I have been reading a lot about audit culture, performance measures, autonomy of professionals, and the culture of distrust, mostly from the dissenting perspective. These are cultural anthropologists, quantitative researchers, finance experts, management theorists, all pointing to the poison that has been insidiously eating away at our autonomy (as professionals, as individuals), all in the name of “public accountability” or “transparency”. The level of interest and relevance in this topic caught me by surprise, but then again, Prof. Juris Dilevko never does anything by accident. The assignment asks us to look at the issues through the case of university evaluation and rankings, and the detrimental effects audit culture has had on the actual quality of service provided by the institution. Andrew Sparkes’ narrative approach to discussing the problems provides an accessible and poignant way for layman to consider the impact on our higher education systems through a spectrum of personal experiences. One review of this piece summarized it best, “The world he describes becomes incredibly vivid and tremendously sad – how have we let our institutions of higher education become what they are? How have we ever allowed arbitrary quantitative measures to determine value?”

I have been told very frequently that being an academic affords you freedom; free to pursue your research interests, set your own schedule, teach the way you want to. In some ways, that is very true, but there is another side to academic life that is not often discussed. It is not unusual for people to vent their frustration with management and policies in any work or employment context. However, in the sectors that are designed to serve the public good, there is an increasing and alarming conflict of values between the bodies that demand accountability, and the professions’ own understanding of accountability (values, ethics, conduct, professionalism).

This is certainly not limited to higher education; the deeper realization is that audit culture and the obsession with ‘best practices’ does not actually serve the public sector nor the people they are striving to serve. The effort put into achieving compliance with best practice at best serves the regulatory or assessment bodies that claim to deliver accountability to the public or the end user. Yet, when schools spend more time preparing for standardized testing instead of actually encouraging knowledge and skills acquisition, when companies spend more time review performance targets instead of acknowledging the long-term contributions from individuals or departments that confronted circumstances outside of their control, and make decisions based on the quantification of ‘performance, we have to think twice about accepting the decisions made in such a manner.

* * *

The Sneak Peek Orchestra concert was another resounding success. Here is an organization, made with a few core voluntary executive members, all of whom have other major responsibilities, and an ad-hoc group of professional musicians. Upon quantification of what our ‘performance’ is like, it probably doesn’t seem like much. Looking at purely the ‘performance’ factors, we can’t possibly still be interested in developing this organization, or putting on more concerts. Yet, we drew a crowd of over 200 audiences to a new music concert, we premiered a major orchestral work by a local emerging composer that was an instant hit with the crowd, we featured young talents as soloists, orchestral players, conductors, and administrators. It was a lot of work, but we believe in the quality of music that we are capable of, and we believe in our ability to establish the orchestra with a regular season of concerts, and increase ability to support young and emerging musicians in various ways. That ‘high’ from pulling off a great event or ‘meeting your target’ creates great incentive for all of us to work harder and smarter and recreate the success that we enjoyed. It makes people work for free in fact; certainly not forever, but long enough to have made an impact.

* * *

Incentives for doing better, working harder, ways to self-assess and self-organize are indeed virtuous pursuits. It’s easy to get caught up when the system ‘works’ for you, and it’s even easier to be crushed when one day the system that only worked for you by fluke stops being your friend. I enjoy my involvements with the Sneak Peek Orchestra, the Heliconian Club, and the Faculty of Information Alumni Association because beneath all the governance controls that are in place, there is a joy in serving others in the professions I have chosen, and it is that pride and ownership that is often overlooked when we measure value in the public sector by using quantitative methods. Desiring accountability is not inherently bad, but the way it is infringing on the perceived freedoms that are enjoyed by professionals should be discussed, especially amongst those that are in the early stages of their careers. It’s one thing if no one has noticed it, it’s another when there’s an intense discourse happening but it simply isn’t making it to the public sphere.