Zambezia (1997), XXIV (i).STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS FOR ENHANCINGSCHOLARSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWEM. W. MURPHREECentre for Applied Social Sciences, University of ZimbabweProfessorMarshall Murphree first joined the University of Rhodesia in January1967, and retired from the University of Zimbabwe at the end of 1996, after 30years of service in the University. His first appointment was to the Departmentof Sociology. In 1970, he became the inaugural Professor of Race Relations.In 1982, the Centre for Inter-Racial Studies, which he directed, became theCentre for Applied Social Studies. As Professor and Director of this Centre, hebecame involved in research on peripheral areas of Zimbabwe, largely infragile environments that are not suitable for intensive commercial agriculture.This has led to an interest in environmental issues, which he has pursued inteaching and research. His research over the years has included ananthropological interest in culture and values at the small-scale communitylevel; he has also studied large-scale, institutional changes at the societallevel, and the links between these broad changes and local communities.At the end of his long and illustrious career in the University, ProfessorMurphree was invited to address the University community at a farewellreception. His observations on his time with the University of Zimbabwe, andon its strengths and weaknesses, are of interest to a wider audience. Thisarticle is the text of Professor Murphree's valedictory address to the Universityof Zimbabwe Š Editor.MY COLLEAGUES IN CASS, the Faculty of Social Studies and the Vice-Chancellor's office have accorded me a high honour in inviting me todeliver a valedictory address in this, the last month of full time service atthe University which has been my academic home for 29 years. It istherefore a bit churlish for me to remark that I don't really want to give avaledictory address at this point in time. Procrastination has always beenone of my many vices and my magnum opus on applied social science isnot yet ready.Nevertheless I have to admit that I am getting older, and 1 don't reallymind growing old ... particularly when I consider the alternative. And thisoccasion does provide the opportunity to draw inferences from 29 yearsas a member of this University, 27 of them in a department which wasinaugurated and has developed with my involvement.Not knowing precisely what the profile of my audience today wasgoing to be, I have prepared this address with an emphasis on certainstrategic aspects of our scholarship in the hope of providing something ofUniversity-wide relevance rather than focusing on theoretic issues more2 ENHANCING SCHOLARSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWEspecific to my own field. Clearly, I cannot be comprehensive and thecomments which follow are selective, drawn from aspects of our past andpresent which my experience suggests are particularly important.Any adequate institutional strategy for growth and enhancement,whatever the sector involved, must address certain questions. What is theenterprise about, what is its content? Why, and for what purpose does itexist? Where is the enterprise located in the larger scheme of things? AndHow is it to achieve its objectives? Let us now take these institutionalquestions and apply them to our own enterprise of scholarship.First of all, what is our university enterprise about? For an answer wecould of course turn to our current attempts to develop a U.Z. strategyand note that the draft Mission Statement speaks of our task as being thatof 'the maintenance of excellence in teaching, research and communityservice'. This is however a statement of qualitative aspiration; it tells uslittle about content other than referring to three broad categories. Tosearch for content we have to be more specific, and here the history of thetradition in which we stand is instructive.The founding universities of this tradition identified content in termsof what, in the 13th and 14th centuries, were considered the three 'learnedprofessions' Š law, medicine and theology. Under the social conditions ofthe time these were considered the professions which required 'theincorporation of systematically studied knowledge into their practice'(Shils, 1977, 5). These provided the template for a tripartite division ofcontent in the first universities. At the same time the inter-relationshipbetween these categories was acknowledged and universities were tointegrate knowledge, reflecting the etymology of the term they had assumedas their title.Over time the cumulative results of 'systematically studied knowledge'and the expansion of the 'learned professions' led to further contentdifferentiation and the emergence of 'disciplines'. We are now at the stagewhere this fission in content foci has produced a plethora of intra-disciplinary 'specialisms'. The result is that the 'what?' question concerningthe content of our enterprise must be answered by a