高校学术委员会参与治理的制度理想与现实困境——组织新制度主义的视角

高校学术委员会参与治理受到国家政策及法律法规、学校基本制度以及具体制度建构的复杂制度环境影响。从组织新制度主义的视角出发，通过对北京3所高校的研究，发现3所高校的基本制度趋同，不同层次的制度对个体行为的指引存在较大差异，学术委员会参与治理的事项范畴小、频次低、决策控制程度弱。复杂的制度环境、人对制度要素的差异化认知及对制度的能动作用、外部环境对制度刚性的形塑等，都影响着学术委员会参与治理。制度环境的诸多冲突导致学术委员会参与治理的行为与制度之间呈现“松散耦合”状态。要促进学术委员会更好地发挥作用，需进一步回归高校的学术本位，促进形成共同治理的“共享的观念”，细化学术委员会参与治理相关制度条款并强化监督，重构具体制度，统整学术委员会的权力并完善决策执行的组织体系，发挥领导者等个体对制度的能动作用。     

Beyond Commercialization: Science, Higher Education and the Culture of Neoliberalism

Since the 1980s, scholars and others have been engaged in a lively debate about the virtues and dangers of mingling commerce with university science. In this paper, we contend that the commercialization of academic science, and higher education more broadly, are best understood as pieces of a larger story. We use two cases of institutional change at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to shed light on the implications of neoliberalism for public research universities in the United States. We conclude that instead of neoliberalization being a timely strategy for the specific fiscal and other problems facing public universities today, it has become an omnibus solution available to be employed when any opportunity arises and, in fact, helps to define the “problems” of the university in the first place.     

Who ‘owns’ the university? Institutional autonomy and academic freedom in an age of knowledge capitalism

The neoliberal reframing of universities as economic engines and the growing emphasis on ‘third stream’ commercial activities are global phenomena albeit with significant local variations. This article uses the concept of ‘ownership’ to examine how these processes are impacting on institutional self-understandings and academic–management relations. Drawing on ethnographic research from New Zealand, including recent disputes between academics and management, we ask, ‘who owns the modern university’? In conclusion, we show how debates over ownership provide a lens for examining wider tensions around institutional autonomy and academic freedom.     

Institutional and technical constraints on faculty gross productivity in American doctoral universities

Scholars disagree about the manner and extent of environmental structuring of university activities. This study supports arguments that the environment highly structures the relationships between faculty and the academic products of undergraduate instruction, graduate instruction, and research. Multiple correlation coefficients exceeded 90 percent for regressions of faculty size on counts of undergraduate and graduate enrollments and published articles for all universities classified as Research I or II or Doctoral I or II, demonstrating how constrained is doctoral faculty gross productivity in doctoral universities in the United States. Possible institutional and technical constraints are discussed. The regressions reveal economies of scale and economies of scope for some mixes of faculty academic activities, but not for others. Implications on productivity are explored for university type, control, and science emphasis. A typology for productivity studies is also outlined.     

试论大学发展规划及其管理

大学发展规划是力求改变现状并指向未来的行动纲领,大学组织的学术性职能定位决定了大学发展规划实质上体现为学术战略规划,学科建设是大学发展规划的核心。我国建设高水平大学关键是要科学规划,有所为,有所不为,实现大学的跨越式发展。同时,大学发展规划重在落实,要通过行政体制和管理创新为大学战略规划的实现创造自主、有效的制度环境。     

美国高校学术失信问题初探

以美国大学为背景的研究表明学术失信在大学生中很常见,并且有学术失信行为的学生有增长的趋势。学术失信是指在学术情景中蓄意进行欺诈与作弊的行为．美国学者通过研究提出了导致学术失信出现的个人因素和学校因素．并提出鼓励学术诚信应采取的策略。     

Supply issues for science academics in Australia: now and in the future

Australia, like the rest of the developed world, is in the midst of dealing with notable issues related to the age structure of its academic workforce. These issues are widespread and have been articulated in the Australian context most comprehensively by Hugo (2008). This paper investigates issues with demographic change and other key factors related to the desirability of a science or mathematics academic career within Australian universities. It draws on the findings of a research project undertaken in 2008 for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The findings show that while demographic issues are not as dire for science academics compared to the entire sector, issues relating to tenure, workload and retaining young science academics in Australia are a threat to the long-term sustainability of science faculties in Australian universities.     

