Canadian universities face a complicated and uncertain future when it comes to funding, governance, and fostering innovation. Their leaders face an equally complicated future, attempting to balance the needs and desires of students, faculty, governments, and the economy. Drawing on more than a decade of service as president of one of Canada’s major research universities, Peter MacKinnon offers an insider’s perspective on the challenges involved in bringing those constituencies together in the pursuit of excellence. Clear, contentious, and uncompromising, University Leadership and Public Policy in the Twenty-First Century offers a unique and timely analysis of the key policy issues affecting Canada’s university sector. Covering topics such as strategic planning, tuition policy, labour relations, and governance, MacKinnon draws on his experience leading the University of Saskatchewan to argue that Canadian universities must embrace competitiveness and change if they are to succeed in the global race for talent.
There was a time when the faculty governed universities. Not anymore. The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance is the first history of shared governance in American higher education. Drawing on archival materials and extensive published sources, Larry G. Gerber shows how the professionalization of college teachers coincided with the rise of the modern university in the late nineteenth century and was the principal justification for granting teachers power in making educational decisions. In the twentieth century, the efforts of these governing faculties were directly responsible for molding American higher education into the finest academic system in the world. In recent decades, however, the growing complexity of “multiversities” and the application of business strategies to manage these institutions threatened the concept of faculty governance. Faculty shifted from being autonomous professionals to being “employees.” The casualization of the academic labor market, Gerber argues, threatens to erode the quality of universities. As more faculty become contingent employees, rather than tenured career professionals enjoying both job security and intellectual autonomy, universities become factories in the knowledge economy. In addition to tracing the evolution of faculty decision making, this historical narrative provides readers with an important perspective on contemporary debates about the best way to manage America’s colleges and universities. Gerber also reflects on whether American colleges and universities will be able to retain their position of global preeminence in an increasingly market-driven environment, given that the system of governance that helped make their success possible has been fundamentally altered.
Higher education reforms have been on the agenda of Western European countries for 25 years, trying to deal with self governed professional bureaucracies politically weakened by massification when an emerging common understanding enhanced their role as major actors in knowledge based economies. While university systems are deeply embedded in national settings, the ex post rationale of still on-going reforms is surprisingly uniform and “de-nationalized”. They promote (1) the “organizational turn” of universities, to varying extent substituting collegial loosely coupled entities by “integrated, goal-oriented entities deliberately choosing their own actions (and therefore open to differentiation), that can thus be held responsible for what they do” (2) the diversification of stakeholders, supposedly offering solutions to problems as various as the democratisation of universities, the shrinking of State budget resources and the diversification of university missions offering answers to changes in the making and in the use of science. When it comes to accounting for these reforms, two grand narratives of public management share the floor. NPM implies a strengthening of the capacity of the core State to direct public services organizations through management by objectives and results or contractualization, assessment, evaluation and. “Governance” focuses on “network-based” governance systems, where coordinating power and control are collectively shared between the major ‘social actors or partners’ at all levels of the decision-making system. Our results suggest that all higher education systems under study were more or less transformed according to both these narratives. It is therefore needed to understand how they combine or create contradictions. This leads us to test a third neo-weberian model. This model reaffirms the role of the State, of representative democracy, (central, regional and local), of public law (suitably modernized), preserves the idea of a public service with a distinctive status, culture and terms and conditions. It shifts from an internal orientation to bureaucratic rules towards an external orientation in meeting citizens’ needs and wishes by means of standardization of work processes and their products, based on a distinctive public service and a particular legal order survived as the foundations beneath the various packages of modernizing reforms. This book traces the national dynamics of public policies, organizational design and steering tools in seven European higher education and research systems, using these narratives to interpret and test the actual changes and the degree of national specificities and European convergence. This book is not a sum of national chapters like other presumably comparative. It does not intend to tell once again the story of the transformation of the relationships between the state and universities. It tries to use Higher education system to discuss issues on state intervention and steering and more generally the NPM, governance and neo-weberian models in a specific field. Furthermore, this book intends breaking the walls between specialists in higher education and specialist in public management and research policy. This well rooted division of labour is less that ever justified as the university mission in research (fundamental, applied, strategic) is underscored by commentors and reformers themselves. For that reason, we have chosen to observe the consequences of the dynamics of public policies, organizational design and steering tools on two specific issues related to the development of research training and organizing within universities: the transformation of research funding on the one hand and the expansion of graduate studies and doctoral schools on the other.