correspondingplethora of responses.This fragmentation in content foci has both positive and negativeimplications for scholarship. Positively it provides the context for theselectivity and detailed concentration which is necessary today forscholarship. Selectivity is necessary because our current stock ofknowledge is so vast that it can obscure rather than contribute tounderstanding.Good scholarship today has become as much a matter of knowingwhat to ignore as it is a matter of knowing the necessary, of practisingwhat might be called 'optimal ignorance'. Detailed concentration isM. W. MURPHREE 3necessary since this is what provides the 'break-through' points in thefrontiers of knowledge. The potential of these break-through points toadvance our knowledge also provides the excitement and passionatecuriosity which are essential components of productive scholarship,characteristics which are usually ignored in interviewing candidates foracademic posts. The coalescence of a handful of bright and complementaryintellects bound together by a specialist focus and the excitement ofpotential discovery constitutes the best dynamic that I know of for advancesin scholarship.Negatively this disciplinary fragmentation has a centrifugal influencewhich inhibits the ability of a university to be synthetic in the senseCompte assigned to this term, that is to integrate knowledge in an all-encompassing totality which spans the entire spectrum of experience.Instead we push ahead knowing, as the saying goes, 'more and more aboutless and less'. Furthermore, we know less and less about each other withinthe university community. Disciplinary walls are erected by our intra-university structures and reinforced by the esoteric idioms peculiar toeach specialism. To compound this fragmentation we have pushed thesebarriers down from the level of staff and graduate scholarship, where theyhave a certain rationale, to the level of first year undergraduates wherethe rationale is far weaker.Is there, can there be, any strategy which can contain the fissionarydynamic of specialisation within the synthetic role that universities assignthemselves? I am tempted to be frivolous and suggest that we follow theAmerican model and strive to have a first division football team. Moreseriously, however, I note one relatively recent development which holdspromise. This is the attempt in some universities to reconfigure contentfoci at research and graduate levels and in certain fields to reflect issuesets which concern policy and practice in the societies in which theyexist. This demands a new coalition of multi-disciplinary scholarship. Thisis beginning to happen at the University of Zimbabwe in a number ofareas, and I have been privileged to have been involved over the past eightyears in one such innovation, the collaboration between the Departmentof Biological Sciences and the Centre in developing a trans-disciplinaryTropical Resource Ecology Programme. It has not been easy. Our ecologicalcolleagues have had to understand and speak the language of socialscience. We on our part have had to go back to school and strive to graspat least that modicum of ecological science insights necessary for us toconjoin our scholarship with that of our partners. But the difficulties haveproduced their rewards. Reflexively we are better social and ecologicalscientists because of the conjunction. Collectively we have found a newinter-disciplinary synergy which is pushing us to the cutting edge ofscholarship on natural resource use and management internationally.ENHANCING SCHOLARSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWEI have spoken positively of new, issue-defined configurations of multi-disciplinary scholarship. But multi-disciplinarity does not mean non-disciplinarity, and the success of multi-disciplinary collaboration rests ondisciplinary strength. Scholarship enhancement occurs primarily in thedepartmental and disciplinary context. Departments constitute theintellectual engine rooms for scholarship in the University. It is here thatthe conjunction of specialist knowledge and collective curiosity createsthe combination required for analytical advances. It follows that if thisUniversity is interested in enhancing its scholarship its first priority mustbe the intellectual health of its departments. While the coalesciveinstruments of the University Š the Council, the Administration andSenate Š can facilitate and monitor this health, they cannot in, and ofthemselves produce intellectual excellence. That can only be generatedand flourish in departments. While this may seem self-evident to some it isalso clear that others see departments as mere adjuncts to some nebulousand bureaucratically controlled collective scholarly enterprise. My visionstubbornly rejects this image. For me the university is essentially a guildof disciplinary practitioners and specialists, each with their apprenticesand each practising a craft. Their essential unity derives from mutualinterest and a common ethos, not from bureaucratic structures.Turning