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PALGRAVE CRITICAL UNIVERSITY STUDIES

Reclaiming
the University
for the Public Good
Experiments and Futures
in Co-operative Higher Education
Edited by
Malcolm Noble · Cilla Ross
Palgrave Critical University Studies

Series Editor
John Smyth
University of Huddersfield
Huddersfield, UK
Aims of the Palgrave Critical University Studies Series
Universities everywhere are experiencing unprecedented changes and
most of the changes being inflicted upon universities are being imposed
by political and policy elites without any debate or discussion, and little
understanding of what is being lost, jettisoned, damaged or destroyed.
The over-arching intent of this series is to foster, encourage, and publish
scholarship relating to academia that is troubled by the direction of these
reforms occurring around the world. The series provides a much-needed
forum for the intensive and extensive discussion of the consequences of
ill-conceived and inappropriate university reforms and will do this with
particular emphasis on those perspectives and groups whose views have
hitherto been ignored, disparaged or silenced. The series explores these
changes across a number of domains including: the deleterious effects on
academic work, the impact on student learning, the distortion of aca-
demic leadership and institutional politics, and the perversion of institu-
tional politics. Above all, the series encourages critically informed debate,
where this is being expunged or closed down in universities.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14707
 Malcolm Noble • Cilla Ross
Editors

Reclaiming the
University for the
Public Good
Experiments and Futures in
Co-operative Higher Education
Editors
Malcolm Noble Cilla Ross
Leicester Vaughan College Co-operative College
Leicester, UK Manchester, UK

ISSN 2662-7329     ISSN 2662-7337 (electronic)

Palgrave Critical University Studies
ISBN 978-3-030-21624-5    ISBN 978-3-030-21625-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21625-2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland
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 Foreword

Raymond Williams, the cultural critic and adult educator argued that
adults turn to learning at times of change to understand what is happen-
ing, to adapt to it, and to shape it. There is no shortage of changes to
confront currently—ecological, technological, demographic, and indus-
trial—each with profound implications for the way we organise our lives
together, and all of which necessarily involve engaging adults in collec-
tively confronting how best we can frame a world worth living in. Yet
opportunities to learn and reflect together on what needs doing and how
best to do it have been reduced dramatically in recent years—as more
than half the number of mature part-time students in English Higher
Education have been lost in the last five years, and as two million stu-
dents have been lost to further education since 2003.
At the same time there has been increased erosion of intellectual and
organisational autonomy in higher education, the impoverishment of
further education colleges overwhelmed by endless changes in regulatory
expectations, and the reduction of education policy to a subset of eco-
nomic policy. A neoliberal dynamic stalks the earth with universities
challenged to compete in a competitive global market, managerialism
rampant, working conditions eroded, and student experience of univer-
sity measured through income earned in future jobs. Where, in all this, is
there space for the kind of education for democracy and exploration of
alternatives that is needed to support people in addressing our challenges?
v
vi Foreword

This is the context that has given rise to this vibrant and creative set of
chapters which offer a vision of an alternative, co-operative, higher edu-
cation, dedicated to the public good. As Hannah Bland points out in her
chapter the case made here for a co-operative university is situated in and
against a problematic context. There is a common concern to recreate a
community of scholars, with flat management structures, democratic
decision making, a pedagogy co-produced with learners, and a concern to
recognise that what we know together is more than the sum of what we
know on our own. There is, too, a recognition that for the imaginative
initiatives developed in Brighton, Lincoln, Oxford, Leicester, Glasgow,
and Edinburgh to be sustainable, secure funding is needed as well as
commitment and solidarity. In the international examples looked at,
Mondragon solved that problem in part by reliance on the support of the
range of co-operative enterprises in the Basque Country, but that is not
an answer easily found in the UK. The Co-operative College’s proposed
solution is to take advantage of the English 2017 Higher Education
Reform Act’s provision for alternative providers of Higher Education to
be publicly funded, and to offer a federated relationship with existing
local initiatives and co-operatives to validate learner achievements. Of
course, as the University Extra-Mural provision of the past century attests,
not everyone seeking to explore effective democratic Higher Education
wants their study to be limited by the constraints of certification, and a
federated Co-operative Higher Education will want to accommodate
their work alongside accredited provision.
As Tom Woodin’s chapter makes clear, the Co-operative College has a
rich vein of experience in collegiate, co-operative, and collaborative edu-
cation, and a fair number of short-lived initiatives too. Yet as
E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class showed, there is
so much that can be learned and borrowed from such projects, however
short-lived. There is much to recover too, from earlier co-operative edu-
cational practice. I have always been struck by the Co-operative Women’s
Guild’s approach to developing their contributions to debates on suffrage
and divorce law reform. Faced in their debates with strong majority
views, and equally emphatic minority views, the Guild, under the leader-
ship of Margaret Llewellyn Davies, developed public policy
statements that reported both perspectives. That kind of respect for dif-
 Foreword vii

ference and divergent views would be of contemporary use in the after-

math of Brexit.
All in all, Reclaiming the University for the Public Good: Experiments
and Futures in Co-operative Higher Education, is an absorbing and inspir-
ing account of work to demonstrate, in the language of the World Social
Forum, that ‘another world is possible’, one where education takes learn-
ers away from passive absorption to active problem solving, and where
students and academics all bring knowledge and experience to the table
to construct a learning agenda. And once the struggle to secure a co-­
operative alternative in Higher Education is established, I look forward
to a companion volume, bringing the same flair and energy to reclaiming
the further education college and adult education provision for the
public good.

Wolverhampton, UK Alan Tuckett

 Contents

1 Now Is the Time for Co-operative Higher Education  1

Malcolm Noble and Cilla Ross

2 Useable Pasts for a Co-operative University: As Different

as Light from Darkness? 23
Tom Woodin

3 Establishing and Sustaining Co-operative Universities and

Co-operative Higher Education in International Contexts:
Challenges and Possibilities 45
Amanda Benson and Cilla Ross

4 Prefiguring the Idea of the University: What Can Be

Learned from Autonomous Learning Spaces That Have
Experimented with No-Fee, Alternative Forms of Higher
Education in the UK? 67
Gary Saunders

ix
x Contents

5 The Social Science Centre, Lincoln: Free, Co-operative

Higher Education 91
Members of the SSC

6 The RED Learning Co-operative: Research, Education

and Development for Social Change109
Fenella Porter and Tracy Walsh

7 Phoenix from the Ashes: The Origins and Development of

Leicester Vaughan College125
Lucy Faire and Miriam Gill

8 The Co-operative Intellect: Journeys in Radical Human

Ecology145
Luke Devlin, Svenja Meyerricks, and Anne Winther

9 The Co-operative as Site of Pedagogy: The Example of

Edinburgh Student Housing Co-operative169
Pablo Perez Ruiz and Mike Shaw

10 Co-operative Research and Research Co-operatives185

Thomas Swann

11 Massive Open Online Course u.lab: Creating

Transformational Learning in Scotland205
Anne Winther, Valerie Jackman, and Keira Oliver

12 Collaging with Co-operators: An Arts-­Based Inquiry into

Member Perceptions of Co-operative Higher Education227
Hannah Bland
 Contents xi

13 Seeking a Co-operative University: Reconstructing Adult

Education and Reclaiming Higher Education as a Public
Good247
Malcolm Noble and Cilla Ross

14 Afterword: A Student Responds257

Sally Birch

Index263
 Notes on Contributors

Bradley Allsop is a PhD student at University of Lincoln studying

youth politics under neoliberalism. He is also a student activist.

