently we have more than 6,000 people with dementia in Malta and Gozo and within 35 years we will have an estimated 13,000 people struggling with this condition (estimated at 3% of the population and this figure does not include caregivers who, in the majority of cases, are family members).
Once again, like Jacqueline, what is intriguing about Charles is that he is not only a good researcher who holds to his name some very important ground breaking research outputs but it is also his social involvement. Indeed, he was the one who encouraged the setting up of a support group for relatives of people with dementia, authored and is involved in the implementation of the Dementia Strategy (2015-23) and constantly embarks on awareness campaigns.
This is only a diminutive sample of the great work that academics are doing and their ability to connect their academic passion with a change they hope for.