Disparate faculty perspectives on system changes in higher education

Higher education (HE) systems around the world have experienced profound structural changes, particularly since the late 1960s to early 1970s, essentially driven by the need to expand access to tertiary education. This has resulted in a diversity of HE institutions (HEI) with different roles, missions and statuses, as well as academic staff with diverse perspectives and motivations. The present study is based on a survey undertaken in Portugal by a trade union, which aimed to collect faculty perspectives on a proposed HE reform sent out for public discussion by the government. Questions addressed the reorganization of the HEI network, the internal restructuring of HEI, the funding system and the binary divide of HEI (universities and polytechnics). The survey results showed a disparity of faculty perspectives about the proposed reform, closely related to the diversity of HEI. Respondents from lower academic categories and from smaller HEI were more opposed to reorganizing the HEI network. This reorganization was more widely accepted by university staff, who were also more in favour of a binary system than were polytechnic respondents. Although there was general agreement about the need to change the funding system, polytechnic respondents were strongly against a funding differentiation between universities and polytechnics. Despite an overall reformist trend, the enthusiasm for reforms declined substantially when the questions had a direct reference to the respondent’s region or institution. It is argued that HE expansion has driven the diversification of HEI, leading to a range of perspectives about the HE system and the way it should be changed. These conclusions may contribute to insights into other HE systems around the world where institutional diversification has been sought by public policies.     

The Growth of Private University Education in Kenya: The Promise and Challenge

The first step toward the introduction and development of university education in Kenya was taken in 1961, when the then Royal College, Nairobi, was elevated to university college status under a special arrangement with the University of London. However, it was not until 1970 that the University College of Nairobi attained university status. Although comparatively young, state universities in Kenya have accomplished a lot. They accomplished their initial mission of producing adequate human resources for the civil service, national corporations, and the private sector; graduated thousands of students; and helped foster an intellectual community in the country. In just 30 years, public higher education has expanded from a single university (the University of Nairobi) to the current 6 public universities: Nairobi, Moi, Kenyatta, Egerton, Jomo Kenyatta, and Maseno. In spite of this growth, public universities in Kenya have faced enrollments beyond their capacity to plan and finance, fiscal challenges beyond their control, a decline in quality beyond their anticipation, and weak management practices beyond their level of training. To help solve some of these problems, private universities have increasingly emerged and gained ground in the country as an alternative route to higher education provision. This article seeks to examine some of the trends, prospects, and challenges to the emergence and development of private university education in Kenya.     

‘Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’: educationally disengaged and disadvantaged young people’s talk about university education

This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on widening university participation and brings a focus on the classed and embodied nature of young people’s imagination to existing discussions. We interviewed 250 young people living in disadvantaged communities across five Australian states who had experienced disengagement from compulsory primary and secondary schooling. We asked them about their education and their educational futures, specifically how they imagined universities and university participation. For these young people, universities were imagined as ‘big’, ‘massive’ alienating schools. The paper explores how the elements of schooling from which these young people disengaged became tangible barriers to imagining and pursuing participation in university education. The primary barrier they described was their relationships with school teachers. Our analysis shows how relationships with teachers can impact the imagined improbability/probability of university participation. We offer suggestions for how barriers to university created by poor relationships with teachers may be overcome.     

Self-assessment in professional programmes within tertiary institutions

This article considers the impact of a masters' level professional development course about higher education teaching on participants from a UK research-intensive university. Drawing upon in-depth interview data, this article explores the perspectives and experiences of the participants, locating their responses within broader notions of teacher identity work and departmental, institutional and wider system-level policies and practices. Three main findings are discussed: personal and professional change, the value of critical interdisciplinarity and how developing an emphasised teaching identity for some individuals can be a ‘poisoned chalice’. This article concludes by considering the implications of these findings for course development, institutional strategy and the Higher Education Academy's Professional Standards Framework.     

The effects of faculty behaviors on the academic achievement of first-year Cambodian urban university students

Research on the faculty impact on students’ academic achievement has been disproportionately confined to the context of countries with developed higher education systems. Few studies have been undertaken in the developing world like Cambodia. This study employed hierarchical linear modeling to examine the relationships between faculty behaviors and the academic achievement of university students in Cambodia, using the data of 923 first-year students from nine universities in Phnom Penh City. Results indicated that faculty behavior, namely their support and feedback to students, was a unique factor that had a strong and positive influence on students’ academic achievement. Its effect was the same for all students regardless of their pre-university academic experience and geographical origin and partially moderated by student engagement in time spent on course-related tasks outside the classroom, assigned homework/tasks, class participation, and class preparation. Contrary to existing findings from faculty impact studies, no relation was found for faculty’s instructional organization and clarity or classroom practices that challenge students on academic achievement. Practical implications for assessment policies and instructional practices are discussed.     