Amanda Benson co-ordinates projects and research as well as designs

and delivers training at the Co-operative College, Manchester. Specializing
in gender, agriculture, international and community development,
Amanda promotes sustainable and inclusive development both in the
UK and worldwide. Before joining the Co-operative College, Amanda
worked in community development in the UK, supporting adult learners
through community training and mentoring.

Sally Birch is studying in her final year for a BA (Hons) in Art and
Humanities. She organised and led a campaign to try to save the Vaughan
Centre for Lifelong Learning in Leicester. She is passionate about trans-
forming lives through education. Sally is married with two children and
works full time as a Learning Behaviour Mentor in a SEMH (Social,
Emotional, Mental Health) school in Leicester.

Hannah Bland Her interest in democratizing knowledge production

comes from frustrations with her own experiences as a student in a tradi-
tional university coupled with an impatience for social change and a
stubborn belief that education can and must play a role in bringing it
xiii
xiv Notes on Contributors

about. Her work is shaped by her affinity to critical anthropological, fem-

inist and activist research traditions. Hannah was an active member of
the Co-operative University Working Group and currently sits on the
Interim Academic Board.

Luke Devlin is executive director of the Centre for Human Ecology,

Glasgow, and a doctoral researcher at the Intercultural Research Centre,
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. His work attempts to emphasize the
interconnections between nature, culture, society and spirituality.

Lucy Faire is a twentieth-century social historian and a founder mem-

ber of Leicester Vaughan College Community Benefit Society. She has
several years of experience teaching mature students as an Associate
Lecturer for the Open University (OU) and for the Vaughan Centre of
Lifelong Learning, Leicester University, which will close in 2020.

Miriam Gill is an art historian with a particular interest in the middle

ages and has a long experience of adult education. She is a founder mem-
ber of Leicester Vaughan College Community Benefit Society. She teaches
at the Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning which the Leicester
University decided to disestablish in 2016.

Valerie Jackman is Leadership Lead at College Development Network,

Scotland. Having worked as a lecturer for two decades, Valerie has exten-
sive experience in Learning and Development and has developed a num-
ber of innovative programmes including u.explore. Valerie is a member of
the holding team for u.lab Scotland and u.lab Ireland.

Svenja Meyerricks lives and works in Glasgow: in community food

projects, as a freelance educator and director of the Centre for Human
Ecology. She holds a PhD on community projects and climate change in
Scotland from the University of St Andrews.

Malcolm Noble is an economic historian. He teaches and researches at

the Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning at University of Leicester and
Leicester Vaughan College. He was awarded a PhD in Economic and
Social History by the University of Edinburgh in 2017.
 Notes on Contributors xv

Keira Oliver is the research and learning lead on Workforce Scotland’s

Collective Leadership initiative and Scottish Government lead for sup-
porting the growth of u.lab in Scotland—a change leadership and com-
munity empowerment programme offered by Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, based on Theory U. In 2012 she was awarded a PG Cert in
Public Policy from the University of Edinburgh.

Pablo Perez Ruiz has been involved with student co-operatives since
2014 through the Edinburgh Student Housing Co-operative, the Swap
and Reuse Hub Co-operative and the national network Students for
Co-operation (SfC). In 2017, Pablo joined the Co-operative University
Working Group as an SfC representative.

Fenella Porter is an activist and teacher in labour studies, development

studies and women’s rights, with 25+ years’ experience working with
women’s organizations and movements, development non-governmental
organizations, and trade unions at national and international levels. Her
teaching work has concentrated on activist education, enabling and facil-
itating critical thinking for the broader purpose of social change. With
former colleagues from Ruskin College and the Co-operative College,
she is a co-founder of the RED Learning Co-operative (Research,
Education and Development for Social Change).

Cilla Ross is an educator and work sociologist with a background in

higher and alternative adult education. As vice principal of the
Co-operative College Cilla has oversight of the triad of co-operative edu-
cation, research and future thinking. Decent work, livelihood building
and co-operative placemaking are priorities but wider research and prac-
tice includes radical education methodologies and research on the future
of work. Most recently Cilla has been working on ways of challenging
precarity through union co-ops, co-designing the first Co-operative
University in the UK and devising projects which celebrate the Ministry
of Reconstruction 1919 Report on Adult Education and consider its rel-
evance for our time.
xvi Notes on Contributors

Gary Saunders is a scholar-activist at University of Lincoln whose

research and practice focuses on critical and democratic pedagogical ini-
tiatives both inside and outside of mainstream higher education. Gary’s
doctoral thesis documents and critically reflects upon the creation and
running of autonomous learning spaces that emerged in response to the
UK Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government’s reforms to
higher education in 2010. Gary is also involved in the development and
implementation of Student as Producer at University of Lincoln which is
part of an attempt to engage academics and students in a way that is criti-
cal of current attempts to marketize and instrumentalize higher educa-
tion by involving all in the pursuit of scholarship through collaborative
curriculum design and academic research.

Mike Shaw is a network co-ordinator for Students for Cooperation. He

became active in the co-operative movement through co-founding the
Edinburgh Student Housing Co-operative whilst studying maths and
physics at the University of Edinburgh. He was also a trustee and elected
officer for Edinburgh University Students’ Association and active in the
NUS, the National Campaign Against Fees, and Cuts and Edinburgh
Uncut.

Laura Stafford is a full-time parent and part-time scholar, working on

the fringes of the gig economy and attempting to participate in mass
intellectuality.

Thomas Swann is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Loughborough

University working in Politics and International Studies. His research
focuses on anarchist forms of organization and democratic decision mak-
ing, exploring how these can be made inclusive and effective from an
intersectional anarchist perspective.

Tracy Walsh is a teacher and activist, starting her career in trade union
education after studying at Ruskin College on a Unison scholarship. She
is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Human Resources and
Organizational Behaviour at University of Greenwich. Tracy is interested
in working-class education, and with former colleges from Ruskin College
 Notes on Contributors xvii

and the Co-operative College, she is a co-founder of the RED Learning

Co-operative (Research, Education and Development for Social Change).

Anne Winther lives and works in rural Scotland as a transdisciplinary

researcher and activist. Her PhD investigating the sustainability of rural
communities in Scotland was at University of Stirling. She is a member
of the international u.lab research network and the u.lab Scotland net-
work and is a director of the Centre for Human Ecology.

