Sleepless in academia

The conditions under which women academics work provide the impetus for this article. Current trends in feminist and other writing are moving us away from dwelling on the disadvantages women experience in the academy. Yet the findings from the two Canadian studies reported here suggest that issues around children and career, anxieties about evaluation, and fatigue and stress shape the daily lives of women academics. The women do find ways and means of coping and resisting, ­sometimes collectively, although one of the major responses—working harder and sleeping less—might be considered somewhat short of empowering. We also look at what the prospects are for changes in university policies and practices.     

Teaching performance norms in academia

As most faculty have autonomy in their teaching, social control mechanisms to guide teaching in the interests of clients are needed. Thus, this study posed the question: What is the normative system for undergraduate college teaching? To answer this question, the College Teaching Behaviors Inventory was administered to a sample of 800 faculty holding appointments in biology, history, mathematics, and psychology at Research I Universities and Comprehensive Colleges and Universities II. Principal components analysis was used to identify four patterns of teaching norms: interpersonal disregard, inadequate planning, moral turpitude, and particularistic grading. Analysis of variance was used to test for differences in the degree of impropriety accorded to these normative patterns by academics in the two types of institutions and in the four academic disciplines included in this inquiry. Although institutional differences were observed for interpersonal disregard and inadequate planning, disciplinary differences were not found for any of the four normative patterns. Conclusions and implications of these findings are presented.     

Determinants of organisational climate for academia

Being aware of the factors that develop a positive organisational climate is especially important in universities, where the academic members of staff are, in large measure, self-motivated. To identify the determinants of organisational climate for university academia, the validity and reliability of the first-order constructs of autonomy, cohesion and pressure were examined. These three constructs were found to have inadequate validity in this environment. The remaining five valid constructs indicated a second-order organisational climate construct organisational climate was influenced by support, followed by trust and fairness, and then by recognition and innovation. The findings of our study will assist university managers to identify areas to focus upon when developing their academic staff in the pursuit of improving the organisational climate.     

Transforming academia: The role of education

Scientific research is usually presented as the driver that provides progress and meaning to the academic ecosystem. Higher education on the other hand, is typically imagined as something that naturally follows scientific research. In the academic ecosystem, education often retains a more marginalized position than scientific research and in many of the predominant accounts of the academic ecosystem it is even neglected. As a result, higher education and teaching tends to be treated as duty work that retracts resources away from research. In response to such accounts the present article proposes an alternative perspective in which higher education can assume a proactive role that affects institutions’ research. The article presents a case that demonstrates how social scientists at the Technical University of Denmark, in response to new demands for autonomous economy within Danish universities, invented the controversial, yet successful, ‘Design and Innovation’ engineering program. Design and Innovation’s controversial curricular composition brought together: creativity, social awareness, and product innovation and heralded the salvation for the declining status of engineering in Danish higher education. The article contributes to contemporary discussions on transformations within the university system by illustrating educational development as a transformative practice whereby the value and purpose of scientific disciplines get rearticulated in conversation with contemporary understandings of social needs.     

The temporal dimension of gender inequality in academia

This paper examines gender inequality in academic careers by applying Merton's concept of socially expected durations (SEDs). Women's relatively slower advancement along the academic hierarchy has been traditionally attributed to their traits and constraints. The concept of SED shifts attention from the individual to the organizational level, and the actual and expected augmented durations between promotions for women are viewed as part of the structural arrangements of academic institutions and their culture. It is argued that because of the distinct characteristics of academic careers, time-in-rank is an important dimension distinguishing among otherwise very uniform occupational roles and career patterns. The implications of conceptualizing career discrepancies in terms of socially expected durations are discussed.     

The PhD conundrum in South African academia

South African universities need more academics with PhDs, from historically disadvantaged population groups in particular, but they face a conundrum. In order to have more staff with PhDs, they need to produce more PhD graduates. But in order to produce more PhD graduates, they need more staff with PhDs to supervise. This article explores this conundrum by comparing academic qualifications with national policies and targets, by developing a quantitative profile of staff without PhDs and describing government and institutional measures to improve academic qualifications. An institution's supervisory capacity is found to be closely related to institutional history. Four main factors are identified: (a) whether or not the institution was originally established as a traditional university or as a technikon; (b) whether or not it was advantaged or disadvantaged under apartheid, which was closely related to the racial group for which it was established; (c) whether or not it was merged post 2004; and if so, (d) with what type of institution it was merged.     

Navigating the turbulent waters of academia: the leadership role of programme managers

Tertiary Education and Management - The focus of our paper is the leadership role of programme managers in the higher education sector. In particular, we highlight the complex and paradoxical...