to the why? question, the purpose and raison d'etre of academicscholarship, we are all familiar with the dichotomy which usually framesthe debate, the polar types of the intrinsic and the instrumental values ofscholarship. These polarities pit scholarship for some specific applicationagainst 'scholarship-for-its-own-sake'. In reality the distinction is far lessclear-cut. The search for contingent cognitive truth Š by which I mean thebest available summations of knowledge available at a given point in timederived from rational analysis and disciplined observation Š should bethe goal of any discipline.However 'technological' or 'practical' a department is, if it avoids thisgoal it looses its claims to academic status. The application of this cognitivetruth should equally be a goal for all disciplines. If they reject thisresponsibility they loose the rationale for the support they receive fromthe societies which pay for them.The paths linking truth and application follow, however, differentmaps. For some disciplines the linkage between knowledge and practice,between science and skill, is direct and intrinsic. Thus, for instance, I haveyet to encounter a department in a medical school which styles itself a'department of applied surgery'. For other disciplines the path toapplication is far more convoluted and mediated. A department ofphilosophy, for instance, often finds its proximate audience in otherdisciplines. They in turn pass on insights received to other broaderaudiences, adding to the conceptual repertoires used by societies toM. W. MURPHREE 5understand themselves and plan their futures. Impact is usually diffuseand difficult to gauge.This condition leads some disciplines into the danger of a retreat fromthe imperatives of relevance, emptying the concepts with which they dealof any clear and empirical consideration of application. In the socialsciences, where critical analysis of the status quo is normative, this isfrequently the case. Social scientists are strong on criticism, weak onworkable solutions. In my career I have read numerous draft theses whichprovide incisive analyses of what's wrong with whatever socio-economiccondition they address. In tutorials I have commended them and thenasked, 'so what?' This is a question that tends to make social scientistssquirm since it requires responses which contain workable solutionscontextualised within on-the-ground realities and constraints. Thispervasive syndrome forms part of the rationale for the existence of adepartment of applied social sciences such as mine.But the search for applied relevance can lead academic scholarshipinto an equal danger in the opposite direction. In the social sciences, forinstance, there is an escalating demand for research in 'social engineering',i.e research of a managerial and manipulative nature. The demand isbeguiling because it brings with it the resources required. The demand isdangerous because it can align scholarship with the politico-economicbureaucracies that sponsor it. The realignment can be in content sincethese bureaucracies become our clients rather than the public. It can beone which changes the way we put things together, with my vision of theuniversity as a guild of disciplinary specialists being replaced by the ideaof a university as a hierarchy of research bureaucracies. Finally, thealignment can turn scholarship into fragmented empiricism, one whichtrivialises the momentous and complicates the obvious. Within theuniversity this produces intellectual technicians, academics who, in thewords of C. Wright Mills, are 'less restless than methodical: less imaginativethan patient and who are above all... dogmatic' (Mills, 1970, 118).If scholarship allows the instrumental imperative to drive itself tothese extremes it will fail in its efforts to produce the goal of contingentcognitive truth. My definition of this term, given earlier, implies aprofessional ethic for scholarship. It is synoptic, providing summations ofall that is relevant. It is disciplined in its observations, responding tomethodological rather than client-driven agendas. It is rational, placingthe integrity of logic above the demands of partisanship, and it is honestin accepting the contingency of its findings.This professional ethic imposes a moral obligation on scholarshipand it is only when scholars, individually and collectively, accept it thatthey can justify their role as mentors to society. The sign of a healthysociety is that it recognises, and supports, the need for continuously6 ENHANCING SCHOLARSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWEupdated contingent cognitive truth, derived from scholarship with thenecessary independence to produce it. To put this in the idiom of localculture, the university should be a guild of intellectual masvikiro for thenation of Zimbabwe. But, as we know, masvikiro can be charlatans and theantidote to this comes not from bureaucratic controls but from aninternalised ethic of intellectual and personal integrity. As Shils has put it,The safeguards