The European Union of today cannot be studied as it once was. This original new textbook provides a much-needed update on how the EU's policies and institutions have changed in light of the multiple crises and transformations since 2010. An international team of leading scholars offer systematic accounts on the EU's institutional regime, policies, and its community of people and states. Each chapter is structured to explain the relevant historical developments and institutional framework, presenting the key actors, the current controversies and discussing a paradigmatic case study. Each chapter also provides ideas for group discussions and individual research topics. Moving away from the typical, neutral account of the functioning of the EU, this textbook will stimulate readers' critical thinking towards the EU as it is today. It will serve as a core text for undergraduate and graduate students of politics and European studies taking courses on the politics of the EU, and those taking courses in comparative politics and international organizations including the EU.
There was a time when the faculty governed universities. Not anymore. The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance is the first history of shared governance in American higher education. Drawing on archival materials and extensive published sources, Larry G. Gerber shows how the professionalization of college teachers coincided with the rise of the modern university in the late nineteenth century and was the principal justification for granting teachers power in making educational decisions. In the twentieth century, the efforts of these governing faculties were directly responsible for molding American higher education into the finest academic system in the world. In recent decades, however, the growing complexity of “multiversities” and the application of business strategies to manage these institutions threatened the concept of faculty governance. Faculty shifted from being autonomous professionals to being “employees.” The casualization of the academic labor market, Gerber argues, threatens to erode the quality of universities. As more faculty become contingent employees, rather than tenured career professionals enjoying both job security and intellectual autonomy, universities become factories in the knowledge economy. In addition to tracing the evolution of faculty decision making, this historical narrative provides readers with an important perspective on contemporary debates about the best way to manage America’s colleges and universities. Gerber also reflects on whether American colleges and universities will be able to retain their position of global preeminence in an increasingly market-driven environment, given that the system of governance that helped make their success possible has been fundamentally altered.
“This volume combines specific recommendations, observations, and takeaways filled with candor, humor, and uplifting stories for one of education’s most challenging roles.” —FROM THE FOREWORD An indispensable manual for the most demanding position in higher education, The College President Handbook supports campus leaders in becoming powerful and effective stewards of their institutions. This comprehensive guidebook offers clear counsel in the form of candid essays by highly regarded current and former college and university presidents from across the nation. It pairs their expert appraisals with research and data to examine the critical issues that define the role today. The book's contributors acknowledge the broad skill set that presidents, and their executive teams, must cultivate in order to achieve success. Beginning with a macro view, the contributors address the universal questions of vision that each higher education leader must consider critically and understand strategically: Why be a president? How should campus leadership engage with our board of trustees? What tone should our actions communicate to stakeholders? The book's chapters offer concrete tactical advice in a range of key leadership areas and emphasize essential career skills such as managing financial resources and strategic planning. The contributors speak to student-facing concerns as well as institutional interests, and discuss personal issues specific to the office, such as weathering controversy, attaining work–life balance, and planning for post-presidential life. Drawing on the unique expertise of peers and predecessors, this work will prove to be a core resource for anyone who is or aspires to become a president or chancellor in higher education.
This book presents the state-specific dimensions of the governance of higher education in Bihar, India, based on a real-case perspective. It discusses the policies of the center and state governments, and their implications on the state's higher education system. It addresses the issues and challenges faced by the higher education sector from the point of view of multiple stakeholders at center, state, university and college levels, while examining influential power centers. The volume focuses on select universities in the state and looks at how they manage policies, schemes and regulations. It deals with key themes such as the role of state and regulatory bodies such as the University Grants Commission; the balance of power; resource scarcity; the inadequacy of top-down governance models; governance failure; and the autonomy of universities. It explores the conflict between the politics and economics of governance and efficiency; the promotion and recruitment of senior office-bearers and teachers; the privatization of colleges; and financing, admission and examination systems. Through an in-depth study using empirical unit-level data from the All-India Survey of Higher Education, examples and theoretical frameworks, the book analyzes the reasons for the underperformance of the governance system of higher education in Bihar. It also offers suggestions and policy recommendations to help improve its planning and management via participative and responsible governance and informed institutional leadership. This book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers of education, higher education, economics, governance and public administration, and development studies. It will also be useful to educationists and experts, education administrators, policymakers, bureaucrats and the governing bodies of higher education institutions.
Shared Governance in Higher Education Set (Volumes 1, 2 and 3) Shared governance impacts every member of the campus community, including faculty, staff, students, and administrators. Contributors to this volume—presenters at multiple SUNY Voices conferences on Shared Governance—explore how campus members can effectively improve the dialogue about critical issues and become better informed about the subtle, sophisticated strategies needed to move from discussion to action. Readers will gain new insights, enabling them to reexamine their own governance, both their current circumstances and possible futures. Included here are examinations of the key elements and models of shared governance, the role of faculty governance in institutional diversity and inclusion, relationship and rapport-building, and communication in times of change. Also discussed are assessment rubrics, campus and systemwide experiences, and analyses of shared governance in the accreditation process.