Tom Woodin is a reader in the social history of education at the

University College London (UCL) Institute of Education. He has
researched and published widely on co-­operatives and learning, including
Community and Mutual Ownership: A historical review for the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation and edited the book Co-operation, Learning and
Co-operative Values published by Routledge. He also works on the history
of education and is co-writing a history of the Co-operative College for
Palgrave Macmillan. His most recent book is on workers’ writing and
community publishing, Working-Class Writing and Publishing in the Late-
Twentieth Century. He co-edits the journal History of Education.
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 The sweet spot of CHE (Thanks to Linda Shaw and Stirling
Smith for their 2016 guidance in the development of this
schematic)4
Fig. 8.1 The co-operative intellect (After: Geddes in Davie 1961
(n11); Newman 1907 (n41); McIntosh 2008 (n39); Read
2015 (n26); and Barnett 2018 (n37)) 154
Fig. 8.2 Building capacity for co-operative education: Collectively tak-
ing the first steps of transition February 2019 167
Fig. 11.1 Scharmer’s u-process as experienced in Scotland (drawn by
Linda Hunter and adapted from a drawing by Kelvy Bird.
Published online http://www.ottoscharmer.com/sites/default/
files/Scharmer_ETU_Fig 04_ThreeMovements_Web.jpg cre-
ated under the Creative Commons Licence, https://creative-
commons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ and in Scharmer, O.
2018. Theory U: Core principles and applications. Oakland,
CA: Berrett-Koehler)210
Fig. 11.2 The world’s first u.lab Hub Host Programme, Edinburgh,
June 2017 213
Fig. 11.3 In-person u.lab Scotland holding team at Edinburgh College,
May 2017 215
Fig. 11.4 ‘Personal development award, u.explore’ course outline
(adapted from Scharmer et al.’s u.lab, https://presencing.org,

xix
xx List of Figures

Burnett and Evans, https://designingyour.life and the SQA

PDA award, https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/57040.html) 219
Fig. 12.1 “What LVC is not”, participating members of Leicester
Vaughan College 235
Fig. 12.2 “What FUB means to me”, Yvette (member of Free University
Brighton)236
Fig. 12.3 “What LSSC means to us”, Dianne and Annabelle (members
of Lincoln Social Science Centre) 238
Fig. 12.4 “What LSSC means to me”, Cara (member of Lincoln Social
Science Centre) 239
Fig. 12.5 “What FUB means to me”, Lianne (member of Free University
Brighton)241
 1
Now Is the Time for Co-operative
Higher Education
Malcolm Noble and Cilla Ross

In 2018, the University of Leicester announced that its next Chancellor

would be David Willetts.1 For students and staff alike, it was hard to
imagine a less appropriate candidate. The students’ union organized a
petition objecting to the appointment as the University’s figurehead, a
former minister responsible for £9000 tuition fees and notorious for
comments around ‘feminism and the increase in working women for

1
University of Leicester. 2018. Lord Willetts, former Universities and Science Minister, announced
as new Chancellor of University of Leicester. https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-
releases/2018/february/lord-willetts-former-universities-and-science-minister-announced-as-new-
chancellor-of-university-of-leicester. Accessed 28 March 2019.

M. Noble (*)
Leicester Vaughan College, Leicester, UK
e-mail: malcolm.noble@vaughan.coop
C. Ross
Co-operative College, Manchester, UK
e-mail: cilla@co-op.ac.uk

© The Author(s) 2019 1

M. Noble, C. Ross (eds.), Reclaiming the University for the Public Good, Palgrave
Critical University Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21625-2_1
2 M. Noble and C. Ross

damaging the social mobility of working class men’.2 When Willets

launched his book at the University the following week there were wide-­
scale protests. Yet even as a petition gathered thousands of signatures, this
seemed to have no meaningful impact on the University’s management.3
This proved too much for many students and the occupation of the
University’s administrative buildings ensued, something not seen on that
campus since the 1970s. All of this however had nil traction, and at the
time of writing, despite his not having attended any graduation cere-
mony, Willetts is Chancellor of that university. In short, staff and stu-
dents—the members of the University—had no say in such an
appointment, or indeed most aspects of the governance of the institution.
In this example—and there have been similar moments at almost
every university in the UK—it became apparent that, for all the baroque
charade of ‘consultation’ and ‘engagement’—those hallmarks of New
Public Management (NPM)—the university did not belong to its mem-
bers.4 It became apparent too, in the context of the Universities
Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension strikes of 2018, that universities
en bloc were being run not in the interests of students, of scholars, or the
common good, but a narrow neoliberal agenda. When we speak of a
governance crisis in Higher Education (HE), the issue of unaccountabil-
ity and lack of control by the majority sit at the heart of the problem. As
a result of government policies, universities, and the education and
knowledge they produce, are not public goods, but private ones. In this
volume, examples are provided which show that there are alternatives. In
this chapter, we introduce the context to these alternatives under three
headings: what is Co-operative Higher Education (CHE), the
2
Leicester Union, University of Leicester should re-consider the appointment of David Willets as
Chancellor. Change.org. https://www.change.org/p/university-of-leicester-university-of-leicester-
should-re-consider-the-appointment-of-david-willets-as-chancellor. Accessed 28 March 2019.
3
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/university-leicester-david-willetts-conservative-
1304292. Accessed 28 March 2019
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/university-leicester-urged-re-consider-
1222424. Accessed 28 March 2019
4
There are many good introductions to NPM. Ferlie, E., L. Ashburner, L. Fitzgerald, and
A. Pettigrew. 1996. The New Public Management in Action. Oxford: OUP; Christensen, T., and
P. Lægreid. Introduction. In The Ashgate Research Companion to New Public Management, ed.
T. Christensen and P. Lægreid, 1–16. Farnham: Ashgate; and J. Newman, ‘Serving the Public?
Users, Consumers and the Limits of NPM’, in ibid., 349–60.
 1 Now Is the Time for Co-operative Higher Education 3

Co-operative University Project (CUP) and the neoliberal university.

We also offer a brief consideration of the themes this collection addresses.

What is Co-operative Higher Education?

Co-operative education has a long and complex history, with global
reach, multiple meanings, and encompasses a ‘rich ecology of educational
provision’.5 Although it still warrants further research, co-operative edu-
cation has undergone increased scholarly attention in recent years.6 For
example, Woodin discussed the emergence of co-operative community
education in the nineteenth century when it fluctuated between the prac-
tical and the utopian; Vernon described how co-operative education was
an early innovator in technical education and workforce development;
Shaw reminded us of the role of the Co-operative College in supporting
the growth of co-operative education and the global movement interna-
tionally and more recently, there has been a focus on co-operative schools.7
There has also been a long-standing ambition for over 150 years to estab-
lish CHE and even a co-operative university (CU), and recent research
has focused on co-operative provision at this level.8
Regardless of level, what is nearly always privileged in any discus-
sion of co-operative education is the claim that its difference lies in its