Internal efficiency of Higher education system in armed conflict-affected countries-Yemen case

Yemen has witnessed decades of political unrest and the current armed conflict has significantly impacted human development. The economic activity has been severely disrupted which in turn affected the delivery of public services including the financing and operation of the higher education system (HE), where efficiency was negatively impacted.The purpose of this research is to investigate the extent of which the internal efficiency of the Yemen HE has been affected. This will be achieved through analysing the main three domains of teaching and learning activities as well as the impacts of the adopted policies by HE management. Structured interviews with standardized closed-ended and open-ended questions were conducted online with 51 academics who have been purposely selected. Despite the devastating effects of the armed conflict, the HE has continued to perform its duties, providing space for learning and contributing effectively in social cohesion. Nonetheless, the education process has been impacted quantitatively and qualitatively.Yemen has been deprived of its well-qualified human capital, and the brain-drain is still ongoing. The continuity of conflict will yield a generation who is either uneducated or poorly educated, and this will in turn continue feeding the violence and jeopardizing Yemen’s future.This paper represents a first attempt to study the effects of Yemen’s armed conflict on HE. Future research should shed light on tracing students who abandoned education as well as the level of knowledge, skills and competencies of those lately graduated. The multi-dimensional effects of brain-drain are equally important.     

Impacts of university education reform on faculty perceptions of workload

Since the corporatization of national universities, the environment surrounding Japanese universities has dramatically changed in various respects. A series of government-led attempts have intended to support the domestic colleges and universities in gaining a competitive edge by improving the quality of teaching and research as well as guaranteeing the international validity of the country's higher education system. Impacts of all the challenges that have been tackled with internal efforts in the last few years could be enormous on the personnel workload. However, little is known about the impacts of Japan's recent university education reform, particularly on the changing workload of the faculty who engage at the forefront in student teaching and advising, administrative roles as well as research activities. Using results from individual faculty interviews, this paper attempts to link the changing workload of Japanese professors with specific reasons that are rooted in the country's recent university education reform. Reviewing the effects of the reform on faculty workload provides us with important insights for the long term and guides us to prevent the derailment from the endeavour to which a significant amount of resources have been dedicated by the country.     

新形势下高校教师专业发展与高等教育质量提升——第八届两岸高等教育学术研讨会综述

提高质量是今后若干年高等教育发展的核心.在第八届两岸高等教育学术研讨会上,两岸学者就当下高校教师专业发展所面对的境遇和机遇、教师在工作中所存在的困惑、高校在教师发展与管理等领域的经验和问题等展开了广泛而深入的交流.与会学者一致认为,高校教师的专业发展在高等教育质量提升战略中起着不可忽视的作用,而高校教师的专业发展需要政府、大学以及教师个人等各方面的努力.     

高校海归教师首聘期工作满意度演进:1979-2017年的实证研究

改革开放以来,海归人才已成为高校教师队伍中的重要组成部分。对不同年代归国教师的首聘期工作满意度及其变化趋势、影响因素进行分析,是对高校人才政策环境和海外引才效果的检验。课题组以全国48所研究型大学1979-2017年期间归国的541名教师为样本,开展问卷调查。研究发现,过去40年海归教师首聘期总体满意度水平不高。通过对四个时期多维度满意度的量化分析发现:薪酬待遇和文化适应等方面的满意度存在显著差异;随着时间的推移,工作自主性、压力和科研团队等方面的满意度呈现下降趋势;薪酬待遇满意度的平均水平最低,但近年来已略有提升。基于研究发现,提出增加海归教师工作自主性和职业认同感、提高基础薪资和建立稳定的薪酬增长机制等建议。     

