University Governance

Public University Systems and the Benefits of Scale by James R. Johnsen. CSHE 2. 2024 (February 2024)

James Johnsen
2024

Multi-campus public higher education governance systems exist in 44 of the 50 U.S. states. They include all the largest and most influential public colleges and universities in the United States, educating fully 75 percent of the nation’s public sector students. Their impact is enormous. And yet, they are largely neglected and as a tool for improvement are underutilized. Meanwhile, many states continue to struggle achieving their goals for higher education attainment, social and economic mobility, workforce development, equitable access and affordability, technological innovation,...

South Korea's Higher Education System Through California Eyes by John Aubrey Douglass CSHE 4.20 (May 2020)

John Aubrey Douglass
2020

Like California, South Korea’s system of higher education is a work in progress. Each must evolve and reshape themselves at various points in their histories in their quest for relevancy and, increasingly, to external pressures and demands of governments and, more generally, society. Utilizing California’s pioneering higher education system as a comparative lens, I provide an outsider’s view of South Korea’s higher education system from two perspectives. First, a national system viewpoint: How is the higher education eco-system organized and managed, and what funding and other incentives...

University Governance

Effective governance is crucial to the success and sustainability of higher education institutions. At CSHE, our research examines the structures, policies, and decision-making processes that shape university governance at institutional, state, and national levels. This page highlights CSHE’s work on university governance, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities facing higher education leaders today.

Selected publications include:

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On the Brink: Assessing the Status of the American Faculty, by Jack H. Schuster and Martin J. Finkelstein

Jack H. Schuster
Martin J. Finkelstein
2007
This paper focuses on the present condition and future of the professoriate and is part of a long-term study on how the academic profession is changing, now more rapidly than at any time in memory. These dramatic shifts have led to a deep restructuring of academic appointments, work, and careers. The question now looming is whether the forces that have triggered academic restructuring will, in time, so transform the academic profession that its role—its unique contribution—is becoming ever more vulnerable to dangerous compromise. Whether the academic profession is able to negotiate successfully its role in the new era—to preserve core values and to ensure the indispensable contributions of the academy to society—remains to be seen.

The Multidisciplinary Imperative in Higher Education, by C. Judson King

C. Judson King
2010

Disciplines codify related knowledge and have developed powerful approaches that enable both solutions to a wide variety of problems and efficient further extension of knowledge. Individual disciplines have translated into individual departments within universities. Academic departments tend to turn inward, deepening the knowledge within the discipline. Because of this inwardness, the differing methodological approaches among disciplines, and the reward systems within disciplines and universities, it is difficult for faculty to reach outside their disciplines and departments, so as to...

Leadership, Diversity and Succession Planning in Academia, by Cristina Gonzalez

Cristina Gonzalez
2010

Although academia is becoming more like business in many respects - not all of them positive - it has not borrowed one of the best attributes of business culture: its tradition of developing leadership through succession planning. As a result, much talent is underutilized. This includes, most prominently, that of women and minorities, who tend not to be perceived as leadership material. This paper makes a distinction between two levels of academic administrators: deans and above, who are professional administrators, and department chairs and below, who could be characterized as...

Hedgehogs, Foxes, Leadership Renewal and Succession Planning, by Cristina Gonzalez

Cristina Gonzalez
2007

This article examines the intellectual history of The Uses of the University, including the influence of José Ortega y Gasset’s ideas about higher education, with a view to exploring Clark Kerr’s vision for the university and how that vision might be expanded to take account of present challenges, in particular, diversity. The paper, which calls for leadership renewal and succession planning, pays special attention to the two types of administrators defined by Kerr--the visionary hedgehog and the shrewd fox. We need to identify the hedgehogs and foxes of the future, who must be as diverse...

Markets in Higher Education: Can We Still Learn from Economics' Founding Fathers? by Pedro Nuno Teixeira

Pedro Nuno Teixeira
2006

Markets or market-like mechanisms are playing an increasing role in higher education, with visible consequences both for the regulation of higher education systems as a whole, as well as for the governance mechanisms of individual institutions. This article traces the history of economists’ views on the role of education, from Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall, and Milton Friedman, to present-day debates about the relevance of market economies to higher education policy. Recent developments in higher education policy reflect both the rising strength of market mechanisms in...

Federal, State, and Local Governments: University Patrons, Partners, or Protagonists? by Charles M. Vest

Charles M. Vest
2006

Charles Vest gave the first of three Clark Kerr Lectures on the Role of Higher Education in Society on April 19, 2005 on the Berkeley campus. This essay argues that research-intensive public and private universities increasingly have far more similarities than differences in missions, structures, and even financial support. For both, the federal government, despite numerous tensions, remains our indispensable partner. At the same time, the role of state governments toward their public universities has evolved from that of patron to that of partner - sometimes a minor partner financially....

What's for Sale These Days in Higher Education: Two Stories, by Robert M. Rosenzweig

Robert M. Rosenzweig
1999

"What's for sale and what isn't?" The author has no doubt that we will see more corporate involvement in teaching and research. Universities will increasingly sell or rent to corporations those activities to which a dollar value can be attached that is agreeable to both sides. The financial pressures on universities and the value of what they do, as perceived by widening sectors of business, make that close to inevitable. The author, however, is dubious that many universities can be trusted to know the difference between what is marginal and what is central.