The Role of Department Head in Australian Universities: Tasks and Stresses

This study of the academic department head in Australian universities continues the discussion explored in the article entitled, “The Role of Department Head in Australian Universities: Changes and Challenges” published in the April edition of HERD, 16(1), 1997. The current article examines the role in terms of the departmental‐specific stress factors of administrative relationships, role ambiguity, administrative tasks, academic roles, and perceived expectations. Four discrete roles of the department head are also examined, namely: leader; manager; scholar; and academic staff developer. Findings indicate a job where the major chair stressors include administrative demands, as well as balancing the needs of scholarship with the everyday responsibilities of chairing a university department. An examination of the tasks chairs perform indicates that the leadership and academic staff development roles take precedence, followed by scholarship and management imperatives. Implications of the findings for the present and future role of the academic department chair are discussed.     

美国大学系主任的激励机制研究——基于AAU大学的调查分析

系主任的多重角色与多种任务往往使教师对该职位望而却步。加强对系主任工作的激励有助于增加该职位的吸引力和促进系主任的职业发展。对美国大学协会（AAU）成员大学的系主任调查表明,其外部激励主要为减轻教学任务和享有管理津贴,而内部激励则包括服务教师、学校与学科发展所带来的成就感和受到教师尊重等。不同学校层次和学科类别其系主任所享有的激励有显著差异,系主任的激励与其角色、任务和权力等职位特征呈显著相关。     

THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: SHARED AUTHORITY IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEPARTMENT

The department chair position is vital to the effective administration of both the academic unit and the entire college. Inherent in the roles and tasks of the individual position is a responsibility for consensus development, which in turn requires the involvement of faculty in decision-making activities. This consensual development dictates that faculty who are specialists in their particular academic disciplines be involved in decisions ranging from admissions and grading to institutional policy formation and cross-disciplinary curricula development. The current study was conducted to examine the perceptions of department chairs in the involvement of faculty in departmental decision-making.     

美国大学系主任管理和领导角色探析

在美国,系是大学最基本的组成单位。因此,大学系主任几乎负责与教、学、研及向社会提供服务有关的各项活动,通常扮演管理和领导的双重角色。其主要的工作包括开发师资、组织管理本系的各项日常活动和事务、领导本系的整体发展以及从事教学科研工作。显而易见,美国高等教育能够达到今天的水准与系主任的贡献是分不开的。中国高校正在面临、或在不同程度上进行内部结构和职能的调整和重组。尤其是许多大学纷纷成立学院。因而,对系主任管理领导角色进行重新定位具有深远意义。相信了解和借鉴国外的成功经验定有裨益。     

Power to Do…What? Department Heads’ Decision Autonomy and Strategic Priorities

Using questionnaire data from the 2010 Survey of Academic Chairs, the study focuses on decision autonomy, a component of the power wielded by science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) department chairs in U.S. research extensive universities. A “power index” is developed to measure chairs’ decision autonomy, specifically their control of resources employed in negotiations with faculty job candidates. The study asks: What determines the degree of decision autonomy power possessed by department heads; and, what are the strategic implications of department heads’ degree of this particular aspect of power? Results of an ordered logistic regression model show that having more power is associated with being hired from outside the current university, being male, and with department size. The power index is employed to predict departmental strategic priorities. Results show that the power index is positively associated with a strategic priority for research. The results show a negative relationship between degree of chair decision autonomy and a priority to increase faculty lines. A student-focused strategy is not predicted by the power index but is related to the size, with larger departments placing less emphasis on numbers or quality of students.     

Institutional and academic entrepreneurship: implications for university governance and management

The teaching of Entrepreneurship in universities, particularly in the German‐speaking countries, began to take off in the 1990s. Once the idea was accepted, introduction of chairs and course programmes posed no particular difficulties. Some traditional academics have questioned the academic rigour of the subject, particularly when the teaching and practical training aspects of Entrepreneurship have been in greater demand than the research aspect. The author gives pointers as to how best to set up Entrepreneurship programmes in unviversities as per three models: the campus‐based integrative model, the campus independent model, and the campus‐based dual model. Two American examples of the latter model are presented.     