which the society has lie in the scientific conscience ofthe advisers, in their inhibitions about saying more than they know, andin their self-discipline in not asserting as true propositions which haveonly the merit of supporting a desired policy (Shils, 1974, 21).These considerations take us to the next strategic question, where arewe located, what is the context of our scholarship? On this issue I have tobe brief, and will note only two aspects. The first is to note that we are partof an international intellectual establishment, but that we are located onthe periphery rather than at the centre of this establishment. For a varietyof historical, economic and other reasons this centre is concentrated in afew countries, largely in Western Europe and North America, and it is thiscentre which through debate and consensus, determines which scientificdiscoveries and innovations are recognised as advances in humanknowledge (Stolte-Heiskanen, 1987, 189). Conventional colonialism maybe in eclipse, but intellectual imperialism remains alive and well. For muchof the intellectual mandarinate at the centre, scholars in the peripheryremain as research assistants, something clearly demonstrated when onereads proposals for international academic collaboration.Clearly scholarship in the periphery, such as ours in Africa, can nolonger be content with this satellite intellectual status. But the irredentiststrategy I sometimes hear in various forms on this campus, the advocacyof some kind of autarkic scholarship based on ethnocentric principles ornationalist sentiment, is not the answer. We should rather be aiming tomove into the international centre through a scholarship robust enoughto influence the modes of discourse that occur in disciplinary cognitivecontexts, methodology and analysis. In Africa we have the intellectualtalent required to do this if it is synergistically organised and applied tosubject matter and fields where we have a comparative advantage. In factthis is already happening. I instance the change which is occurring ininternational paradigms of environmental conservation, where SouthernAfrica generally and Zimbabwe in particular have led in the shift fromconservation through segregation to conservation through sustainableuse.The second aspect of our location which I note is the obvious one Šour scholarship is situated in Zimbabwean society. There are two aspectsto this. One is the relationship between scholarship and its environingsociety at a particular point in time. Raymond Aron, for many yearsM. W. MURPHREE 7Professor of Sociology at the Sorbonne, once said, 'When one knows thatthe revolution is either ahead or behind, one has a clear historicalperspective' (Aron, 1965, 12). The point he was making was that if yousituate your revolution behind you, you accept the essence of your societyand concentrate scholarship on fine-tuning the detail. If you see it as stillahead you reject the essence and look for a new starting point. A bit,perhaps, like the comedian Dave Allen's parody of what he calls Irishlateral thinking. If you ask an Irishman for directions to get somewhere hewill start by saying,Well you can't get there from here. Go down this street for three blocksand you'll see a Cathedral on your left. Ignore it, because its not important.Go on two blocks further, and you'll see McGinty's pub. Start from there.I used Aron's quote recently at the World Conservation Congress inMontreal and was asked during question time, 'Prof. Murphree, where doyou situate your revolution?'Now I have been, technically, a member of four universities during my29 years here. First it was the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.Then it was the University of Rhodesia. Then, for a brief window of time, itwas the University of Zimbabwe Rhodesia. And now it is the University ofZimbabwe. This mirrors revolutionary times, and there can be no doubtthat Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 marked the climax of a revolution.Since then Zimbabwe has been a far, far better place to live. For mepersonally, as a scholar who was under a restriction order from 1972 to1980 by the Powers That Were, prohibiting me from entering any communalland because I was alleged to be a 'subversive influence', it has been abetter place for scholarship to thrive. Now, 16 years later, Zimbabwe hasa proud record of accomplishment in many fields. And yet there remainproblems unsolved and opportunities lost. We have a Shona proverbwhich states, Ganda rinopetwa richinyoro, 'A hide is best folded when it israw and wet.' Some things should have changed earlier, and because theyhaven't yet it is now more difficult to change them.The revolution has happened, the revolution is still in process. A lutacontinua.So, when I was asked the question in Montreal, I had to back awayfrom Aron and suggest that his statement, insightful as it is, forces us intoa mode of thinking which is too antithetical, too binary. The line betweenevolution and revolution, between what needs to be changed