The University Presidency: Do Evaluations Make a Difference?

High turnover and short tenures are the norm for state university presidents in the last part of the twentieth century. Depending on the type of institution, the average state university president stays in office about four years, some three years shorter than the national average of seven years for all higher education institutions. The article discusses this trend and relates length of tenure to the formal and informal evaluations of presidents. Beginning with a presentation of presidential tenure (time in office) data and a discussion of the benefits of longer terms, the article continues with a dialogue on the role of the president in state institutions of higher education. It is argued that the position of president necessitates constituent leadership with presidents often expected to please all constituencies. Included in this discussion are the nature, role, and effectiveness of evaluations of university presidents. The authors conclude that evaluations of presidents make little difference in decisions to retain or remove presidents. Even a good or great evaluation does not offset the impact of the unforseen event or changes in political leadership within a state or on a board. The authors agree that annual reviews or reports are valuable in improving a presidents performance and leadership. Evaluations make a difference when they are supervised by individuals with direct knowledge of the job, are fair in terms of expectations from often divergent constituent groups, and focus on maximizing the ability of the president to improve the institution.     

University presidents as policy entrepreneurs: Evidence from U.S. universities engaged in prestige behaviour

This article examines how university presidents who led their institutions to achieve Carnegie “R1 Highest Research Activity” managed policy tensions created by prestige priorities and worked with groups and coalitions internally and externally. Striving to achieve R1 status requires U.S. universities to re-calibrate their focus, resources, and messaging both internally and externally. Using four elements of policy entrepreneurship (PE), the three cases included in this article illustrate the critical role of university presidents as PE in maintaining a sustained effort over an extended period. University leaders displayed their social acuity and built teams by cultivating their social and political capital with influential constituents and groups. As PE, university presidents were deliberate and thoughtful about the language they used to define and describe policy problems and solutions. The findings expand our understanding of the role of university presidents as PE.     

The European System for Electing University Presidents and University Governance

The system of electing university presidents in Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and the United Kingdom has distinctive characteristics. Almost all university presidents are elected by teachers and students, either directly or indirectly through elections with government approval of the appointment a mere formality. Principles of these elections include respecting teachers' needs, openness and transparency, and competitiveness; the universities also have stringent institutional infrastructure and procedural norms. The powers and responsibilities are clear during the university president's time in office. The university council, board of trustees, university senate, and other internal management systems and mechanisms guarantee that university presidents are able to fully exercise their power and assume their corresponding responsibilities.     

THE ELUSIVE CONCEPT OF QUALITY: WHAT JUNIOR AND SENIOR COLLEGE PRESIDENTS THINK

Because it is difficult to describe higher education quality or indicators of quality to the general public, this study was developed to determine if educational leaders had definitions that might prove useful. From 20 presidents of two‐ and four‐year colleges seven different definitions of quality emerged; and among indicators of quality, none was named by all or even a majority of presidents. Most presidents rated their own institutions as being of high quality but based their rating on different factors than they had identified as indicators of quality. In rating other colleges, presidents identified indicators different from those they had for their own campuses. Most differences among presidents did not appear to be based on the type of institutions they led. The results of this study indicate that educational leaders must begin to agree on definitions and indicators of quality before they can hope to present a united front to the public.     

我国公立大学校长权力约束机制探讨

我国公立大学校长权力监督中存在的问题是:校长同时拥有决策权和执行权,校长权力在行政权力和学术权力方面的重叠和交叉,校长权力的分权和授权环节不畅通,校长权力与责任的不对等。我国大学校长权力的监督可以通过如下途径来实现:健全法律制度,建立大学党委书记为董事长的学校董事会,实现决策权与执行权的分离,完善教职工民主管理和监督,培植中介评估机构,提高大学校长的经济待遇和社会地位。     

The university president as pragmatist: An investigation of priorities

Presidents of leading American universities were surveyed to determine the priority they place upon university programs of research, instruction, and service. The study examines the priorities they place upon methods of delivering university service programs to various constituent groups and the varying priority that the presidents place upon business and professional groups; general public groups; state or local government officials; federal government officials; labor groups; and agriculture groups. The study also compares the priorities of private, public non-land-grant, and public land grant university presidents on these items. Highest priority was given to research, followed by instruction and service. The rating for research was six times higher than for service. The service priority was further analyzed to reveal a client orientation by presidents linked to the basis of university support.     

Measuring the international standing of universities with an application to Australian universities

Globalisation has meant an increased demand from students, employers, and academics for indicators of the international academic standing of universities. In this paper we examine the broad methodological issues involved in measuring international academic standing and apply our conclusions to data for 38 Australian universities. Determinants of the international academic standing of universities are grouped into six broad categories: standing of academic staff, quality of undergraduate intake, quality of undergraduate programs, quality of graduate programs, resources, and peer opinion. The relative importance of each of these attributes is ascertained though a worldwide survey of university presidents, rectors and vice-chancellors plus Australian deans, thus reducing the need for subjective weighting by the researchers. The empirical findings are used to weight quantitative performance data for Australian universities and the results compared with two other recent worldwide rankings of universities.     