Research and teaching cultures in two contrasting UK policy contexts: Academic life in Education Departments in five English and Scottish universities

The paper explores academic staff and departmental research and teaching cultures in the Education Departments of five universities in Scotland and England, countries with increasingly diverging public policies in respect of education. The relationship between research and teaching, how the purposes of universities are defined and the status of research in Education are current UK higher education policy preoccupations. Data is drawn from interviews with 40 academics, observation of department settings, documentation and websites. The analysis draws on the work of Bourdieu, considering the changing habitus of individual academics, their departmental and academic subject context and the forms of symbolic capital now required in Scottish and English Education departments in response to new policies affecting their academic field. The paper also utilises recent literature on the research–teaching relationship. The career trajectories of respondents, their habitus and the forms of symbolic capital that they bring to academic life are examined, as are the extent to which the teaching and research cultures in each of the five departments studied mirror each other and whether these also reflect the two different policy contexts. The themes how academic cultures are shaped and research/teaching connections viewed have international as UK relevance.     

Back to the Faculty: Transition from University Department Leadership

This study examined the perceptions and concerns of current academic department chairs as they consider the transition to full responsibilities as a faculty member after the completion of a term in this leadership role. Currently, little research has focused on the dynamics of this transition process. Findings indicated that most department chairs planned to return to faculty positions and that a primary concern was reconstructing research agendas with minimal support. The discussion proposes ways in which institutions can support the return of former chairs to a faculty position that demands and rewards achievement in teaching, research, and service. These findings have implications for influencing policies and procedures relative to securing and continuing quality leadership and faculty productivity at the departmental level.     

A study on the attitudes and experiences of chairpersons in American Criminology and Criminal Justice Programs

Building on Todd Clear’s () recent declaration that academic criminal justice has come of age, this study examines chairs in American criminology and criminal justice programs. By way of survey, chairpersons (n?=?78) randomly selected from programs across the United States were questioned in a number of areas related to their positions. The study finds that chairs in these programs are struggling with the same concerns as chairs in other academic disciplines (i.e., competing roles and job‐related stress). As such, while many of them are fairly satisfied with their positions, most of them plan on returning to the faculty once their term is completed. Based on the results of the research, there were two clear implications. First, because of the onerous time demands, young scholars are to be discouraged from taking on significant administrative responsibilities until they have been promoted, tenured, and have achieved some level of accomplishment within the discipline. Second, scholars who are currently chairs and have ambitions of moving through the administrative ranks should be encouraged to do so. As more criminologists progress through the administrative ranks, it is anticipated that the discipline will be viewed and treated more favorably within American universities.     

对加强高校部门预算工作的若干思考

部门预算是反映政府部门收支活动的预算。高校部门预算是高校事业发展计划和任务的全面反映。本指出了目前高校部门预算工作存在的问题，并针对这些问题及如何加强高校部门预算工作进行了阐述，提出了编制部门预算应遵循的原则。     

Managerial behavior of college chairpersons and administrators

To explore Daft's dual-core model of educational organization, this study compares the managerial behavior of academic department chairpersons and nonacademic unit managers across 140 colleges and universities. For the study, 6,357 faculty and administrators completed questionnaires that profiled their formal leader's behavior, their work group characteristics, and their personal satisfaction. Of 54 variables submitted to discriminant analysis, 31 discriminated the bureaucratic units from the academic groups. Managers of the two types of group behave differently in ways consistent with their distinct group tasks. The empirically derived role profiles of the academic and nonacademic managers are discussed, as are the implications of the findings for institutional researchers, change agents, and trainers of college managers.This article is based in part upon a paper presented at the Seventh Annual European AIR Forum, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1985.     

Development of Manager‐Academics at Institutions of Higher Education in Catalonia

Managers at Spanish universities are having to deal with increasingly complex managerial tasks as a result of current changes in higher education. This paper presents the results of a study into the professional development of deans and department heads at universities in Catalonia. At management level, these universities are typically based on an elected, rotating model rather than an appointed or permanent one. The findings from 23 qualitative interviews and a focus group identified three phases in the development of academic management: learning and contextualization, development of functions, and the institutional projection and transmission of management tasks.     

Public relations education—an instrument for the transformation and development of human resources

The author offers a survey of the teaching of public relations in Bulgarian universities. For her, the democratic transformation of Bulgaria and the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe require the effective use of public relations by all social institutions. Even the institutions that teach public relations must make use of it to promote their programmes as well as their graduates. The new private higher education institutions in Bulgaria are more successful in terms of self-promotion via public relations than the older state institutions. The author proposes three common initiatives: (i) a network of chairs and professional organizations devoted to public relations; (ii) publication of a book on “Crisis Public Relations”; and (iii) the organiza tion of common professional and academic activities in public relations in Europe.     