5
Shaw, L. 2015. Mapping Co-operative Education in the UK. In Co-operation, Learning and
Co-operative Values, ed. T. Woodin, 162. London: Routledge.
6
See Shaw, L. 2012. Co-operative Education Review. Manchester: Co-operative College; Shaw, L.
2013. What Is Co-operative Education? Manchester: Co-operative College Unpublished Paper;
Shaw, 2015, 161–76.
7
Woodin, T. 2011. Co-operative Education in Britain During the Nineteenth and Early
Twentieth Centuries: Context, Identity and Learning. In The Hidden Alternative, Co-operative
Values, Past, Present and Future, ed. A. Webster, 78–95. Manchester: MUP; Vernon, K., ‘Values
and Vocation: Educating the Co-operative Workforce 1918–39’, in ibid., 37–58; Shaw, L.
2012. Co-operative Education Review, 13. Manchester: Co-operative College; Davidge, G. 2016.
Rethinking Education Through Critical Psychology: Co-operative Schools, Social Justice and Voice.
London: Routledge.
8
Saunders, G. 2017. Somewhere Between Reform and Revolution: Alternative Higher Education
and ‘The Unfinished’. In Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education, ed. R.
Hall and J. Winn. London: Bloomsbury; Neary, M., and J. Winn. 2017. There Is an Alternative: A
Report on an Action Research Project to Develop a Framework for Co-operative Higher Education.
Learning and Teaching 10: 87–105.
4 M. Noble and C. Ross

Active learning based on co-operative values.

We start from the needs of learners around real
issues.
Participatory approaches – learning is a
Pedagogy process.
Solidarity not competitive learning.
Research which underpins all we do.
Institutions & Delivery – flexible, distributed,
Institutions starts from where people are at in creative
& Delivery Content learning spaces.
Content – democracy, governance, values and
principles, co-operative identity, member
control, social justice, social purpose.

Fig. 1.1 The sweet spot of CHE (Thanks to Linda Shaw and Stirling Smith for their
2016 guidance in the development of this schematic)

advocacy and commitment to participatory and active learning

approaches—whether in the nineteenth-century reading room above a
co-operative shop, in study circles, in using distance and correspon-
dence course methods, or through online learning.9 Whilst these
methods and pedagogies are now widespread in mainstream HE, this
was not always the case whereas such approaches often characterized
co-operative adult education from its inception and certainly in
its present.10
CHE consists of a bundle of pedagogic approaches underpinned by
values: active learning, listening, researching, writing and thinking;
participatory and action research; critical thinking; interdisciplinarity;
solidaristic not competitive practice; collective, personal and individ-
ual reflection, self-awareness; inclusivity and collaboration. A success-
ful alignment of these approaches, fused with appropriate content and
delivery, results in a CHE sweet spot, see Fig. 1.1.11

9
Woodin, T. 2015. Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values, ed. London: Routledge.
10
Woodin, T. 2011.
11
See Benson and Ross in Chap. 3 of this collection and https://www.mondragon.edu/en/informa-
tion-of-interest/learning-model
 1 Now Is the Time for Co-operative Higher Education 5

In this volume the terms CHE and CU are used together. CHE might
take an institutional form, for example, existing as a Co-operative Higher
Education Institution (HEI), and thus constitute or be approximate to, a
university, as well as describe tertiary education which reflects and draws
upon particular pedagogical and ontological approaches. However, CHE
can take place within a mainstream university, by employing the peda-
gogical and ontological techniques noted above. A co-operative univer-
sity is very specifically a degree-awarding body which is likely to deliver
CHE, but it might also provide HE which is not co-operative: that is,
that the organizational structure is co-operative, but the education pro-
vided is not co-operative in character.

The UK Co-operative University Project

As discussed in Chap. 3, there are co-operative university models to be
found internationally and whilst diverse, they are distinguished to a
greater or lesser extent from mainstream universities by a commitment to
CHE and to co-operative forms of governance and democratic practice.12
In the UK the Co-operative College’s work with a number of co-­operative
universities helped early thinking about whether or not to seek university
title or degree awarding powers (DAPs), and more tangibly, the idea of a
UK co-operative university emerged from a trio of contexts.
First was a report written by Dan Cook in 2013 for the Co-operative
College which explored the barriers and enablers to the realization of a
co-operative university.13 The report contributed to an emerging body of
interest, literature and research on alternative models of Higher Education
and CHE from within the HE mainstream.14 At the same time ­academics,

12
Boden, R., P. Ciancelli, and S. Wright. 2012. Trust Universities? Governance for Post-capitalist
Futures. Journal of Co-operative Studies 45: 16–24.
13
Cook, Dan. 2013. Realising the Co-operative University. Unpublished report for the Co-operative
College.
14
Wright, S., et al. 2011. Report on a Field Visit to Mondragón University: A Co-operative
Experience/Experiment. Learning and Teaching 4: 38–56; Social Science Centre, Lincoln. 2013. An
Experiment in Free, Co-operative Higher Education. Radical Philosophy 182: 66–7; Yeo, S. 2014.
The Co-operative University? Transforming Higher Education. In Co-operation, Learning and
Co-operative Values, ed. Tom Woodin. London: Routledge.
6 M. Noble and C. Ross

educators and practitioners were experiencing heightened levels of alien-

ation, casualization, instrumentalization and performance management
and this, coupled with deepening concerns about student debt, vice
chancellors’ pay and work precarity, resulted in the growth of a values-­
based community of academic practice interested in pushing forward on
co-operative Higher Educational thinking.15
Second was the passing of a piece of legislation—the Higher Education
and Research Act 2017 (HERA)—the latest iteration of long-term trends
in the marketization and privatization of Higher Education.16 The Act
should be seen in the historical context of the neoliberal attack on public
goods and services as this ideology has transformed universities into busi-
nesses, run as corporations, and the education provided by them as pri-
vate goods benefiting individual students. The Act introduced a single
new regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), which enables the emer-
gence of ‘challenger institutions’ to complement existing Higher
Education and offers a faster route to acquiring DAPs. Thus whilst the
legislation is designed to dismantle the public university, it also opens the
door to new providers, including a co-operative university.
A third and final context is the proliferation of co-operative and social
solidarity models into new economic and social spaces and sectors—such
as the gig economy. There is clearly a renewed interest in the co-operative
as an alternative social and economic form to capitalism as new models of
work and social organizing emerge.17 This has prompted fresh thinking
not only about what sort of co-operative education is needed for the future
but also a recommitment to reconnect co-operative education with its

