Alumni UNIGE : Only the Best
16 juin 2009
When the president’s office of the University of Geneva made the call to encourage its students to regroup in an alumni association, it instantly reminded me of Groucho Marx’ joke “I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members”.
Jokes aside, I wonder what on earth would suddenly bring the university, 450 years after its creation, to gather its students under the etiquette “Geneva Alumni”. For what purpose ? Would this somehow improve its mission as a public institution of higher learning, a place where independent and critical thinking is nurtured and where exploders of received truths are supposed to pullulate ?
Not really.
Firstly, the idea of an “alumni association” comes from the president’s office itself. As far I am aware, whether such an instrument is desirable was not consulted with those directly concerned, the student community. Secondly, the etiquette “Alumni UNIGE” is only offered to diploma-holders : a nice accolade to the growing number of citizens that cannot afford to get a public university diploma for the simple reason that they are increasingly unable to afford the tuition or the prohibitive living expenses in Geneva or both. Thirdly, being an “UNIGE Alumni” means that you get an email for life, access to a social network, price discounts on a range of services etc. One wonders how the university will pay for these services.
All this indicates that the brand “Alumni UNIGE” is created by the governing masters and sold to that minority of citizens that could afford becoming a “diploma-holder”. Alumni associations are common practice in the United Kingdom and the US but Europe and Asia are quickly joining the trend. Membership often goes without saying. True, at their very best, Alumni Associations may gather funds or organize social events to promote worth causes (including their own). But their main agenda is elsewhere and is easy to discern : they tend to regroup the ruling-class of society. Alumni associations support new alumni while providing an environment to form friendship and business ties among people with the same background.
In rich western countries, neo-liberal policies of the past 20 to 30 years have accelerated the gap between the poor and the rich classes while the middle-class has significantly shrunk, much like Third World societies. This is clearly apparent in the context of public education. Everybody knows that new diploma-holders are to be confounded more and more with the offspring of a globalized economic elite. The world is becoming increasingly aware of the limits of neo-liberal policies and concentrated private power and they are increasing signs everywhere of the growing effort to civilize our societies, by promoting social democratic measures.
It is therefore no joke and distressing to see how the elites in charge of the University of Geneva are out of touch with current progressive political and social forces by promoting yet another policy that turns the university into a corporation serving the interests of a privileged few.