比较分析视野下大学校长职业化路径研究

大学校长职业化是指大学校长作为一种独立职业,而不是一种行政公职,由行政权力本位向职业能力本位转换的过程,是大学校长这一职业标准化、规范化和市场化的过程,其核心是校长这一职业的专业化。实证比较分析得出美国大学校长在学科专业、任职年龄和时长、男女比例等安排上要比国内更加科学合理。探寻中国特色的大学校长职业化之路,要从大学校长的认识、选聘、职业培训、监督、激励与退出制度等方面加以系统安排。     

中美大学校长群体特征的比较分析及启示

大学校长对大学的发展有重大影响,比较我国与高教发达国家大学校长的群体特征,对于我国大学校长的选拔具有一定的参考价值.本文主要从人口学变量、教育背景、学术背景和职业经历四个方面分析了中美大学校长的差异,并根据分析结论,提出了校长选拔的改进建议.     

试论大学校长任期

大学校长的任期和大学的发展有密切的关系,大学校长应有一个较长的任期。我国大学校长的任期较短,这在一定程度上影响了大学的发展。大学的可持续发展必须要有较长的校长任期做保障,大学校长要有自己独到的教育思想,要制定学校章程。     

FDR,the Rhetoric of Vision,and the Creation of a National Synoptic State

Throughout his administration, FDR engaged in a complex set of arguments that worked together to defend democracy in general as a viable form of government; American democracy as the highest expression of democratic government; the primacy of the federal government as the most efficient and effective locus of democratic power; and the executive office as the culmination of the form, efficiency, and locus of that power. My specific concern here is with one form those arguments took, the visual metaphors that permeate FDR's rhetoric. Visuality in FDR's rhetoric is especially intriguing because of the way it interacted with the prevailing political culture in order to underwrite radical shifts in political power by helping FDR persuade the mass public to accept a synoptic view of nationalism and governmental responsibility. These changes have implications for presidents, presidential candidates, and for the citizens whose support they seek.     

Education students and their teachers: comparing views on participative assessment practices

Beliefs about the validity and merit of self‐, peer‐ and group‐assessment practices are presented from 213 pre‐service primary teachers and 30 staff who teach them. Both groups were surveyed using comparable items. A subset of seven staff participated in semi‐structured interviews. Staff were far more supportive of peer‐ and self‐assessment practices than their students with both groups indicating modest support for group assignments. While pedagogical factors best represent the staff support for engaging students in assessment of their own and their peers’ work, several staff in interviews revealed that their high level of support for peer‐assessment was closely linked to a time‐saving factor. Peer‐assessment was more often used than self‐assessment while both practices were reported to have increased over the past two to three years. These findings are consistent with the reported increase in participative assessment practices in higher education generally. An important implication of this research is that in order to optimise the use of participative assessment, staff need to better prepare their students by modelling and communicating their reasons for adopting such practices.     

Engaging election contention: Understanding why presidents engage with contentious issues

In recent years, technology has made it possible, and in some ways critical, for college and university presidents to increase campus‐wide communication. Following the 2016 US presidential election, many college presidents across the country sent campus‐wide communications in response to the election, while others chose not to respond. The resulting reactions from campus and community stakeholders to these communications, or the lack of communication, from presidents was mixed due to the contentious nature of the election. In an effort to better understand a president’s decision to communicate, this study utilised coded interviews with 12 US flagship institution presidents or vice‐presidents for communication, providing insight into why presidents generally respond to contentious events and, more specifically, why presidents chose to respond to the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Four motivations that generally influenced presidential communications were identified (i.e., responsibility to campus stakeholders, pressure to respond, emphasise university values and the role of a public university), and subsequent sub‐themes were identified while analysing why presidents responded to the 2016 election specifically. This study concludes by offering implications for presidential communication and directions for future research on presidential engagement with contentious events.     

Perceptions of Preparation for Teaching Competence by PGCE Students: a comparison of cohorts over time and changes due to legislated demands on a school‐based primary course

Peer observation has become a feature of university practice over the last decade, the primary impetus for its introduction being the political drive to raise teaching quality via the development and sharing of ‘good practice’. Peer observation within higher education (HE) involves observing colleagues in the classroom and has the further aim of supporting continuing professional development (CPD) through peer learning. This article is based upon a research study of a typical observation scheme as introduced within a new university prior to a quality review. It is underpinned by the deconstruction of the university's observation documentation and focuses upon the experience of a teaching observation trio taking part in this formal peer observation process over a 2‐year period, before and after a Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) subject review. The deconstruction of the university's documentation, combined with the actual experience of the observation trio studied, reveals issues of politics, power and pragmatics. A managerial discourse emerges with emphasis on compliance by lecturing staff and with an economic underpinning not actually supported by resources. Pre‐QAA, the observation trio complied with the management's requirements for record keeping but the process of peer observation opened up learning and development opportunities for them as individuals. Post‐QAA the trio members became focused primarily on their own objectives. Although management had sought control, the individuals involved developed and pursued their own, shared agenda of professional development.     

