Redefinition of the relationships between academics and their university

This paper primarily deals with the relationships between academics and their university in European countries. The aim of this paper is therefore not to produce new results but provide a synthesis of the main trends that can be identified from the literature and then suggest what can be borrowed from sociological theories to highlight the on-going evolutions. The first section of the paper reviews the main results to be drawn from previous research on this issue and focuses on the management of academic careers and the management of academic activities at the university level. The second section suggests alternative interpretative frameworks to be borrowed from sociological theory in order to complete the already existing research and develop new perspectives to explain and interpret these changes in the relationships between academics and their institutions. Four perspectives are successively explored particularly useful here: a sociology of work; a labor market perspective; an analysis in terms of careers and trajectories and finally considerations about the traditional tension between organizations and professions.     

Planning the academic's workload: different approaches to allocating work to university academics

This paper examines workload planning of academic staff in UK university departments. Two case studies are presented and links made to a third, previously published, case. The first case is located in the department of, what was at the time, a polytechnic business school and describes a workload planning system based on teaching contact. The second, more recent, case is situated in an old university and features an approach to planning academic workloads in actual hours. The previously published case focuses on workload planning principles in a business school of an established university. Drawing from these cases discussions centre on a number of major areas. These include workload planning principles, computerised decision support, the institutional contexts, the political dimension of workload planning and the management of change. Some comments are made on further opportunities for research.     

重申大学的理想

作为教育、文化和学术组织,大学的发展受使命驱动.在使命驱动大学发展的过程中,理想起着不可或缺的"催化剂"作用.受经济主义和管理主义的影响,大学的理想逐渐式微,现代社会日益强调大学的服务功能而忽视了其长远的使命.长远来看,若放弃或弱化对人的卓越和真理的追求,大学作为专业组织将趋向于"单向度",这既不利于大学的发展,也不利于人和社会的发展.在世俗化和物质主义的大潮中,重申大学实现人的卓越和追求真理的理想,有利于其永续发展和基业长青.     

大学理想和理念漫谈

大学理想和理念体现的是大学发展的内在逻辑,是关于大学发展规律的总结和概括,是体现大学追求的一种文化,是大学的品位和精神。大学理想和理念是对大学宗旨和使命的认识,大学理想和理念是对“大学是什么”的一种表达,它规定了大学发展的路径和方向。随着社会的发展,大学在变,从而引发了大学理想和理念与现实的矛盾冲突。在新的时空背景下解读或重构大学理想和理念,必须考虑使“经典”与“现代”之间保持适当的张力。     

大学校训与大学理念--兼论道德论大学理念

大学校训是一所大学特有精神的表征,大学校训也反映了一所大学的办学理念,因此,不同的大学理念在校训中也有所体现。中国的大学校训中蕴涵了一种中国特有的大学理念:大学除探索知识外,还应当探索并完善道德;除为社会服务处,还应当在社会中倡导并践行道德。这种以道德为核心的大学理念是中国传统思想文化在大学中的体现,值得我们继承和发扬。     

Re-empowering academics in a corporate culture: an exploration of workload and performativity in a university

Neo-liberal reforms in higher education have resulted in corporate managerial practices in universities and a drive for efficiency and productivity in teaching and research. As a result, there has been an intensification of academic work, increased stress for academics and an emphasis on accountability and performativity in universities. The paper proposes that while managerialism in modern universities is now the norm, corporate approaches have disempowered academics in their institutions and reduced productivity because they ignore the nature of academic work. Using Foucault’s conception of power relations in institutions, policies that directly affect academic work such as workload allocation and performance management are identified as key ways in which power is exercised in universities. The paper reports on a case study in one university which explored the relationship between the academic workload allocation and performance management policies and concludes that a more balanced power relationship is needed in which academics can have more influence over these key processes which control their work so they preserve the self-managed aspects of academic work and the intrinsic motivations driving their careers.     

The use of ideal types in comparative education: a personal reflection

This essay focuses on the use of ideal types within different theoretical frameworks for the comparative analysis of culture and values. It emphasizes the importance of cultural agency, and the potential for enhanced understanding and the anticipation of future developments through exploring deep‐level cultural patterns. The essay is written as a personal narrative, illustrating the way the author has used ideal types in three distinct phases of her work, and the insights that have resulted. It closes with an example of the use of ideal types for envisaging preferred futures in the context of globalization.     

Differences in influence: different types of university employees compared

Tertiary Education and Management - Changes, improvements and innovations in university organisations regularly end up in sluggish processes and get stuck ‘somewhere’ in the...     

Images of a new sub-culture in the Australian university: Perceptions of non-nurse academics of the discipline of nursing

It is crucial to the development and credibility of the nursing profession that its knowledge base be recognised as legitimate scholarly endeavour by established members of academia. For that reason, this report concerns examination of the attitudes and values of a group of non-nurse academics employed in universities in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and the degree to which they view nursing as an epistemic entity. Perceptions are considered within the dual contexts of recent major changes in nursing education and in academia. Naturalistic Inquiry, informed by a hermeneutic attitude, is employed as a heuristic to examine the sub-culture of nursing within the broad culture of academia. Analysis of extensive interview data provided by the contemplation of study participants provides emergent themes. Several metaphors are chosen to explicate the findings that nursing is largely perceived to be nebulous, atheoretical, and subservient to the medical profession. Implications are discussed and recommendations are made with the view to encourage modernisation of the university through improving internal communication and challenging traditional models of operations within the tertiary sector.     

