Adequately Responding to “Reform” and “Anti‐Reform” Pressures in the Romanian Higher Education System under the Bologna Process

Abstract

Under the policy umbrella of the Bologna Process, European Universities are being steered towards uniformity in terms of their institutional missions and academic curricula. Romania, as a new member of the European Community, feels such supra‐national policy pressures for “reform” in its higher education sector most keenly. As a result, it is only natural that what can be broadly defined as nationalistic “anti‐reform” pressures also arise. The article describes how one specific University leader at a resolutely European‐oriented Romanian University seeks to productively mediate between these competing policy imperatives, with the hope that the historical foundations unique to Romanian Universities can be well incorporated into larger European visions of higher education operating within a pluralistic (not monolithic) global framework.

Notes

1. “TCPN Great Quotations”. Available at: ⟨http://www.cybernation.com/victory/quotations/subjects/quotes_injustice.html⟩ Retrieved on 24 December 2006.

2. In this regard, participants at the summer school programme sponsored by the Black Sea University Foundation and the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies (LIEIS, 2006) pondered the following questions:

Is there, will there be, should there be a European mentality? What, if any, are the prerequisites for being a “good European”? Is the “ideal European” a particularly rational, focused, future‐oriented, problem‐solving‐minded person endowed with a feeling of solidarity, a specific ethos and approach of life as well as of work? If so, is the objective then to bring everybody to that standard so that after some time there may emerge a completely harmonized union where there will be no major clashes of basic attitudes? In Romania most people really don’t know what it means to be European, except when it comes to very practical things. What kind of Europe is there to come out of the integration process? Should national characteristics and thus also mentalities be preserved or rather eradicated? How far is a preservation of national characteristics compatible with a well‐functioning EU? Is a change of mentality a prerequisite for membership in the EU? One may take the example of Turkey and examine how that country tries to conform itself to imposed norms, but does such a change enter the blood or will it remain at the level of the skin. And anyway: is it desirable? There seems to be a strange paradox here: while many things are falling apart in Western Europe at a fundamental level the EU tries to impose rigid standards at a technical one. One may ask to which degree the EU is afraid of thinking beyond the acquis communautaire. Do mentalities have to change in Eastern Europe? In Western Europe?

3. Sarah Jund of the Academy of European Law has stated:

Few statements in the history of European integration are as celebrated as that attributed to Jean Monnet: “If it were to be done over again, I’d start with culture”. These words, which in fact were never uttered by the great man, are [nonetheless] surprising in that they appear to go against the very means of integration chosen. Although it is sometimes criticised for being too market‐focused, the Monnet‐method has, through the operation of a spillover effect, proven to be an extremely effective mechanism of integration. This is so even in the area of culture. (Jund, 2004)

4. See the information on the background and academic programs and initiatives of the “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu (LBUS, 2000, 2005). In brief, higher education in Sibiu dates back to 1786 when theological courses were first taught in Sibiu, leading to the establishment of a Seminary for Orthodox Theological Studies in 1803, which has functioned continuously since (and is now an integral part of LBUS). Between 1844–1887, The Academy of Law functioned in Sibiu, with courses first held in German, and after 1865 in Hungarian until the Academy was disbanded locally and moved to Budapest. During the World War II, Sibiu became the official home of the University of Cluj‐Napoca (from 1940 to 1945). After the World War II, it once again became a University in its own right, growing extensively in the period of 1960–1970, when outstanding Faculties in the areas of Philology, History, Law and Engineering were founded. By the late 1980s, however, restrictive Governmental measures forced all of these Faculties (with the sole exception of Engineering) to close. The current form of the University was (re) established in 1990 as the University of Sibiu, with the name of the noted Romanian poet and philosopher, Lucian Blaga, being added to its title in 1995. (In further recognition of its historical/cultural status, Sibiu has been selected, with Luxembourg, as a “cultural capital” of Europe for 2007 by the Council of Europe.)