15
Brown, R. 2013. Everything for Sale? The Marketization of UK Higher Education. Research into
Higher Education. Routledge; Neary, M., and J. Winn. 2017. Beyond Public and Private: A
Framework for Co-operative Higher Education. Open Library of Humanities 3 (2): 2, 1–36; Winn,
J. 2015. The Co-operative University: Labour, Property and Pedagogy. Power and Education 7 (1).
16
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/29/contents. Accessed 19 May 2017.
17
See CICOPA. 2018. Global Study on Youth Co-operative Entrepreneurship. Geneva: ICA; Webster,
T., et al., eds. 2016. Mainstreaming Co-operation. Manchester: MUP; Roelants, B., et al. 2012. The
Resilience of the Cooperative Model: How Worker Cooperatives, Social Cooperatives and Other Worker-
Owned Enterprises Respond to the Crisis and Its Consequences. CECOP, CICOPA; and Bird, A., P.
Conaty, and C. Ross. 2017. Organising Precarious Workers, Trade Union and Co-operative Strategies.
London: TUC.
 1 Now Is the Time for Co-operative Higher Education 7

roots in adult education, as is originally evidenced in the 1919 Ministry of

Reconstruction enquiry into adult education.18
In 2016, partly in anticipation of the proposed legislation, a group of
representatives from the co-operative movement, academics, educators,
practitioners and students began to meet informally to consider the
Co-operative College’s response to HERA. This became the Co-operative
University Working Group (CUWG) which was encouraged by a fresh
report scoping the viability of a UK co-operative university.19 A recom-
mendation to the Co-operative College’s Trustees was approved: that a
twin-track approach should be taken to explore the formation of DAPs to
enable a growing range of Higher Education co-operatives to provide
degrees in federation, enabling all to offer formal qualifications and access
student loan finance.
The CUWG consulted widely with a number of Higher Education
co-operatives to seek a definition of what a UK co-operative university
might look like and did this through a series of roundtables: Democracy,
Members and Governance; Accreditation, Curriculum and Pedagogy and
Livelihood and Finances. Clearly any co-operative university would need
to conform to the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) Co-operative
Identity Statement and be owned by its members—aligning values with
governance.20 As with any university, a co-operative university would also
award degrees, have students and use a university title.
Additional defining characteristics reached by consensus during co-­
working include a set of CHE principles:

1. The Co-operative University Project is a living, collective project run

democratically by its members: students, researchers, teachers and

18
Bibby, A. 2015. The Co-operative Disadvantage: Why the Movement Needs a Level Playing Field
- Co-operative News. [online] Co-operative News. Available at: http://www.thenews.coop/97065/
news/general/co-operative-disadvantage-movement-needs-level-playing-field/. Accessed 22 March
2017; see https://www.co-op.ac.uk/adult-education. And Ministry of Reconstruction. 1919. Adult
Education Committee: Final Report. London: H. M. Stationery Office.
19
Ramos, E. A. 2017. Feasibility Study to Acquire Degree Awarding Powers (in the light of the
Higher Education and Research Act). A report for the Co-operative College. Manchester:
Co-operative College.
20
The ICA is the apex body of co-operatives globally; see https://ica.coop/en
8 M. Noble and C. Ross

other stakeholders, in solidarity with their communities and with

other co-operatives locally and globally.
2. Arising out of the co-operative movement, co-operative education is
values based on principle, mutual in practice, and justice orientated in
outcome. It is based on mutual learning and shared knowledge,
whereby students play a central role in educational design, content
and delivery. Spaces of learning are driven by justice, equality
and fairness.
3. Co-operative Higher Education is based upon the principle that
teachers and students have much to learn from each other and their
communities.
4. Co-operative Higher Education aims to establish shared knowledge
and understanding for people and the planet with an aim to:

• Co-create educational and social practices based upon political and

economic democracy
• Challenge injustice, inequality and exploitation in all its forms
• Strengthen, enhance and grow co-operative leadership to boost the
co-operative sector, the labour movement and other social jus-
tice movements
• Develop thoughtful understandings of co-operation
• Enhance well-being and foster the possibility for everyone to explore
their full range of abilities

5. Co-operative Higher Education is underpinned by ways of learning

about and researching co-operation through the active and equal par-
ticipation of everyone. We have a view of the world that is based upon
co-operative values, integrity, equality and a commitment to educa-
tion with a social purpose.
6. Ultimately, the co-operative university will be a federated network of
independent and autonomous co-operatives.

Some discussions within the roundtables were challenging for all par-
ticipants. For example, an informal, individual and collective assumption
was that a UK co-operative university would offer courses at low fees.
 1 Now Is the Time for Co-operative Higher Education 9

However, the CUWG was ultimately persuaded by the expert leading the
Livelihood and Finances roundtable that this would not necessarily ben-
efit low income students in terms of repayment criteria nor guarantee a
high-quality offer.21 What is more, CUWG collectively recognized and
accepted that Higher Education has a relatively high unit cost because
education is an expensive but vital public good. Likewise there were sen-
sitive discussions about the relationship between the Co-operative
College, which is applying for DAPs, and the federated co-operatives.
How might the federation as a self-critical scholarly community deal col-
lectively with quality or economic problems in one of its members? An
Interim Academic Board which consists of representatives of each feder-
ated co-operative, associated trade unions of the co-operative and student
movements, and other adult education providers continues to explore
these challenges. The focus at the time of writing is on planning and
delivering CHE which attracts students from within and without the
existing and emerging co-operative movement as well as wider alternative
constituencies.
Co-operatives and other forms within the social solidarity economy
are an alternative to the neoliberal economic model; however, they are
often seen as hidden alternatives.22 Fundamentally a co-operative is a
business, a people-centred enterprise which is owned and run by and for
its members. Profits generated are either reinvested in the enterprise or
returned to the members. The formal ICA definition of a co-operative is
that it is:

An autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their

common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through
jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprises.23

Co-operatives are driven by values not just profit, and share interna-
tionally agreed principles which strive to build sustainable global

21
McGettigan, A. 2013. The Great University Gamble: Money, Markets and the Future of Higher
Education. London: Pluto.
22
Webster, A., et al., eds. 2011. The Hidden Alternative, Co-operative Values, Past, Present and Future.
Manchester: MUP.
23
https://www.ica.coop/en/cooperatives/cooperative-identity. Accessed 24 March 2019.
10 M. Noble and C. Ross

s­ olidarity.24 These values are self-help, self-responsibility, democracy,

equality, equity and solidarity; co-operative members also believe in the
ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for
others. Yet it is not only these values that distinguish co-operatives from
other businesses. What makes a co-operative different is how it holds a set
of principles which revolve around alternative ownership and democratic
governance and which are guidelines to putting values into practice.25 In
summary, the co-operative model offers a political economy of social
value, solidarity and sustainability, rather than pursuing only profit.
Whilst in the UK co-operatives are associated primarily with the retail
sector, globally co-operatives are ubiquitous and can be found in almost
every corner of the economy—agriculture, fisheries, transport, social
care, education, services and finance. According to the ICA, co-operatives
account for 1.2 billion members, with one in every six people on the
planet a member of the 3 million co-operatives worldwide.26 In the post-­
crash period co-operatives are proving a resilient business and ownership
model which increasingly appeals to the young.27 They are also profitable,
with the top 300 co-operatives and mutuals reporting a total turnover of
US$2.1 trillion, and sustainable, with 80 per cent of worker co-operative
start-ups surviving compared to 44 per cent of those firms using a tradi-
tional business model.28
Yet the privileging of the business character of the co-operative model,
by presenting it solely as an economic entity, obscures its origins as a

