Excellencies, Rector,
It is a great privilege to give voice to the gratitude of the 17 new doctores honoris causa for the exceptional honour bestowed on us today. Our heartfelt thanks go to the university, its Rectorate and the University Board. Our thanks go to all of you present here today and to all those who have accompanied us on our way, in particular our families and our own teachers.
One of my childhood memories is from a visit to Oslo. The memory is of a big wall. There was a building attached to it, but my memory is of the wall because my parents pointed to it and said: “That’s the university. It’s a big school. That’s where you will go when you’re old enough”.
My reaction was immediate: never, ever would I move that far away from Moss.
But where a five year old saw dangers, adults saw opportunities.
My parents did not think much about what the university should do beyond preparing its students for working life. Today we are here, however, because we have and we do. We are here because of our attachment to the university as an institution and as a living community. We are here today because we believe the university never has been and never will be an ivory tower. We are here because we know we do not live by bread alone. We are here today because we are convinced that the university must engage with society, transmit its values, and help shape the society of which the university is very much a part.
Preparing for the labour market is an important purpose of higher education, but it is not the only one. Higher education must also:
- Prepare for life as active citizens in democratic societies;
- Further personal development;
- And ensure a broad, advanced knowledge base.
All four purposes are equally important, and the good news is they are complementary – not contradictory.
Universities are – with their students and staff – the main actors in higher education.
Universities must foster a culture of academic integrity and engage with broader society. They can do so fully only if they can benefit from the contributions of their students and staff to all aspects of institutional life – also to their governance.
But the role public authorities play is also important. There is a public responsibility for higher education, and there is a public responsibility of higher education. Welcoming refugees as students is one of the ways in which the University of Oslo fulfils its public responsibility. Public authorities can fulfil a part of their public responsibility by giving the students the visas they need to take up the offer from the university.
With this, we have touched briefly on four of the six fundamental values of higher education that the Ministers of the European Higher Education Area have defined and reiterated. The remaining two values are those that are at the heart of the celebration of the University of Oslo’s 213th birthday today: academic freedom and institutional autonomy.
Our fundamental values are the alpha and omega of who we are as an academic community. They are essential to the quality of higher education and research, and they are essential to democracy.
Put differently, do the 200 or so Russian Rectors who right after the invasion of Ukraine signed a declaration stating that their highest calling is to serve the state really believe this is a recipe for academic success? Do they believe this is how they will contribute to building a viable society?
To fulfil its calling, the university must not only train – it must educate. It must develop new knowledge, and it must transmit this knowledge. We may well have more highly trained subject specialists than ever before. But do we educate enough intellectuals?
Think of learning a new language. Vocabulary and grammar are important, but to master a language, you need to combine its elements in ways that make sense. You need to do so in ways that make others receptive to what you say and to what you write.
You also need to use language to practice what the Council of Europe calls multi-perspectivity: the ability and will to look at an issue from different angles. I live on the French-German border, so I do not need to stray far to find examples of issues that divide. But equally, I do not need to travel far to see what consistent efforts to overcome the divisions of the past can achieve.
Multi-perspectivity is emphatically not saying that anything goes. We need to distinguish understanding from acceptance. We need to understand why genocide happens so we can prevent it in the future, but no amount of multi-perspectivity can make genocide acceptable.
So, are we good enough at educating intellectuals? Are we good enough at educating graduates who can put their subject specific competences into a broader context, ask critical questions, and not least find the answers to those questions?
Henrik Ibsen may well have claimed that he only asked the questions because his calling did not lie in providing the answers. As members of the academic community, we have to be more ambitious than that.
We need to put education at the heart of our societies. We need to do so with humility. Ambrose Bierce’s defined education as “that which reveals to the wise and hides from the foolish their lack of understanding”.
But we need to educate insistently. Education is not a luxury for the few but a necessity for all. Our societies should not be judged by the size of their armies but by the quality of their civil society and their education. The Chilean sociologist Eugenio Tironi said that in order to answer the question “what kind of education do we need?”, we need to answer a much broader question: “what kind of society do we want?”
As newly created doctores honoris causa, we are thankful and proud to be part of a university that so clearly demonstrates why higher education is important to society – that shows that values not only need to be preached but also to be lived. On behalf of all of us, I venture to express our gratitude to the university and to the current Rectorate for showing how this can be done. I may be biased, but I believe the University of Oslo is both in a good place, and a good place to be in.
Please join the new doctores in wishing what is now the alma mater of all of us a very happy birthday. Ad multos annos. Gratulerer med dagen, v?rt kj?re Universitetet i Oslo.
