What Do We Do Wednesday? on Beginning the Class As University-Specific Work: A Preliminary Study (Report‪)‬

THE QUESTION AND THE APPROACH Whether thought to be "in chains" (Giroux 2007), "in ruins" (Readings 1996), "for sale" (Tudiver 1999), or "no place to learn" (Pocklington and Tupper 2002), the university is once again in question (e.g., Drakich, Grant and Stewart 2002; Eglin (forthcoming); Fallis 2007; Kelly, n.d.; Mason 2007; Rae Report 2005). I wish to contribute to the discussion by providing what has been missing in work to date, namely a description of just what about a university makes it a university. I wish to take up, that is, Edward Shils's question about juries, made famous in Harold Garfinkel's (1967a, 1967b) jury study, and apply it to universities. With respect to juries and in contradistinction to the Balesian question--what is it about juries that makes them small groups?--Shils proposed that the primary and relevant question was "what about [jurors'] deliberations makes them a jury?" (Garfinkel 2002:96). I wish to pose the same question about universities: just what is it about the operations of universities that makes them universities?