24
Co-operatives take many different forms yet what fosters commonality is how they are owned
and governed by their members, that is, the people or stakeholders who buy from them or use their
services (as in consumer co-operatives); who make things (producer co-operatives); who work in
them (worker co-operatives) or by the people who live in them (housing co-operatives). Additionally,
there are multi-stakeholder (or solidarity) co-operatives such as those that bring together a number
of different types of stakeholders.
25
The principles are the following: voluntary and open membership; democratic member control;
member economic participation; autonomy and independence; education, training and informa-
tion; co-operation among co-operatives and concern for community.
26
World Co-operative Monitor, 2017.
27
See CICOPA. 2018. Global Study on Youth Co-operative Entrepreneurship. Geneva: ICA; Roelants,
B., et al. 2012. The Resilience of the Cooperative Model: How Worker Cooperatives, Social Cooperatives
and Other Worker-Owned Enterprises Respond to the Crisis and Its Consequences. CECOP, CICOPA;
Webster, T., et al., eds. 2016. Mainstreaming Co-operation. Manchester: MUP.
28
Co-operatives UK, 2018 Review.
 1 Now Is the Time for Co-operative Higher Education 11

r­adical social movement and response to exploitation and industrializa-

tion which, according to ‘Law First’ of the objects of the Rochdale
Co-operative Society, would help to change the world:

That as soon as is practicable, this Society shall proceed to arrange the pow-
ers of production, distribution, education, and government, or in other
words to establish a self-supporting home-colony of united interests, or
assist other societies in establishing such colonies.29

The context in which this early political and solidarity education flour-
ished was one of considerable disruption when values-driven grass-roots
movements ‘self-educated’ in the pub, chapel, factory and store, a collec-
tive answer to the individuated working-class autodidact traditions.30
Nurtured by notions of self-improvement, a belief that ‘knowledge is
power’ and with no access to formal education, co-operators and trade
unionists knew that education not only empowered the individual but
was fundamental to building movements that would secure change. The
Rochdale Pioneers fully understood the role education would play in
developing co-operative skills, character and a new economic and social
order that would challenge capitalism.31 It is upon this tradition that
CHE draws.

The Neoliberal University and its Crises

The field of critical university studies has, for the main part, focused on
critiques of the neoliberal university. First identified by Williams in 2012,
the field has concentrated on the problems produced by changes in how
Higher Education is managed as a result of government policies.32 These

29
Law First, The Rochdale Pioneers, 1844, Colony to the Pioneers refers to countries, or places
within the Co-operative Commonwealth.
30
See Lovett, T., ed. 1988. Radical Approaches to Adult Education: A Reader. London: Routledge.
31
Woodin, T. 2011. Co-operative Education in Britain During the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
Centuries: Context, Identity and Learning. In The Hidden Alternative, Co-operative Values, Past,
Present and Future, ed. A. Webster, et al., 78–95. Manchester: MUP.
32
Williams, J. J. 2012. Deconstructing Academe: The Birth of Critical University Studies. The
Chronicle.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Dirá qualquer matasanos.
Fiquei de humores exangue,
Tão escorrido e exhausto,
Que não sou gato de humor,
Porque nem bom, nem máu gato.
Supplico ao Senhor Cabido
Que de um homem tão malvado
Me vingue com ter saude,
Por não gastar-lhe os emplastos.»
Apenas este acabou,
Quando se ergueu outro gato,
E entoando o jube domine,
Disse humilde e mesurado:
«Meu amo é um alfaiate
Gerado sobre um telhado
Na maior força do inverno,
Alcoviteiro dos gatos.
É pardo rajado em preto,
Ou preto embutido em pardo,
Malhado ou já malhadiço
Do tempo em que fôra escravo:
Tão caçador das ourellas,
Tão murador dos retalhos,
Que com onças de retroz
Brinca qual gato com rato.
E porque com fio e meio
Joguei o sapateado,
Houve de haver por tão pouco
Uma de todo’ os diabos.
Estrugiu-me a puros gritos
E plantou-me no pedrado,
Que elle pelo cato é cão,
E eu fiquei gato por cabo.
Que de verdades dissera,
A estar menos indignado!
Que para fallar de um cão
É mui suspeitoso um gato.
Pelo menos quando eu corto,
Nunca dobro a téla em quatro,
Por dar um córte a seu dono
E outro a mim pelo trabalho.
Nem menos peço dinheiro
Para retroz, e o não gasto,
Porque o gavetão do cisco
Me dá o retroz necessario.
Não sizo covado e meio
Por dar um collete ao diabo,
Nem vendo de téla fina
Retalhinhos de tres palmos.
Tudo emfim se ha de saber
No universal cadafalso,
Que no tribunal de Deus
Não se estylam Secretarios.
Requeiro a vossas mercês
Que me ponham com outro amo,
Porque com este hei de estar
Sempre como cão com gato.»
«Á vista d’este alfaiate,
Disse o Cabido espantado,
«Somos nós gatos mirins,
Que inda agora engatinhamos.
O gato tome amo novo
Em qualquer convento honrado,
Seja fundador Barbonio,
Ou Sacristão mór do Carmo.»
A proposito do que
Se foi erguendo outro gato,
E amortalhado de mãos
Armou os hombros em arco.
E dizendo o jube domine,
Se poz em terra prostrado,
E eu disse logo: «me matem,
Si não é dos Franciscanos.»
«Sou gato de refeitorio,
 Disse, ha tres ou quatro annos
Pagem do refeitoreiro,
Do despenseiro criado.
Fui custodio da cozinha,
E dei má conta do cargo,
Porque sizando rações
Fui guardião de tassalhos.
Era eu em outro tempo
Mui gordo e mui anafado,
Porque os da esmola então vinham
Despejar em casa os saccos.
Mas hoje que já da rua
Vêm os bolsos despejados,
Veiu a ser o refeitorio
Uma Thebaida de gatos.
Não póde o pão das esmolas
Manter tantos remendados,
Que em lhe manter as amigas
Sendo infinitas, faz arto.
Dei com isto em tizicar-me
E esburgar-se-me o espinhaço,
Não tanto já de faminto,
Quanto de escandalisado.
Não posso viver entre homens,
Que, si remendam uns pannos,
É mais por nos enganar
Que porque lhes dure o anno.
E hoje que na Casa Nova
Gastam tantos mil cruzados,
São gatos de maior dura,
Pois de pedra e cal são gatos.»
Palavras não eram ditas,
Quando zunindo e silvando
Sentiram pelas orelhas
Um chuveiro de bastardos.
E logo atraz d’isso o tiro
De um bacamarte atacado,
 Que disparou de um quintal
Um malfazejo soldado.
Descompoz-se-lhe a audiencia,
E cada qual por seu cabo
Pela campanha dos ares
Foram de telha em telhado.
E depois que legua e meia
Tinha cada qual andado,
Parando olharam atraz
Attonitos e assustados.
E vendo-se desunidos,
Confusos, desarranchados,
Usaram da contra senha,
Miáu aqui, alli miáu.
E depois que se ajunctaram,
Disse um gato castelhano:
«Cada qual a sua cabana,
Que hoje de boa escapámos.»
Choviscou naquelle instante,
E safaram-se de um salto,
Porque sempre de agua fria
Ha mêdo o gato escaldado.
AO PADRE DAMASO DA SILVA
ROMANCE