高校教师信息化教学能力结构模型研究

“互联网+”时代高校教师信息化教学能力是推动高等教育理念内涵式发展、实现人才培养模式创新、提升教学质量的重要影响因素。通过整理现有信息化教学能力内涵的相关研究,结合专家访谈,分析确定了高校教师信息化教学能力的8项构成要素及其关系。在此基础上,进一步采用ISM方法构建“互联网+教育”背景下高校教师信息化教学能力解释结构模型,明确了各能力要素之间的层级关系,理清了教师必备的信息化教学核心能力,以期为高校教师专业发展、师资队伍建设及后续相关研究提供借鉴与参考。     

论公立高校与教育职员的关系

高校行政人员实行职员制是高校人事分类管理的需要,旨在促进高校内部管理的专业化。国外公立高校与管理人员之间的关系的共同特点是:受公法调整,且大多纳入了司法审查的范围。我国公立高校与职员之间的关系属于内部行政关系,但当职员身份丧失时,这种内部行政关系就转化为外部行政关系,应纳入司法审查的范围。职员与教师之间的关系,实质上是职员所代表的公立高校与教师之间的关系。     

Exposing ideology within university policies: a critical discourse analysis of faculty hiring,promotion and remuneration practices

Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper exposes the neoliberal ideology of the knowledge-based economy embedded within university policies, specifically those that regulate faculty hiring, promotion, and remuneration in two national contexts: Turkey and Mexico. The paper follows four stages of CDA: (1) focus upon a social wrong in its language aspect; (2) identify obstacles to addressing the social wrong; (3) consider whether the social order in a sense ‘needs’ the social wrong; and (4) identify possible ways past the obstacles. The analysis demonstrates that the global, marketized climate of higher education has impacted Turkish and Mexican universities to such a degree that they have become increasingly corporate in their practices of management. The resulting effect is the creation of a performance culture that robs faculty of their professionalism. This paper uncovers this disadvantaged positioning of faculty and posits modest proposals for change.     

Identities of research-active academics in new universities: towards a complete academic profession cross-cutting different worlds of practice

This study explores how academics who expanded their teaching-only positions to include research view their (re)constructed academic identity. Participants worked in a higher professional education institution of applied research and teaching, comparable with so-called new universities. The aim is to increase our understanding of variations in academic identity and to be better able to support academics’ ‘role making’ within and across different worlds of practice. Data from semi-structured interviews with 18 academics at a Dutch new university were analysed using a grounded theory approach. This revealed six well-rounded academic identities reflecting participants’ personal scholarly objectives: the ‘continuous learner’, ‘disciplinary expert’, ‘skilled researcher’, ‘evidence-based teacher’, ‘guardian of the research work process’ and ‘liaison officer’. The researcher role served to promote the overall development of participants’ identities. The ‘disciplinary expert’ matured through participation in the academic world and research activities. Participants discovered what ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ a researcher in the new university might entail, and contributed to the professions’ knowledge base. Participants learned to apply various research-based teaching approaches. As brokers, they linked research projects to practices in meaningful ways. The six identities embodied an emergent power in creating and preserving a complete academic profession. Participants’ accounts showed tensions inherent in an extended role portfolio and constraints in ‘role making’ given inconsistencies between the university’s espoused research mission and the one in use. These imply challenges for university managers in aligning policies and practices, and scaffolding academics’ attempts to integrate their academic roles in different worlds of practice.     

Faculty members’ perceptions of online program community and their efforts to sustain it

This study investigated faculty members’ perceptions of program community and what they do to support it in online graduate programs. Researchers developed and administered an online survey to ascertain perceptions of program community among education and engineering faculty members at United States, land-grant, research-extensive universities. Three hundred forty-four faculty members responded. Most participants thought that fostering community beyond courses was important. Faculty members used a variety of strategies to accomplish this task, including social media, synchronous communication and advising, face-to-face socials and orientations, and cohort models. Yet, many also relied on classroom strategies. Several participants indicated that they and their students lacked the time, resources or interest to pursue program community and that geographical distance and university reward policies complicated its establishment. Differences via discipline, gender and years of online teaching experience were also reported.     