职业素质教育和谐四论

在素质教育活动中,改变职业素质教育的一些片面认识和作法,实现职业素质诸要素、个人需求与社会需求、全面发展与个性发展、教育主体之间的和谐,是提高大学生职业素质教育效果的必然要求。     

论高职院校大学理想的构建

高职院校大学理想和大学精神的缺乏,成为制约其科学发展的重要因素。而高职院校构建大学理想必须强调大学教育的本质,以实现社会职能为基础,积极促进科学教育与人文教育的融合,同时还要培植校园文化,尤其是大学精神的养成和大学制度的创新。     

Brand equity of academics: demystifying the process

The current study endeavours to find out whether there is a relationship between university academics’ competence and their customer-based brand equity from the perspective of students. It also seeks to investigate the mechanism of the proposed relationship through trust, likability, and commitment. Data were collected from 384 postgraduate students in Malaysian universities using a structured questionnaire. Results of analysis using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) revealed there is a significant relationship (total effect) between academics’ competence and customer-based brand equity. We found that the path from competence to brand equity goes through trust, likability, and commitment. Given the growing popularity of higher education in the new millennium and important role of academics in leading students to success, findings of the present study can enhance our understanding of academics’ branding and universities’ overall image. The implications and contributions of the study to university administrators and academics are discussed.     

Professional versus academic values: cultural ambivalence in university professional school in Australia

University staff who teach and research in professional schools inhabit an ambivalent cultural world. Their dual mandate requires commitment to traditional academic norms and scholarship through the disciplines on the one hand, and commitment to the transmission of distinctly vocational skills and attitudes on the other. Tensions created by these two intersecting roles both within professional schools and between professional school staff and their colleagues in non-professional fields, and the implications of these for the functioning of a university are explored. Findings suggest that university leaders who understand more fully the bases of tension between the two and develop strategies to minimise symbolic separation, are more likely to ensure the survival and growth of both the academic-scholarly and practice-oriented cultures.     

Crossing uncertain terrain: messages from male academics

In this paper, comments made by a group of senior male academics in Australian universities about their leadership behaviours, are considered. Whereas the majority of the men in the study spoke about gender relations, and sometimes feminism in their workplaces, only two of the men engaged in discourses of gender and/or feminism, as well as actively practising and supporting pro‐feminist principles in their workplaces. For a further four men, who even though they utilised gender‐related discourses, there was dissonance with their work practices. It is speculated that fears of feminism, masculinity and of litigation may be possible explanations as to why several of the men grappled with the personal challenges of what it means to be situated in the ‘uncertain terrain’ of publicly espousing support for feminism whilst not wanting to lose their positioning as a male in a patriarchal system.     

Job satisfaction of University academics: Perspectives from Uganda

Although several studies in the affluent world have examined the job satisfaction and dissatisfaction of lecturers in higher education, little is known about academic job satisfaction in the low-resource countries. This study probes those factors contributing to academic satisfaction and dissatisfaction in higher education in the developing world. Using a sample of 182 respondents drawn from two universities in Uganda, this analysis reports that the factors most prevalent in the prediction of dons’ satisfaction relate to co-worker behaviour, supervision and intrinsic facets of teaching. Analogously, the stimuli that create academic dissatisfaction are largely extrinsic (contextual) factors with respect to facets of remuneration, governance, research, promotion, and working environment. This article discusses these findings in the light of Herzberg’s dichotomy and concludes that any given factor be it intrinsic or extrinsic can either evoke academic satisfaction or induce dissatisfaction. The present analysis finds that while age, rank, and tenure significantly predict academic job satisfaction, no evidence is adduced to support a gender influence on dons’ job satisfaction. Implications for Ugandan academics’ job satisfaction are formulated, recommendations made, and a further research agenda proposed.     

大学生群体性突发事件的类型与应对机制探索

本文在对近年来我国高校突发事件分析的基础上,围绕大学生群体性突发事件的类型和特点进行研究,重点探索了大学生群体性突发事件发生的原因、应对理念及应对机制的构建。为有效预防大学生群体性突发事件,降低此类事件导致的社会伤害、高校不和谐、个人损害提供了一定的解决思路。     

反垄断法对美国四大职业体育联盟的影响

美国自1890年通过第一部反垄断法之始,反垄断法就渗入美国职业体育的方方面面。尤其是近五十年来,美国四大职业体育联盟中球员、球员工会与各体育联盟、俱乐部老板之间由于转会权、年薪、商业广告的分成等问题引发的纠纷大都寻求反垄断法的法律途径解决。通过对发生在美国最具代表性的四大体育职业联盟的反垄断法部分案例进行研究,分析反垄断法在美国职业体育中的影响。