and whatneeds to be improved, is not as clear as we sometimes claim. Goodscholarship analytically holds element and entity together, recognisingprocess and contingency. For us this means a recognition that Zimbabweis itself an experiment. An on-going experiment in applying the resourcesof a nation to the needs and aspirations of its people. Like any habitat, it isbounded and organic, natural but cultivated, designed but open to seasons,8 ENHANCING SCHOLARSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWEchange and abuse. To make this habitat sustainable and humane is thecollective challenge and experiment of its people and one to whichscholarship can contribute. But it can only contribute when it providestruth and when it has the necessary freedom to do so.This brings us to the second aspect of our location in Zimbabwe,which is our relationship with our sponsors. To fulfil their role universitiesneed sponsors who are willing to pay for the pursuit of truth even when itis not in their proximate, instrumental interests to do so. The willingnessof sponsors to do this varies, and is rarely if ever absolute. This is why the'autonomous university' in any categorical sense is a fiction. For theuniversity there are only degrees of relative autonomy, subject to acontinuous bargaining process between the institution and those whoprovide the means for its existence.Now in Zimbabwe our sponsorship base is a narrow one. Our principalsponsor is Government, our main subsidiary sponsor the internationaldonor community. The four other categories of sponsorship which supportestablished universities in the developed world Š the business community,national private sector benevolence, student/parent/alumni contributions,and endowments Š are largely absent. On one hand, this situation has itshealthy aspect in that it emphasizes the reciprocal responsibilities whichexist between the University and the principal power brokers in oursociety. That our Government and international donors have been assupportive as they have is a sign of the importance they assign to ourenterprise.But this narrow base also locks us into their agendas which often areshort term and instrumentalist. It also marginalises our relationships withother and broader constituencies of the University. Clearly this narrowsponsorship base calls for strategic attention, and the strategic key lies inthe advice that any financial consultant would give: diversify your portfolioof clients and investments.The general profile of my vision for scholarship at this Universityshould now be apparent, perhaps incomplete and a little opaque, butthere nevertheless. Like that of other great universities, this scholarshipshould be dedicated to the generation, transmission and application oftruth. It derives this dedication and achieves this function through anethos of professional integrity, not through bureaucratic conformity. Itstimulates excellence by the coalescence of scholarship in disciplinaryand trans-disciplinary specialisms, located in departmental contexts. Whileholding service to its own society as a fundamental imperative, it is notcontent to be provincial. It seeks a place on the centre stage of internationalscholarship through a focus on subject matter and fields where it has acomparative advantage. And it achieves the freedom to do these thingsthrough a social contract with its environing society of reciprocal rights,M. W. MURPHREE 9responsibilities, and expectations. How is this profile achieved, the last ofour strategic questions? I don't have the time, nor you the inclination, torun through a long list of prescriptions. Instead I single out one pervasivevariable: motivation.Internally, within the University, scholarship needs the right kind ofmotivation to flourish. 1 have already mentioned the core motivationalcomponents of intellectual curiosity, analytic synergy and professionalintegrity. Beyond these scholarship needs stability and space. The stabilitywhich comes only when a university can attract the best intellectual talentthrough adequate conditions of service and then keep it through adequateincrements in career incentives. Space, in terms of the prioritisation ofscholarship over the time-consuming routines of administrative andbureaucratic detail.Regrettably I have to observe that prevailing trends in this Universityinhibit this profile of incentives. Remuneration packages have been bothinadequate and poorly configured to promote long service. Recent changesin salary scales are a marked improvement, but they still contain aspectsof doing the right thing but in the wrong way. I instance the matter ofaugmenting academic salaries through an annual bonus. Academic salariesneed to be increased, but the bonus system is antithetical to theprofessional ethos. While a bonus system may be appropriate for certainmodes of employment, it is not an appropriate incentive for scholarship toproduce the quality which is intrinsic to its nature. Beyond this, therewards for exceptional performance must lie in the status