Damaso, aquelle madraço,

Que em pés, mãos e mais miudos,
Pode bem dar seis e az
Ao maior Frizão de Hamburgo:
Cuja bocca é mentideira,
Onde acode todo o vulgo,
A escutar lá sobre a tarde
As mentiras como punhos:
Mentideiro frequentado
De quantos Senhores burros
Perdem o nome de limpos,
Pela amizade de um sujo:
Cuja lingua é Relação,
Onde acham os mais puros
Para accusar um fiscal,
Para cortar um verdugo.
Zote muito parecido
Aos vicios todos do mundo,
Pois nunca os alheios corta
Sem dar no seu proprio escudo.
Sancto Antonio de baeta,
Que em toda a parte do mundo
Os casos, que succederam,
Viu e foi presente a tudo.
O padre papa-jantares,
Hospede tão importuno,
Que para todo o banquete
Traz sempre de trote o buxo.
Professo da Providencia,
Que sem logar bazaruco
Para passar todo um anno
 Nem dous vintens faz de custo.
Que os amigos o sustentam,
E lhe dão como de juro
O jantar, quando lhes cabe
A cada qual por seu turno.
E essa vez que tem dinheiro,
Que é de sete em sete lustros,
Tres vintens com um tostão,
Ou dois tostões quando muito:
Com um vintem de bananas,
E de farinha dois punhos,
Para passar dia e meio,
Tem certo o pão e o conducto.
Lisonjeiro sem recato,
Adulador sem rebuço,
Que por papar um jantar
De um sacristão faz um Nuncio,
De um tambor um general,
Um branco de um mameluco,
De uma sanzala um palacio,
E um galeão de um pantufo.
E em passando a occasião,
Tendo já repleto o buxo,
Desanda cu’a taramella,
E a todos despe de tudo.
Outro Satyro de Esopo,
Que co’o mesmo bafo astuto
Esfriava o caldo quente,
E aquentava o frio punho.
O Zote que tudo sabe,
O grande jurisconsulto
Dos litigios fedorentos
D’esta cidade monturo.
O Bartolo de improviso,
O subitaneo Lycurgo,
Que anoitece um sabe nada
E amanhece um sabe tudo.
O lettrado gratis dato,
E o que com saber infuso
Quer ser legista sem mestre,
Canonista sem estudo.
O graduado de douto
Na Academia dos burros,
Que é brava Universidade
Para doutorar brunduzios.
Magano sem repugnancia,
Desaforado sem susto,
Intromettido sem risco,
E sem desar abelhudo.
Fraquissimo pelas mãos,
E valentão pelo vulto,
No corpo um grande de Hespanha,
No sangue escoria do mundo.
Este tal, de quem falamos,
Como tem grandes impulsos
De ser baptiza-crianças
Para ser soca-defunctos;
E a Magestade de El-Rei
Tem já com mil esconjuros
Ordenado que o não collem,
Nem a uma egreja de junco:
Elle por manter desejos
Foi-se ao adro devoluto
Da Senhora do Loreto,
Onde está parocho intruso.
Ouvir é um grande prazer,
E ver é um gosto summo,
Quando diz: os meus Freguezes—,
Sem temor de um abrenuncio.
Item é um gosto grande,
Nas manhãs em que madrugo,
Vê-lo repicar o sino
Para congregar o vulgo.
E como ninguem acode,
 Se fica o triste mazullo
Em solitaria estação
Dizendo missa aos defunctos.
Quando o Frizão considero,
O menos que d’elle cuido
É ser parocho boneco,
Feito de trapos immundos.
Isto sois, minha Bahia,
Isto passa em vosso burgo,
Toda sois, burgo rural,
Cidade nobre até os muros.
 Á BENTO PEREIRA
ROMANCE

Amigo Bento Pereira,

Que em todo o nosso Brazil
Sois homem de muitas prendas,
Tendo tão pouco quatrim.
Assim agradára eu
A quatro villões ruins,
A quem nesta terra enfado,
Como me agradais a mim.
Vós sois um homem honrado
De generosa raiz,
Nobre com ventosidade,
Honrado com retintins.
Sois galan com artificio,
Aceiado com ardil,
Só vós sois homem honrado,
Os de mais homens gentis.
Todo o mundo vos quer bem,
Porque tendes, e é assim,
Cara de ter mil amigos.
Mil amigos? mais de mil.
Sois muito leal com todos,
Cousa que não se usa aqui,
Por isso sois mal servido
De quantos sabem servir.
Empeçou-vos a fortuna,
Que a fortuna é villão ruim,
Para os seus sempre a chegar-se,
E de vós sempre a fugir.
Agradais-me dentro d’alma,
Que como eu tambem cahi,
E os similhantes se amam,
 Por similhante vos quiz.
Tende-me em conta de amigo,
E tereis sempre de mim
Excessos de par em par,
Finezas de mil em mil.
 AOS CAVALLEIROS
QUE CORRERAM NA FESTA DAS VIRGENS NO ANNO DE 1685,
PRIMEIRO DO GOVERNO DO MARQUEZ DAS MINAS

Clori, nas Festas passadas,

Que ás virgens são off’recidas,
Houve quadrilhas corridas
Parentas de envergonhadas:
Porém estas realçadas
Vi neste anno derradeiro;
Pois na esphera do Terreiro
Apparecia um Brandão,
Que correndo exhalação,
Acabava cavalleiro.

Com estas apparições

De cometas tão luzidos
Nos Mirões espavoridos
Eram tudo admirações:
Em maximas conjuncções
De ouro, de prata e mil côres,
Notei que os festejadores
Faziam com graças summas,
No ar um jardim de plumas,
E na terra um mar de flôres.
 Sua Excellencia[3] assistia,
O Conde[4] e toda a nobreza,
E os padres por natureza
Lhes faziam companhia:
Estava sereno o dia,
A esphera toda anilada,
A agua do mar estanhada,
Brando o vento e lisongeiro;
E com tudo no Terreiro
Houve grande carneirada.

[3] Marquez das Minas.

[4] Conde do Prado.

Emfim, que a festa passada

Tão cheia de cavalleiros
Si a fizessem de barbeiros
Não seria mais sangrada:
Alli vi dar cutilada,
Que todo o ventre dissipa
Do bruto que a participa,
E eu disse pasmado e absorto
Que a Catana era do Porto,
Por rilhar sempre na tripa.
Logo na primeira entrada
Houve jogo de manilha,
Que para isso a quadrilha
Pelo Lindo era pintada:
Quem lhe dava uma encontrada,
E quem na ponta a levava,
Tudo então nos agradava,
Pois conforme ouvi julgar
Alli entre dar e levar
Pouca vantagem se dava.

Cada qual sem mais tardança

Á dama, a quem mais se applica,
Levou na ponta da ...
O que ganhou pela lança.
Até o padre Hortalança,
Digo, o conego Gonçalo,
Se logrou d’este regalo:
E eu só na baralha ingrata
Não vi manilha de prata,
Que na de ouro já não fallo.

