University Governance

Shifting Identities, Blurring Boundaries: The Changing Roles of Professional Managers in Higher Education

Celia Whitchurch
2008

This paper builds on earlier reviews by the author of the changing roles and identities of contemporary professional staff in UK higher education (Whitchurch, 2004; 2006a; 2006b), and describes an empirical study that was undertaken between 2004 and 2007. It progresses the argument that the generic terms ‘administration’ and ‘management’ no longer do justice to the activities of these staff, and uses the concept of identity to develop four categories of bounded, cross-boundary, unbounded and blended professionals. Via these categories it is shown how individuals are not only...

Origins of the Principles for Review of Executive Compensation 1992-93

Patricia A. Pelfrey
2008

This paper looks at the 1992-3 compensation controversy at the University of California in light of the factors that shaped the board’s policy response to the controversy, the Principles for Review of Executive Compensation. It discusses the events of 1992-3 in the context of the public and political debate over the appropriate model for executive compensation in elite public universities and the special difficulties these universities face in setting, explaining, and defending executive compensation policies and practices. It concludes by assessing the ways in which the University...

Ethics and Leadership: Reflections From A Public Research University

C. Judson King
2008

Issues of ethics and leadership are important, growing and intense in universities. Five examples are discussed, drawn from the personal experience of the author. These involve the selection of research, the collection and use of ethically sensitive materials, major relationships with industry and donors, access and admissions, and the content of education itself. Analyses of these cases are couched in terms of some of the major trends affecting public research universities, with one conclusion being that the most challenging situations are those where multiple ethical standards are...

Entrepreneurial University: India’s Response

Asha Gupta
2008

The object of this paper is to analyze the concepts of ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘entrepreneurial university’ in the broader context of globalization, technological innovations and the emergence of knowledge-based and technology-driven economies. Instead of epistemological and organizational forms of knowledge production and dissemination, the universities today are required to play a protagonist role by training productive intellectual resource and generation of new knowledge that could be converted into wealth or social gains. They are no longer confined to teaching ‘about’...

General Education in the 21st Century: A Report of the University of California Commission on General Education

2007

In this report, the Commission on General Education in the 21st Century—a panel of University of California faculty and administrators—issues a call for renewed attention to general education in research universities, highlighting specific reforms for University of California campuses. In addition to analyzing the historical, institutional, and cultural contexts of general education in the United States, it acknowledges the forces that constrain investment in general education and lists recommendations to improve general education in the face of these constraints. Unlike other recent...

The Transformation of Academic Work: Facts and Analysis

Christine Musselin
2007

This paper outlines the main changes that have effected a transformation in the nature of academic work: on the one hand, the increasing diversification and specialisation of academic tasks, and on the other, new forms of control over academic work. An analysis of these trends leads to a discussion of the relationships between the evolution of academic work and non-academic work.

Can Public Research Universities Compete?

Steven G. Brint
2006

Many leaders of public research universities worry about falling behind private research universities at a time when private university finances have improved dramatically and state support for higher education has declined. In this paper, I provide grounds for a more optimistic view of the competitive position of public research universities. I develop two "business models" for higher education: the public research university model is based on high volume of enrollments and low cost per student, while the private university model is based on low volume and high cost. I show that the...

Accountability in Higher Education:A Public Agenda for Trust and Cultural Change

David E. Leveille
2006

This timely report focuses on accountability -- the current lingua franca of higher education -- and the question of the public trust as a reflection of the respect and confidence of the people that are served by the nation's colleges and universities. Designed to assist policymakers and educational leaders, the report identifies the components of a state-level higher education accountability system: acting on a public agenda, maintaining the public trust of the people served by higher education,...

Industry, Philanthropy, and Universities:The Roles and Influences of the Private Sectorin Higher Education

Charles M. Vest
2006

Charles Vest gave the third of three Clark Kerr Lectures on the Role of Higher Education in Society on September 13, 2005 on the Berkeley campus. In public as well as private universities, resources provided by philanthropic individuals and foundations and by corporate research sponsors increasingly support the margin of university excellence, and increase the access of students to that excellence. The congruence of interests, goals, and expectations of philanthropists and corporate sponsors with those of universities must be carefully considered. The values of excellence and access...

A New Cycle of UK Higher Education Reforms: New Labour and New Fees May Foster Mission Differentiation

John Aubrey Douglass
2004

A White Paper issued by the Labour government--under Prime Minister Tony Blair--in January 2003 outlines potentially sweeping changes in how British universities might be funded and regulated. These changes would build on three major paradigm shifts and experiments in system building in higher education in the United Kingdom since World War II: the creation and subsequent collapse of a binary system of higher education that included both universities and polytechnics; a decrease in governmental funding and an increase in regulations; and the introduction of student fees into the...