conferred byone's peers and the satisfaction of positive self-assessment.As to intellectual space, the opportunity to prioritise scholarshipabove organisational routine, the trend is equally negative. Thebureaucratisation of our academic culture, the mechanisation of ouraccountability, can in part be attributed to changes as the University hasincreased in size. The role of peer pressure diminishes, that of formalisedcontrols expands. But this shift in emphasis to compliance, often devoidof content, can demotivate quality performance. Not only demotivate butalso obstruct it, as The Form (in quadruplicate) begins to dominate ourtime. While changes in scale dictate this to an extent, much of it isunnecessary. Deviance must clearly be controlled, but the deviance of thefew should not result in petty dictates which burden the production of thecooperative many. The abuse of scholarship should not become the excusefor confining its use. The medieval maxim still applies: Abusus non tollitusum. Unless we grasp this, and unless our tendency towards bureaucratichypertrophy is not reversed, scholarship of necessity will end up at thebottom of our collective agenda.Externally, outside the University, there is a similar need for anincentive package motivating support for scholarship. This external world10 ENHANCING SCHOLARSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWEis however made up of a number of diverse constituencies, each with theirown perspectives and demands on scholarship, and each with their ownidioms in which scholarship must be communicated.It follows therefore that the interpretive articulations of our scholarshipshould be multidirectional and polyidiomatic. Unfortunately, I find fewsigns that it is generally so. Our interpretations are unidirectional,addressed primarily to an intellectual and policy elite; to each other or togovernment and donor agency bureaucrats. Few consider audiences atlocality levels, or indeed to political, as contrasted to bureaucratic,audiences at higher levels. When they do, they are usually couched inform and language which are unintelligible to their audiences. 'Give us theresults of your research directly, and not through our bureaucrats', saidone Member of Parliament to academic researchers (including myself) ata regional conference on Parliamentary Research and Information Needsheld in Harare last year. 'But give it to us in four pages, not 400'. This is aformidable challenge, and one that will be difficult to answer. To addressaudiences at these levels requires too much professionally unrewardedeffort, and requires communication skills for which our academicapprenticeships have not prepared us.Our motivational strategy should address this issue. The effectivearticulation of scholarship must be high on our agenda, since this is whatlinks the voice of science and the voices of democracy. We need to trainourselves in the necessary skills, and we need to recognise professionallyand reward those who practise them. Until we do so our scholarship willremain mute to important sectors of our constituency, and they will inturn lack the incentive to support it.I started this lecture with a vision and continued it with a critique. Theintent of the critique is constructive, because I believe in this Universityand its ability to achieve the vision. And so I end the lecture with anappreciation.My career here has given me the chance to travel the world ofuniversities. During sabbaticals I have held Visiting Professorships atOxford, Duke and the University of North Carolina. I have had offers to joinother, more internationally prestigious universities Š at better pay. I haverejected them all. I have no regrets. I would make the same choices today,because I know of no other university which can provide a better contextfor developing a career of scholarship than this one. For all its faults, itprovides a unique combination of talented and ambitious students, livelyand intimate links with a dynamic society, and an intellectually stimulatingrelationship with academic colleagues. To my students, past and present,I say thank you Š I have learned more from you than you have from me.To the people of my society, and particularly those who have made theirremote villages my home, I say maita zvenyu. Your wisdom has so oftenM. W. MURPHREE 11transcended the fumblings of my scholarship. To those academic colleaguesof the past now gone I pay homage. And to those who are here 1 offer thechallenge of the vision of scholarship I have sketched, with appreciationand confidence.ReferencesARON, R. (1965) Main Currents in Sociological Thought (Harmondsworth,Penguin Books).MILLS, C. W. (1970) The Sociological Imagination (Harmondsworth, PenguinBooks).SHILS, E. (1977) The academic ethos', H. W. van der Merwe and D. Welsh(eds.) The Future of the University in Southern Africa (Cape Town,David Phillip), 5-22.STOLTE-HEISKANEN, V. (1987) 'The role of centre-periphery relations in theutilisation of the Social Sciences', International Sociology, II, (ii), 189-203.