Changing academies: exploring international PhD students' perspectives on ‘host’ and ‘home’ universities

As students move between universities on different continents, they are expected to adjust rapidly to the academic and cultural practices of their host university. Many of these students are higher educational professionals in their home country and on their return home they are faced with the challenge of how to fit back into – or whether to make changes in – their institution's established academic practices. I explored international PhD students' understanding of, and responses to, the perceived differences between academic cultures of host (UK) and home universities. Whereas some students regarded the changes made in how they conducted and wrote up educational research as temporary and strategic in order to pass the PhD course, others saw themselves as change agents. They were keen to transform academic practices once they returned home and were already actively working out politically and practically how to go about this. By reflecting on how educational research practices are changing and being influenced by the movement of academics between countries, I suggest how UK university departments can respond positively to the differing research practices in which international students engage in their home institutional contexts.     

Entry points when undergraduate research mentors reflect on their role: a qualitative case study

Abstract

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are increasingly taking on mentoring roles in undergraduate research (UR). There is, however, a paucity of research focusing on how they conceptualize their mentoring role. In this qualitative interview study, we identified three entry points that mentors reflect on to define their role: (1) What are the goals of UR? (2) What do the students expect from me? and (3) How should I use my expert knowledge? We discuss how academic developers can use these entry points together with a set of reflective lenses to stimulate critical reflection on the mentoring role and help the mentors to define their role and help the mentors to define their role.     

Academic work from a comparative perspective: a survey of faculty working time across 13 countries

Sociological institutional theory views universities as model driven organizations. The world’s stratification system promotes conformity, imitation and isomorphism towards the “best” university models. Accordingly, academic roles may be locally shaped in minor ways, but are defined and measured explicitly in global terms. We test this proposition using data on the allocation of working time between academic tasks at research universities in thirteen countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, UK, and the USA. We find that working time patterns differ significantly across countries, suggesting that conditions of academic work remain heavily dependent on national higher education traditions. Faculty members holding the highest professorial rank share more in common, with generally stronger interests in research and a greater time dedication to research over teaching. However, in countries with comparably steep academic hierarchies, professor positions typically entail significantly fewer teaching hours and more administration.     

从讲座制到系科制:欧洲大学内部管理权力的变更

讲座制继承了中世纪大学教授治校的传统,19世纪德国大学使讲座制产生了强大的生命力.19世纪至20世纪上半叶,欧洲许多国家的大学采用了讲座制.由于讲座制使教授的权力过于集中和僵化,不适应大学规模的扩大,20世纪60年代后日渐衰落,逐渐向系科制转变.随之,欧洲大学以教授为重心的管理转向以校、系为重心的相对高效的管理,完成了大学内部管理权力的变更.     

Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Developing Countries

In recent years universities in developing countries have followed their counterparts in developed countries in adopting quality assurance to improve the quality of their teaching, research and direct community service programmes. While many of the conditions required for the successful implementation of quality assurance programmes are not present in most universities in developing countries, their adoption will still be useful. Such programmes show how a university's seemingly disparate activities are related to one another to serve a common cause and how the quality of these can best be improved by adopting an integrated approach. In the process, they provide more focus and direction to the work of the traditional academic committee system. However, the quality assurance programmes must be modified to suit the conditions prevailing in developing countries, by being simple in design, modest in expectations, and realistic in requirements.     

Quality development in university administration: A case study

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the decision-making styles of department chairs employed by three public institutions in Jordan. A total of 95 department chairs participated in the study by completing the General Decision-Making Styles survey. The results indicated that department chairs under study have the rational decision-making style as their primary style (following a systematic approach to evaluate options and arrive at one optimal solution) and the dependent style as their backup style (consult with others in the organization when making important decisions). Moreover, there were no significant differences between decision-making styles and the proposed demographic variables (faculty and experience). Finally, several recommendations were suggested for the field of study.     

特许状：大学学术自由的张力和社会控制的平衡

接受法律的规制是大学组织获得合法性的必要条件．而如何保证大学学术自由的张力和社会控制之间的平衡,则是管理的关键。特许状是欧洲大学最古老的合法性文件,今天仍然是西方一些大学获得合法性的法律文件。欧洲大学特许状是大学与当局长期博弈的结果,体现出契约、理性和宪政的管理理念。特许状的出现使西方社会对大学的管理方式走向了法制化的轨道,并为大学的学术自由和组织自治提供了法律保障,为西方大学的良性发展奠定了法治基础。特许状所体现出的西方社会对大学的管理理念对我们建设现代大学制度具有一定的借鉴意义。