Ao Marinho generoso
O dia franco e escasso
Concedeu-lhe o galanaço,
Recatando-lhe o ditoso;
E visto que por airoso
É o Adonis da quadrilha,
Zundú se lhe rende e humilha,
Dando-lhe, porque o conforte,
No cravo a primeira sorte
E a segunda na manilha.
Barreto alheio de susto,
Que não implica ha mostrado
Nem ao forte o asseado,
Nem ao galante o robusto;
Luzimento á pouco custo,
Bom ar sem affectação,
Foi julgado em conclusão
Que a destreza o não desvela,
Pois sem cuidado na sella
Cahia no caprazão.

Muito Euzebio se desvella

Em correr mais que ninguem,
E por correr sempre bem
Nunca se assentou na sella;
Como ha de assentar-se nella,
Si correr só pretendia?
Tão propriamente o fazia
Que porque estar e correr
Não podem junctos caber,
Não se assentava, corria.

O valeroso Moniz
Em gala, cavallo e arreio
Quanto ganhou pelo asseio,
O perdeu pelo infeliz;
O que eu vi e a terra diz
É que de muito adestrado
Andou tão avantajado,
Que a voz do povo levou:
Com que desde então ficou
O povo mudo e pasmado.
Outro Moniz valentão
O fez tão perfeitamente,
Que sendo em sangue parente,
Era na destreza irmão:
Pelo forte em conclusão
Deixou de si tal memoria,
Para sua e nossa gloria;
Mas deixando aos mais em calma,
Fez pouco em levar a palma
Quem é filho da Victoria.

Do Bolatim a cavallo
Dizia o povo gostoso
Que era da festa o gracioso,
E eu digo, que era o badalo,
Quem chegou á pondera-lo
Correndo sobre a rocina,
Revirar a culatrina,
Pernil aberto para o ar,
A que o póde acommodar
Mais que a um sino que se empina.

Ao Araujo famoso
No principio da carreira
Resveiou-lhe a dianteira
O cavallo de furioso;
Cego, arrojado e fogoso
Entre uns Baetas metteu-se,
Quem sentado estava ergueu-se,
Porém o baixel violento,
Como ia arrazado em vento
Deu nuns bancos e perdeu-se.
Cahido o moço infeliz
Houve grita e alarido,
Sendo que cabe o entendido
Em tudo o que se lhe diz;
Ergueu-se em menos de um triz,
E pondo-se na vereda
Correu com cara tão leda,
Que causou admiração
Em todos, porque já então
Tinha elle com todos queda.

Um sobrinho do Frizão
Ao cheiro acudiu dos patos,
Porque é em publicos actos
Muito ouzado um patifão;
Prezea a redea a um arpão,
Nos estribos dous arpeus,
Puz eu os olhos nos céus,
E disse que bem podiam
Louvar a Deus os que viam
A cavallo um louva-Deus.

Uma aguilhada por lança

Trabalhava á meio trote,
Qual servo de dom Quixote,
A quem chamam Sancho Pança;
Na cara infame confiança,
Na sella infame perneta,
E com tramoia secreta
Eia sôbre o seu jumento
Pelo arreio e nascimento
Á bastarda e á gineta.
Elle andou tão desastrado,
Que para dar-lhe sentido,
O cavallo era o corrido
E elle o desavergonhado;
Estava o Frizão pasmado
De gosto babando o freio,
Por ser de razão alheio
Vêr-se com tão pouco abalo
Não no centeio o cavallo,
Mas no cavallo o centeio.

A este filho universal,

Com tres paes e tres padrastos,
Todo vestido de emplastos
Se emprestado o mesmo val;
Se seguia um sigarral,
De quem tomaram modelos
Para a corcova os camellos
Cuja perna dobradiça
Sempre a memoria me atiça
Da rua dos Cotovellos.

No menino Ascanio fallo,

Que o pae Eneas a murro,
Devendo de o pôr num burro,
O mandou pôr a cavallo;
Este menino ia ao gallo,
E encontrou-se co’a galhofa,
Onde servira de mofa
Os dias, que alli gastára,
Si um braço lhe não quebrára,
E mandaram numa alcofa.
Lá vem o Chico ás carreiras,
Dando esporadas crueis;
Numa sella de alambeis,
Vestido de bananeiras;
Nas laranjadas primeiras
Teve tão adversa estrella
Que foi cahir na esparrella,
Não como rôla em verdade,
Porque queda foi de frade,
Pois logo agarrou da sella.

Ás festas não deu desmaio

Nenhum d’estes entremezes,
Que não ha ouro sem fezes,
Nem comedia sem lacaio:
Qualquer correu como um raio,
E fez sua obrigação,
Excepto o boi do sertão,
Sendo que alguem lhe cubiça
O resistir á justiça,
E dar co’ a forca no chão.

O lindo Eusebio da Costa,

Escrivão das Onze mil,
Por assombrar o Brazil,
Fez tudo de sobre a posta;
C’os passados deu á costa,
E excedeu á toda a lei,
E assim eu sempre direi
Hoje, em toda a occasião,
Que o ser por casta Reimão,
Lhe vem por ter mão de Rei.
 Á CAVALLARIA
DA FESTA DAS VIRGENS NO TEMPO DO GOVERNO DE D.
JOÃO DE ALENCASTRE, SENDO JUIZ GONÇALO RAVASCO
CAVALCANTE DE ALBUQUERQUE

Foi das Onze mil donzellas

Juiz o juiz mais nobre
De quantos no Brazil cobre
O manto azul das estrellas:
Nesta festa sem cautellas
Gastou com liberal mão;
E para mais devoção
Usar de escrivão não quiz,
Sendo o primeiro juiz
Que serviu sem escrivão.

Bem mostra que de Bernardo

Tem herdado o natural,
Além de ser principal
O seu amigo galhardo:
Applausos grandes aguardo,
E de Camena melhor,
Que publiquem seu primor,
Que a minha Thalia nova
Hoje admirações approva
Por mais heroico louvor
Seis dias de cavalleiros
Houve com bastante graça,
Foram bons e maus á Praça
Em ginetes e sendeiros:
Tambem houve aventureiros
Premios e mantenedor,
Touros que foi o melhor:
Porém sem ferocidade,
Que os touros nesta cidade
Não são de muito furor

E pois eu chronista sou

D’esta gran festividade,
Tenho de fallar verdade
E dizer o que passou:
Agaste-se quem andou
Mal, que á mim se me não dá;
Sem saber não fôra lá;
E si lhe der isto espanto,
Quando eu fizer outro tanto
Tambem de mim fallará.

Bem sei que é culpa fatal,

E contra a razão sossobra
Dizer mal de quem bem obra,
E bem de quem obra mal:
Mas nesta festa cabal
Com meu fraco entendimento,
Aos cavalleiros intento
Julgar sem odio nenhum,
Applaudindo á cada um
Conforme o merecimento.