Understanding Authority in Higher Education

Understanding Authority in Higher Education

Author: Dean O. Smith

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-01-22

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1442241780

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Within the complex environment of higher education, administrators and faculty members face daunting challenges in their unique domains of institutional governance. Many of the greatest challenges arise from basic misunderstandings of authority and its limitations by administrators and faculty members alike. These misunderstandings are the primary source of disruptive confusion, mistrust, and mismanagement. Consequently, an institution’s governance would improve significantly if its personnel clearly understand the fundamental principles of authority. To bring about this improvement, Understanding Authority in Higher Education clarifies issues of authority in an academic setting. Throughout, it introduces basic concepts of higher-education administration and then examines the limits of authority in context. Pedagogically, the book strives continuously to ascertain whether authority is used properly from a legal perspective, emphasizing the influence of academic cultural norms on legal principles and vice versa. But, Understanding Authority in Higher Education goes further than law textbooks by using real and anecdotal case studies to examine aspects of authority that don’t appear in court proceedings— those that lie beyond the reach of the law. In these cases, the book explores the anthropology— the behavior and the culture—of authority in the academic environment.


Locus of Authority

Locus of Authority

Author: William G. Bowen

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-05-30

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0691175667

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"Locus of Authority argues that every issue facing today's colleges and universities, from stagnant degree completion rates to worrisome cost increases, is exacerbated by a century-old system of governance that desperately requires change. While prior studies have focused on boards of trustees and presidents, few have looked at the place of faculty within the governance system. Specifically addressing faculty roles in this structure, William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin ask: do higher education institutions have what it takes to reform effectively from within? Bowen and Tobin use case studies of four very different institutions--the University of California, Princeton University, Macalester College, and the City University of New York--to demonstrate that college and university governance has capably adjusted to the necessities of the moment and that governance norms and policies should be assessed in the context of historical events. The authors examine how faculty roles have evolved since colonial days to drive change but also to stand in the way of it. Bowen and Tobin make the case that successful reform depends on the artful consideration of technological, financial, and cultural developments, such as the explosion in online learning. Stressing that they do not want to diminish faculty roles but to facilitate their most useful contributions, Bowen and Tobin explore whether departments remain the best ways through which to organize decision making and if the concepts of academic freedom and shared governance need to be sharpened and redefined. Locus of Authority shows that the consequences of not addressing college and university governance are more than the nation can afford"--


Classroom Authority

Classroom Authority

Author: Judith L. Pace

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-08-15

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1135608032

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This book describes and analyzes authority relationships in classrooms through explorations of theory, prior research, and contemporary qualitative studies. The emphasis is on the social construction of authority and the crucial role authority plays in K-16 teachers' pedagogy and students' academic engagement and achievement. The introductory chapter grounds the reader in social theory on authority; presents groundbreaking qualitative studies of classroom authority; describes ideological debates over authority in schools; and discusses implications for research, practice, and policy. Six field-based qualitative studies illuminate the dynamics of authority across a spectrum of K-12 and college settings. These studies feature a variety of methodologies, theoretical lenses, and interpretive perspectives that the authors use to gather and analyze data. The emphasis in all the chapters is on the nature, negotiation, and implications of authority relations between teachers and students. The epilogue pulls the book together by elucidating new findings and vital themes that expand the reader's vision of what classroom authority means, how it is constructed, and why it is so important. This book seeks to revitalize dialogue and research on classroom authority with attention to the contextual factors that bear on its social construction. It is aimed at teacher educators, scholars, policymakers, students of education, and practitioners who seek empirically based understanding of authority that is inextricably connected to classroom life and ultimately to the larger issues of educational quality and democracy in schools and society.


The Complexities of Authority in the Classroom

The Complexities of Authority in the Classroom

Author: Kenneth Rea Badley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9781003140849

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"This book argues that democratic classroom management is not a stand-alone issue, but is deeply intertwined with classroom climate, and requires a thoughtful, grounded understanding of classroom authority. Contributors explore the sources, nature, and extent of teacher authority, as they distinguish authority from authoritarianism, and describe how classroom authority is ultimately a shared endeavour between teachers and students. By drawing on a variety of contexts and perspectives, chapters in this volume contend with the complexities inherent in classroom authority through the lenses of gender, urban vs. rural contexts, and within elementary and secondary classrooms"--


Understanding Academic Freedom

Understanding Academic Freedom

Author: Henry Reichman

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2021-10-05

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1421442159

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"This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to academic freedom, surveying its history and application to research, teaching, and public expression, as well as its treatment in the legal arena and its applicability to students"--


Collaborative Learning

Collaborative Learning

Author: Kenneth A. Bruffee

Publisher:

Published: 1999-01-13

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13:

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Advocates a far-reaching change in the relations between college and university professors and their students, between the learned and the learning.


Organizational Theory in Higher Education

Organizational Theory in Higher Education

Author: Kathleen Manning

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03-05

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1136865691

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Organizational Theory in Higher Education offers a fresh take on the models and lenses through which higher education can be viewed by presenting a full range of organizational theories, from traditional to current. By alternating theory and practice chapters, noted scholar Kathleen Manning vividly illustrates the operations of higher education and its administration. Manning’s rich and interdisciplinary treatment enables leaders to gain a full understanding of the perspectives that operate on a college campus and ways to adopt effective practice in the context of new and continuing tensions, contexts, and challenges. Special features include: A unique presentation of each organizational model that includes both a theory chapter for contextual background and a case chapter illustrating the perspective in practice Coverage of eight organizational approaches, both traditional as well as those often excluded from the literature—organized anarchy, collegium, political, cultural, bureaucratic, new science, feminist, and spiritual. Consistent organizational elements across each theoretical chapter—including theoretical foundation, structure, metaphor, characteristics, and strengths and weaknesses—so that readers can better assess appropriate fit of theory to particular situations Questions for Discussion and Recommended Readings assist the reader to make connections to their practice and to develop an in-depth understanding of the organizational theories Organizational Theory in Higher Education provides a clear understanding of how organizational models can be used to elicit the most effective practice and to navigate the complexity of higher education today. This important book is ideal for courses in higher education administration and organizational theory and for administrators and practitioners seeking to gain insight into innovative ways to approach organizations.


Understanding Higher Education

Understanding Higher Education

Author: Chrissie Bowie

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2021-08-23

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1928502229

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Drawing on the South African case, this book looks at shifts in higher education around the world in the last two decades. In South Africa, calls for transformation have been heard in the university since the last days of apartheid. Similar claims for quality higher education to be made available to all have been made across the African continent. In spite of this, inequalities remain and many would argue that these have been exacerbated during the Covid pandemic. Understanding Higher Education responds to these calls by arguing for a social account of teaching and learning by contesting dominant understandings of students as decontextualised learners premised on the idea that the university is a meritocracy. This book tackles the issue of teaching and learning by looking both within and beyond the classroom. It looks at how higher education policies emerged from the notion of the knowledge economy in the newly democratic South Africa, and how national qualification frameworks and other processes brought the country more closely into conversation with the global order. The effects of this on staffing and curriculum structures are considered alongside a proposition for alternative ways of understanding the role of higher education in society.