Norsk Omstilling i høyere utdanning som retorisk praksis – en fortolkende kritikk av tillit og agency

Abstract

On a winter morning a questionnaire pops up in the inbox of the 1700 staff members at one of the new universities in Norway. Now everyone is supposed to answer questions about the work envi-ronment joining what is called an ‘ARK-survey’. It has been two mer-ges of institutions and a period of accreditation to get the status as university since the last time the staff was asked about the work envi-ronment. “The leader at my unit always acts honestly toward me” one of the questions sounds, expecting you to answer on a scale from 1 to 5. How to answer? The article constitutes an interpretative rhetorical criticism of a cluster of texts that prepared the institution for the sur-vey, the texts that formed the survey and selected texts that were pre-sented to the university board after the survey. The questions we seek to answer concern the rhetorical practices: What forms of rhetorical agency that are to be found? How do the texts and transactions reflect trust between leaders and employees? And how does the ARK-survey as a discursive tool impact a university in transformation?