高校机关作风与师德建设

师德建设是高校思想政治教育的重要组成部分。高校机关作风建设对大学生思想政治教育有效性起着重要作用。要把加强和改进高校机关的工作作风与师德建设放在同等重要的地位。针对现实中高校机关作风存在的问题,提出加强和改进高校机关作风的有效措施,从而实现全员育人、全过程育人,让思想政治教育工作日常化、长效化。     

Executive Compensation in Public Higher Education: Does Performance Matter?

Executive evaluation and compensation are central to organizational accountability and governance. Driven by increasing public demand on justifications and accountability for substantial salary increases for public university presidents, this paper is intended to shed light on the linkage between performance and executive compensation in public universities by examining the determinants of university presidents’ pay from 2004/2005 to 2008/2009 academic years. The central question is whether presidential compensation is related to a wide array of newly developed university performance measures or is independent of performance, i.e., university presidents are paid like bureaucrats in line with the widely supported conclusion in Jensen and Murphy (1990b) suggesting corporate CEOs are really paid like bureaucrats. Methodologically, Arellano–Bond dynamic panel model is applied to control for serial autocorrelation in the compensation data, i.e., university presidents’ pay in the current period is dependent to a great extent on that in the prior period. With extensive individual, institutional, and performance characteristics examined, it is concluded that performance related variables play a very limited role in determining public university presidents’ executive remuneration, when temporal autocorrelation is properly controlled, and presidential pay is strongly and persistently associated over time. The statistically insignificant pay-performance relationship together with the temporally persistent increases of presidential compensation may provide initial evidence supporting that public university presidents are paid like bureaucrats.     

加强和改进大学生思想政治教育工作的实践与探索

高校学生工作部门在加强和改进大学生思想政治教育工作中,如何结合自身特点,发挥自身优势,探索有效途径和方法,是学生工作部门和工作者必须思想的重要课题。我们把思想政治教育与解决学生实际问题相结合,与第二课堂教育相结合,与队伍建设相结合,与学校管理改革相结合,为提高大学生思想政治教育工作实效性和建立长效机制进行了实践和探索。     

Characteristics and careers of Canadian university presidents

This statistical study of Canadian university presidents was prompted by the discovery that there is no systematic demographic information available on university administrators in Canada. The vitae of 98 current Canadian university presidents and their immediate predecessors were collected and statistics such as age and length of tenure were compared with those of American counterparts. The Canadian university presidents assumed office at about 49 years of age and held office for about eight years. They tend to be born in geographical proximity to the institution they will head and to circle it geographically during their careers. A former association with the University of Toronto, either as a student or teacher, was common. There appears to be a career ladder which includes a decanal and/or vice-presidential position, particularly in central Canada; few presidents move to a second presidency, although several move into what might be termed an academic superstructure. Few Canadian presidents majored in the field of Education as a student or teacher and there is generally poor representation from the Arts as compared to the U.S.; on the other hand, the hard sciences are well represented. The implications of these tendencies are discussed.     

中国近代国立大学与私立大学校长任期的比较

中国近代国立大学与私立大学校长在任职年限、出任年龄等方面均表现出不同程度的差异性,而大学校长的任职年限和出任年龄又影响到大学的发展。通过对该相关问题的比较分析得出以下结论:官员式的任期"养"不出真正的大学校长;高等教育行政化导致大学校长的价值取向发生变化,教育理想成为"空中楼阁";大学校长的任用应切实体现师生诉求;大学校长任职应打破"衙门化"的论资排辈,倡导"年轻化"。     

How Far Can We Learn Anything of Practical Value from Our Pioneers? Reconsidering Wu Yifang’s Legacy of Higher Education

The dilemma confronting modern university development presents a challenge to the management ability of university presidents, hence a need to review how successful presidents of the past managed. Wu Yifang, the first Chinese woman president with remarkable achievements in education, has thus come to our attention. As President of Ginling College (GC), she was confronted with a preponderance of contradictions, including the conflicts between the ideas of Western universities and Chinese traditional culture, between Christian spirit and social responsibility, between educational logic and the political environment, between traditional inheritance and innovation, and between universal university governance experience and the unique needs of GC. She eventually succeeded in balancing these contradictions with her superb management wisdom, with the management ideas in China’s classical text, the Mean playing an important role in facilitating GC’s development. Wu Yifang’s management style demonstrated a remarkable balance in prioritizing both the pursuit of talent cultivation and social services, based on carefully catering to core principles pertaining to the development of universities and students. Wu Yifang’s management practices and philosophy can thus provide important inspiration for university presidents.