2011 Talloires Network Leaders Conference - Building the Engaged University, Moving beyond the Ivory Tower

Report to PASCAL on the 2011 Talloires Network Leaders Conference Building the Engaged University, Moving beyond the Ivory Tower, held at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM) 13-16 June 2011

Talloires looking forward

This was a well organised, high-level and altogether impressive gathering of some 200 people, the majority being institutional heads (Vice-Chancellors, Rectors, Presidents) or their senior deputies (V-P, DVC etc) with responsibility for community engagement worldwide. The Network now boasts 217 institutions in 60 countries, comprising almost 6 million students. It was probably the strongest such international gathering concerned specifically and only with the engagement or service mission of universities and other HEIs yet to have occurred anywhere.

Participants came from six continents and approaching 50 countries. It justified the claim that something extraordinary in underway, with the dramatic growth of civic engagement and social responsibility globally. It was recognised that the world is a very different place post-2008 than it was when Talloires was founded in September in 2005. A drafting group worked during the meeting to prepare a three-page conference resolution for all participants to sign in the final session.

In a longer earlier version, after preliminary paragraphs on the growing Talloires Network and the conditions fuelling this, the resolution refers in turn to: (i) Elevating public awareness and recognizing outstanding practice (a Talloires Network hallmark exemplified in the MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship Ceremony held in Santander Financial City on 14 June); (ii) Building a global forum for exchange and joint action; (iii) Supporting the leadership of regional networks; (iv) Building capacity for effective engagement; and (v) Looking forward: the future of the Talloires network.

The Conference was pervaded by a spirit of commitment to practical actions – much in the spirit of the pledge that institutions sign up to in becoming Network members (see Website, also Watson et al 2011 xiii-xv). The difficulties of language and cross-cultural discourse were acknowledged; but the emphasis was on getting on with the work rather than on discourse per se.

Regions and network partnerships

The section on regional networks listed formal partnership with seven networks: national in Australia, USA, Ireland and Russia; and regional in Latin America (CLAYSS), the Arab World (Ma’an), and Asia (ATNEU), the last two being explicitly Talloires regional networks. Particularly useful from a Pascal perspective as we look to extend our contacts, activities and mutual learning into the Asian region was the get-together after the opening evening reception of twenty colleagues, mostly from Pakistan and Malaysia.

Imminent Asian regional HE engagement take-off was apparent. Such is the new-found energy and purpose that two Malaysia-based Asian networks are running side by side like a two-airline policy (to cite DVC Saran Saur Gill of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia): the Asian-Talloires Network of Engaged Universities (ATNEU); and the Penang USM-based Asian-Pacific University-Community Engagement Network (APUCEN). Both have held recent successful international events. The trick here, as with Talloires and its diverse network partners globally, will be to complement and rationalise efforts, avoiding wasteful duplication.  

Not formalised, and not therefore mentioned, were the informal working relationships with GACER, GUNI and Pascal. These with other networks including Talloires itself were key partners to the ‘Big Tent’ Call to Action for Enhancing North-South Cooperation in Community-University Engagement, 23 September 2010. That electronic global dialogue was facilitated especially by David Watson, Budd Hall, Mike Osborne and Rajesh Tandon. It is referred to as enriching the final section, in the new David Watson et al Routledge book The Engaged University. International Perspectives on Civic Engagement, p. xxix, which was launched by Liz Babcock and gifted to every participant at the Madrid Conference. It was agreed in informal discussion at Madrid that a second such exchange should if possible be facilitated by Pascal at its Conference at Northern Illinois University in October.

Talloires and the Conference

The evening welcome and the following three days of intense activity were managed in a highly professional and collegial manner by a Talloires administrative team of four, led by Liz Babcock. Founding President of Talloires and Tufts Larry Bacow, Dean Robert Hollister played key roles. The team was supported by a strong larger team of UAM volunteers and less visibly by the obvious support of the University Rector, Jose Maria Martinez. Larry Bacow is standing down from serving as President of Tufts as well as from the Talloires leadership. Also prominent was incoming Talloires President Mark Gearan, President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Other Executive Members played significant roles during the Conference, which was taken as the opportunity to present Network members with a simple, clear and well-received systematisation of ongoing governance of the Network, now in its sixth year. In terms of collegiality, the highlight was surely the reception at the residence of the US Ambassador to Spain, Alan Solomont, who like his wife is a Tufts alumnus. UAM itself became involved with Talloires in the process of agreeing to host this Conference; a nice example of the way that the Talloires style of working through influence channels is used to advantage.

