University Governance

The Role Of University Of California Academic Senate In Admissions Policy: Establishing Working Rules

John Aubrey Douglass
1997

This policy brief was prepared for the University of California Academic Senate and provides a general outline of the future role of the Senate's Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) in setting universitywide undergraduate admissions policy. BOARS has the prerogative to act as the "lead agency" in this important area of educational policy, subject to the actions of the Regents, and recognizing the purview of the President and the Chancellors in coordinating the administrative process of selection and setting general enrollment limits, and the need to consult with...

The Social Circuitry of High Finance: Universities and Intimate Ties Among Economic Elites, by Charlie Eaton and Albina Gibadullina, CSHE 11.20 (September 2020)

Charlie Eaton
Albina Gibadullina
2020

Financiers have regained preeminence among economic elites, accruing growing shares of income and wealth. Yet network analyses have shown a decline in the bank-based interlocks between corporate boards that were once thought to foster financier power and elite cohesion. We ask if social organizations parallel to the economy provide a circuitry that connects financiers to other elites, despite growing complexity and fragmentation in finance. We develop and test hypotheses that apply the theory to elite university social ties using original data on degree holding among the Forbes 400...

The Rise and Fall of Sino-American Post-Secondary Partnerships, by Mel Gurtov, Daniel J. Julius and Mitch Leventhal, CSHE 12.20 (September 2020)

Mel Gurtov
Daniel J. Julius
Mitch Leventhal
2020

This article examines the rise and fall of a golden age of engagement between American and Chinese institutions of higher education. We assess the political context, examine institutional and demographic variables associated with successful initial joint efforts, and explore why current relationships are unraveling. The authors do not assume alignment in the interests promoting initial cooperation between the United States and China but a convergence of mutual interests. The paper discusses operational realities underpinning support for engagement (a need for coordination in organizational...

How the University of California Board of Regents Rescinded its Ban on Affirmative Action in 2001: A Personal Account, by Bruce B. Darling, CSHE 13.20 (October 2020)

Bruce B. Darling
2020

This case study is a personal account of decision-making and governance at the University of California. It describes how the University’s educational policy aspirations and the political salience of the issues involved led the Regents of the University of California on May 16, 2001 to unanimously rescind their 1995 prohibition on the use of race, ethnicity, or gender in undergraduate admissions, employment, and contracting.

Envisioning the Asian New Flagship University: Its Past and Vital Future by John Aubrey Douglass and John N. Hawkins (August 2017)

John Aubrey Douglass
John N. Hawkins
2017

This book explores the history of leading national universities in Asia and contemplates their capacity for innovation by focusing on the New Flagship University model. This model, presented more fully in The Flagship University Model – Changing the Paradigm from Global Ranking to National Relevancy (2016), envisions the university as an institution that not only meets the standards of excellence focused on research productivity and rankings, but...

Neo-Nationalism and Universities: Populists, Autocrats and the Future of Higher Education

John Aubrey Douglass
2021

The rise of neo-nationalism is having a profound and troubling impact on leading national universities and the societies they serve. This is the first comparative study of how today’s right-wing populist movements and authoritarian governments are threatening higher education.

Universities have long been at the forefront of both national development and global integration. But the political and policy world in which they operate is undergoing a transition, one that is reflective of a significant change in domestic politics and international relations: a populist turn inward among a...

Conceptualizing the Modern American Public University: Early Debates Over Utilitarianism, Autonomy, and Admissions by John Aubrey Douglass, CSHE 8.21 (July 2021)

John Aubrey Douglass
2021

In the discourse that swirled in the mid-1800s around the creation of new American public universities, three major and interrelated tensions became evident: the first related to the continued debate regarding the proper curricular balance between practical education and classical studies; the second focused on the appropriate autonomy of institutions intended to serve the public interest in a society often racked by sectarian and class conflict; and the third centered on the degree to which these public institutions should be selective in their admissions and representative of the state’s...

Two City-States in the Long Shadow of China: The Future of Universities in Hong Kong and Singapore by Bryan Penprase and John Aubrey Douglass CSHE 10.21 (September 2021)

Bryan Penprase
John Aubrey Douglass
2021

Hong Kong and Singapore are island city-states that exude the complicated tensions of postcolonial nationalism. Both are influenced directly or indirectly by the long shadow of China’s rising nationalism and geopolitical power and, in the case of Hong Kong, subject to Beijing’s edicts under the terms of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Both have productive economies dependent on global trade, and each has similar rates of population density--Hong Kong’s population is 7.4 million and Singapore is home to 5.8 million people. It remains to be seen whether Hong Kong’s peripheral...

SCIENCE AND SECURITY: Strengthening US-China Research Networks Through University Leadership by Brad Farnsworth CSHE 11.21 (September 2021)

Brad Farnsworh
2021

This paper describes the current criticisms of academic research collaboration between the US and China and proposes a university-led initiative to address those concerns. The article begins with the assertion that bilateral research collaboration has historically benefitted both countries, citing cooperation in virology as an example. The paper continues with a discussion of the criticisms leveled by several US government agencies against the Chinese government, especially with regard to the Thousand Talents Program (TTP). A close examination of publicly available appointment letters...

The University of California’s Faculty Code of Conduct at Fifty: A Procedural and Sociological History of UC’s Evolving Ecosystem of Policies, Rules and Norms for Faculty Discipline, by William C. Kidder, CSHE 12.21 (December 2021)

Wiliam C. Kidder
2021

The occasion of the 50th anniversary of the University of California’s Faculty Code of Conduct is an opportune time for this unique CSHE paper, which documents the web of policies, rules, procedures, norms and institutional actors related to faculty discipline at UC campuses, including the socio-political context of successful and unsuccessful reform efforts across the decades. Compared to other spheres of college and university governance, rules and norms for disciplining faculty misconduct are less frequently the subject of sustained attention by scholars of higher education....