Today, I had a visit from a good friend, Chris. Chris Todd is the Emeritus Professor of Network Science for the University of London at UCL. Chris and I share very similar backgrounds - both studied Physics for undergraduate, strong practitioner orientation, both academics, interested in pedagogy, etc. although at 67, he has seen much more of life than lil me. He actually graduated from Cambridge (Clare College) in 1963, the year I was born!
Chris and I can chat up a storm, such is the chemistry between us, and he became a good friend within a very short span of time. He was the one who was interested to get me to visit at UCL. He drove up from London to spend the day in Cambridge and the day just flew. We had lunch at the university centre, had coffee at the grads cafe and took a nice walk to Clare College where he has not been for decades. All this while we talked and talked and when outdoors, Chris would be puffing on his pipe.
Throughout the day, Chris told me wonderful stories about his time in cambridge, showing me the wall they climbed across (because doors lock at midnight) and how the master finally gave up and left the door below the wall open because students were ruining his peach tree climbing on it. And how some email amongst students that talks about 12 different ways of getting into Kings was discovered by the master who promptly corrected it saying that there were 14 and he was surprised they only knew 12.
He has an amazing understanding of Cambridge academic culture, and I value his advice greatly. I was telling Chris about how restless I was and how I feel less empowered to do more in Cambridge because I was merely a visitor, and the difficulties in crediting my 3 affiliations - AIM, Exeter and Cambridge without offending anyone. I was being careful, and didn't want to offend my host by being my usual rebellious recalcitrant self when it comes to pushing my research agenda.
Chris definitely gave me a different perspective. Cambridge wouldn't see you as a visitor, according to him. Cambridge would see you as one of theirs and what they probably wanted from you the same level of arrogance, recalcitrance and rebelliousness they want from all their academics. Cambridge would relish your causing a controversy... academics are notable because of that - and being notable was necessary in Cambridge. He described to me the MA system, where a Cambridge graduate would automatically, after a few years, be bestowed an MA even if s/he did not study anything. This is because it is expected that all Cambridge graduates are brilliant and would deserve an MA within a few years of going out to work because of the difference they would make in the world. Such is the level of Cambridge's arrogance. Also, if you were teaching in Cambridge, and you did not get a degree in Cambridge, they will also give you an MA because the idea that Cambridge should be learning from others who are better is unacceptable so they give you an MA because then the brilliant person that you are is also one of their own. All this, according to Chris, demonstrates the academic culture of cambridge, which has never been about hierarchies or departments but about individuals. Hence, individuals work at their own pace, collaborate with whom they choose, do not have to conform to any agenda (or worse, how dare you suggest that there is a broad research strategy). They do take academic freedom rather seriously. In my conversations with several cambridge academics, I see now why they don't have a silo-ed mentality - there are few 'command and control' structures. Each individual is such a respected member of the academic community that they are completely left alone to pursue whatever they wish in terms of their research.
Because of such a freedom, Cambridge has also a culture of not telling anyone what to do but has an enormous capacity to be disappointed when you don't do it. Bizarre. And of course very revealing to me. I'm being careful in Cambridge, or perhaps, as Chris says, being too Asian in Cambridge.
Chris says that I should just let myself go in terms of what I want to do for my research and stir up whatever I want to stir up. Our conversation has really empowered me to think about what I want to do - which is to find the 'periodic table' of service... - he says that I have these 3 years to do the most important work in my life and that what I do for the next 3 years would probably be the mark of who I am as an academic.
Also, the way I think - which is so much out of the box, so many twists and turns and so tangential to convention that he thinks I am very much a cambridge academic and I should just be myself. Funny that. Andi was telling me on skype just last night that he thinks Exeter needs me there because I have all the energy and am very innovative in my thinking. Fat lot of good that has done me... its just gets me into so much trouble.
I have thought about this a lot. I would like to work on some top tier papers but they may not be very interesting for me personally. However, what is of interest to me is intellectually challenging and I may be spending my life in pursuit of this holy grail. But, as Chris reminds me, I am probably the only person who could do this because I have such a good understanding of so many disciplines that I can pull them together for the integrative disciplinary understanding of service science. If I take this on, what makes me think I will solve this?
I have a germ of an idea where I think I can start but I need to first develop a theoretical model for this. It's started my intellectual juices again and I'm rather excited about it.
Let myself go? Dare I do that? Have I not gotten myself into enough trouble speaking out? If I truly let myself go, dare I criticize, albeit politely, some of the rubbish work out there? Have I grown up as an academic yet? Would I be able to defend my position? Would I also be big enough to admit when I'm wrong? It's so un-chinese/malaysian to get into an intellectual disagreement with another academic but I have done so (more recently with AIM director Robin Wensley where he and I had very opposing viewpoints on service). I suppose I have grown up when I can articulate where differences in opinion might lie. I suppose the only way to learn is to get into trouble and I do have only one life....
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