The Conference itself interspersed well-attended presentational plenary sessions with four sets of usually more interactive concurrent sessions of either 6 or 7 groups. I made a diverse and stimulating choice: on the role of Arab universities in democratic transitions (ie. the ‘Arab Spring’); on sustainability, led by GUNI members in workshop mode as part of the Talloires-supported work on transforming HE towards a sustainable society; another on sustainability leadership at Sunshine Coast in Australia; and a fourth on the Brighton UK Community University Partnership programme. As always, choosing among 26 subjects, very diverse and all of interest, was a problem. So too, as so often at such events, was finding participants known only by name, among a gathering of 200. Often the modestly typed name tags hung flip-side forward – very large felt-pen ID is surely the cheap-and-cheerful reader-friendly solution!  

Different plenaries touched on all the natural and main engagement themes within a framework that allowed acknowledgement and celebration of Talloires’ support and leadership. Breadth and authority were evident. The 2^nd plenary session for example included Ireland’s Higher Education Authority’s Chief Executive, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Education and Science, former Ministers of Education from Chile and Pakistan, and the former Unesco Director-General Federico Mayor Zaragoza. Very senior Spanish dignitaries graced the close ceremony.

Two important features

To a Europe, Australia and Asia-based participant from a sister organisation, Pascal, two characteristics were distinctive and significant. One is the centrality of the student experience, the (undergraduate) curriculum, and specifically service learning, as the main route to transforming society via the civic education for social responsibility of the next generation. This approach, unequivocally individual-oriented and supported by a very benign and liberal philosophy and network of senior US HE leaders, is relatively apolitical and even detached, compared with other traditions. On the other hand, some of these traditions, and the translation of service learning into for example the Latin American environment, with diverse approaches there, in Africa, the Middle East, etc., provided a larger picture. 

Secondly, the significance of corporations and of foundation funding, was striking. The UK is exhorted to be the ‘Big Society’, universities there and in Europe to attract foundation endowments. The crucial scale and strength of such funding, underpinning much US HE and providing the base for Talloires with its very strong infrastructure support, gives pause for thought, as to benefits and possibly at times limitations, on how to operate.

Several keynote addresses, among them some of the most inspirational, came from such bodies. Their honouring was a resonant theme of the Madrid event. The Carnegie Corporation Network, ICP Innovations in Civic Partnership, the Pearson Group, Santander, TakingITGlobal, and the MacJannet Foundation, were all listed sponsors along with Tufts and UAM. Speaker included Loews Corp. Chairman Jonathan Tisch at the welcome reception, Santander’s Global Division Director Jose Antonio Amieiro, Pearson’s International Education Chief Executive John Fallon followed later by Kathy Hurley in place of Person President Mark Neiker, and the dynamic young Jennifer Corriero of TakingITGlobal, a WEF Young Global Leader in her mid-twenties in 2005. No less engaging and striking was Walmart Foundation’s President Margaret McKenna’s keynote. The keynote on the final morning was given by the President of Mastercard Foundation Reeta Roy. Many of these foundation addresses were accompanied by formal Talloires appreciation and honouring. The possible downside risk was illustrated at UAM and again at the Santander Financial City celebration, by rallies of strikingly naked demonstrators protesting Bank policies and practices.

The spirit of Talloires Madrid

All in all, the spirit of Talloires Madrid was liberal, humane, and markedly optimistic. Problems and barriers – resource constraints, competitive HEI rankings favouring globally refereed research over engagement - were acknowledged but almost put aside. At Madrid the glass was half full and getting fuller. Asked what does the future of the global civic engagement movement in higher education look like to you, and why? Tony Cook, President of the MacJannet Foundation, replied as follows: The future is nothing but bright, because it is becoming more officially recognized and sanctioned by universities, it is becoming more formalized, more standardized, because of technology there are best practices now being shared within countries, within regions across borders and it is very timely because there are so many problems to solve, socially, environmentally, and the disparity between rich and poor.  Students feel motivated to solve the problems, and universities are feeling obligated to solve the problems and to address the needs of society. It’s a growing phenomenon.

Chris Duke, June 201l.  

See also the Talloires website and while active has Conference blogs.