When empathy hurts: Modelling university students’ word of mouth behaviour in public vs. private universities in Syria

This study examines and compares word of mouth (WOM) behaviour among university students in Syria. To date, little is known about this important phenomenon which is surprising given the deregulated education market in Syria that allows for private universities to compete for students alongside public universities. Using a mixed methods research design and structural equation modelling, our results show faculty individualised attention and student satisfaction were found to be positively related to university image. Further, student satisfaction and university image were found to be direct sources of students’ positive WOM behaviour. We found a moderating effect of university ownership type on university image. Interestingly, we identified six themes showing how support staff empathy could be seen as a source of low student satisfaction. These were defined as deception/credibility/soft‐soapers/suspiciousness: when support staff coax something out of students; confusion/role conflict: resulting from the diverse roles played by support staff while interacting with students; unfairness: when a student notices discrimination in the level of empathy between their peers; privacy: when support staff empathy can be perceived as a kind of intrusion; self‐congratulatory: when a support staff member shows off or praises their empathy; and support staff/student ratio: when this ratio is seen to be small, the empathy effect reverses.     

The contribution (or not) of UN higher education to peacebuilding: an ethnographic account

This paper examines the role of United Nations (UN) peace academics in teaching for peace within the UN higher education system, and questions what contribution, if any, UN peacebuilding education makes to the broader field of peace and conflict studies education, and in the lives of the people it touches. The study draws on ethnographic data collected over a six-month period at one UN university in 2015. The data collection period involved participant observation, interviews with faculty and postgraduate students, document analysis, and surveys with learners. Findings suggest tensions and contradiction in the university around issues of UN mimicry, Western-centrism, state domination, and institutional capitalism. Implications are briefly addressed and recommendations provided.     

Faculty’s academic intellectual leadership: the intermediary relations with universities’ organizational components

In line with ‘the entrepreneurial university’ discourse, managerialism and performative culture brought new expectations to faculty such as developing online programmes/courses, carrying out training for professionals, obtaining research funds, leading projects in cooperation with industry/business, collaborating with colleagues from various disciplines, participating in international networks and representing their disciplines and institutions. These new duties and the traditional roles of academics, as knowledge producer and public intellectual, constitute their intellectual leadership. Given these new circumstances, it is important to investigate the influence of universities’ organizational components to understand how university managers can support academics’ intellectual leadership. This research aims to explore intermediary relations between communication, climate and managerial practice flexibility in universities and academics’ intellectual leadership. Quantitative data were collected from 937 Turkish faculty via an online questionnaire and analysed using Path analyses. Analysis revealed that faculty, by their intellectual leadership behaviours, contribute to the development of their disciplines, institutions and society, and that communication in universities has a strong impact on faculty’s intellectual leadership by mediation of the organizational climate and managerial flexibility regarding scholarly practices. Consequently, university managers should establish functional communication systems in their institutions to generate a positive atmosphere and to maximize the efficiency of institutional practices.     

新建本科院校大学生创业教育现状、问题及对策——以莆田学院为例

培养大学生创业能力,对于新建本科院校办学具有重要意义。以莆田学院为例,从创业教育观念体系、创业教育课程、校园创业文化活动以及创业教育政策阐述大学生创业教育现状,分析存在问题,并提出四条应对措施。     

Models of academic governance during a period of nation-building: the Hebrew University in the 1920s–1960s

This paper explores the development of the structures of university governance at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem between the 1920s and 1960s. The model that ultimately prevailed, a state-sponsored model of governance, dominated the higher education system in Israel until the early 2000s and was characterised by the dominance of academic faculty, a status that the government accorded to the faculty in exchange for their acceptance of the state’s normative vision for universities’ role in society. Two main governance models that were instituted at the HU are identified: (1) the Diaspora university, 1925–1950, a distinctive governance model that emerged in the pre-state period and was controlled by Jewish communities in the Diaspora, and (2) the state university, 1950s–2000s, which shifted the centre of gravity to the state. These models are further divided into sub-models and the processes described through which academic autonomy was institutionalised during a period of nation-building.     

On Doing Philosophy Of Teacher Education

Several authors posit the notion that universities have experienced ‘moral loss’ over the last 15 years under the sustained influence of neoliberal education policies. However, whilst some consensus exists around the causes and effects of moral loss, there appears to be little agreement about how ‘moral reconstruction’ can be enacted. This paper explores the academic discourse on moral loss and moral reconstruction. It concludes that action-based approaches to the moral reconstruction of universities such as recognition and reward policies are unlikely to alter the current utilitarian trend in higher education. In the context of the contemporary world, the restoration of an ‘academic community’ founded on ‘higher moral purpose’ appears to be a remote aspiration. This is because the university has evolved into an integral part of the wider socio-economic system, which itself has fractured under the same neoliberal influences.