Uniform climate of academia will cause some disciplines to wither and die.

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Imagine a climate controlled room for growing plants. You set a certain temperature, a certain humidity and lighting conditions, you will find that some species might bloom and grow beautifully, while some species die a natural death. Sayur kangkung will flourish in a greenhouse where coral lettuce will die because of the heat.

The situation in Malaysian universities is not far from this. The standard ‘climate’ controlling of academia currently prefers certain type of knowledge, certain type of scholars and certain type of output that results in uneven development of disciplines. Some disciplines will be highlighted as heroes and saviors of the university ranking game, while some will be hard pressed to justify their existence in a university. 

With overpowering control of academic climate, a significant portion of the academia, especially from the arts and humanities feel demoralized and worthless. They are measured based on scientific thinking and scientific publications favoured by hard science and lab-based disciplines. These are not the forte of artists, philosophers, designers and other humanists’ scholars.

The formula to address this problem is conceptually understandable and logical. First accept the fact that just as human differs from one another in terms of traits, habits, demeanor and psyche, so do the various disciplines of knowledge differ in their process of creations and dissemination. All we need to do is to give different disciplines different climates to grow. We will see those scholars currently deemed useless will suddenly bloom and be the source of knowledge and innovation the nation is in dire need of.

 Z Jaafar

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