Accommodating project-based professionals in higher education institutions in Japan

In the shifting environment of higher education, characterised by financial constraints, institutional competition and governmental steering, universities adopt a new stream of missions. In Japan, internationalisation and the acquisition of a global outlook have become a key strategy. The trend is endorsed through competitive public funding schemes, based on the belief that competition fosters so-called world-class universities. These schemes necessitate not only internationalisation of curriculum and research but also a wide range of projects and programs, which require talents that may not be readily found in the existing cadres of university workers. This empirical research assesses experiences and perceptions of project-based professionals in Japanese universities. It found unique ways in which ‘Specially appointed academic staff’ are given project and administrative responsibilities but with limited access to environment and/or support system for research. Discussions focus on impacts of such appointment on their academic career and explore how these institutional projects may be handled in regards to university organisation.     

Academic identity and autonomy in a changing policy environment

The article draws on two research projects to explore the implications of policy change in the UK for academic identities within a predominantly communitarian theoretical perspective. It focuses on biological scientists and science policies. It examines the impacts of changes upon the dynamic between individuals, disciplines and universities within which academic identities are formed and sustained and upon individual and collective values central to academic identity, namely the primacy of the discipline in academic working lives and academic autonomy. Challenges to these have been strong but they have retained much of their normative power, even if the meaning of academic autonomy has changed. Communitarian theories of academic identity may need to be modified in the contemporary environment but they do not need to be abandoned.     

Academic inbreeding: exploring its characteristics and rationale in Japanese universities using a qualitative perspective

This study analyses why and how academic inbreeding as a recruitment practice continues to prevail in Japan, a country with a mature higher education system, where high rates of academic inbreeding endure in most of the research-oriented universities in spite of several higher education reforms. Based on a qualitative analysis, we disclose three characteristics that lead academics to become inbred at Japanese universities. One characteristic—the adoption of “open recruitment processes” in detriment of “closed recruitment processes”—changed over time, limiting academic inbreeding practices, but two other characteristics remained unchanged over time: the “one university learning experience” and the “concentration of doctoral supervisors at the same university”. These latter characteristics represent difficult challenges to be tackled as they are also traditional characteristics of the Japanese higher education system. The research also shows that academic inbreeding practices are a means to assure organizational stability and institutional identity, features perceived as important by Japanese universities. A central challenge for the Japanese universities is then to guarantee these features without needing to rely on academic inbreeding practices to obtain them. However, devising policies to meet this challenge calls for institutional will to change, proactive strategies and time.     

Academics or executives? Continuity and change in the roles of pro‐vice‐chancellors1

The leadership roles of pro‐vice‐chancellors (PVCs) in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have evolved markedly over the last three decades while universities have been encouraged to shift towards more executive styles of leadership and decision‐making. The change does not only reflect changing institutional needs, however, but an accommodation of deeper historical continuities around institutional autonomy and academic values. Most PVCs are drawn from the ranks of professors; typically have an Oxbridge, London or big civic background; and most are male. The role gains authority through influence, rather than command, and depends on academic experience and credibility to be effective. PVCs maintain a complex corporate‐academic web balancing two, sometimes contradictory, roles: one firmly academic, concerning cross‐institutional responsibility for core academic values and mission; the other more bureaucratic or executive, focusing on the burgeoning demands of accountability. The research cautions against a simple model of executive leadership. Understanding the needs of academic leadership and the contours of its practices remains paramount.     

Learning Environments and Learning Styles: Non-traditional Student Enrollment and Success in an Internet-based Versus a Lecture-based Computer Science Course

Colleges and universities are increasingly using information technologies to enhance the learning environment. Many educational institutions offer Internet-based on-line courses in an effort to meet the educational needs of students. The primary goal of this research was to determine if there is a relationship between students' preferred learning environment (i.e. face-to-face or on-line) and their learning style. The secondary goal was to determine if there were any differences in the academic success of students in the face-to-face versus on-line sections. Participants were adult (ages 22+ years), non-traditional computer science students given the option to take a face-to-face lecture-based or an on-line Internet-based computer science course. Results revealed that computer science students in the face-to-face learning environment were more likely to have the Assimilator learning-style, whereas computer science students in the on-line Internet-based learning environment were more likely to have the Converger learning-style. Student academic success did not reliably differ as a function of learning environment selection. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of learning style characteristics of computer science students, learning styles and gender differences and implications of student academic success in on-line vs face-to-face environments. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The many faces of research profiling: academic leaders’ conceptions of research steering

The article examines academic leaders’ conceptions of research profiling. Global science policies, including the Finnish governmental policy, promote the identification of areas of research excellence and recommend resource concentration on them. However, as active agents, leaders may have competing, even conflicting views on the pros and cons of the institutional norm of selective research excellence and research steering. Drawing on the ideas of micro-level institutionalism, this study seeks answers to the following questions: What kinds of conceptions of research profiling do the academic leaders have? How are these connected to the goals that the leaders are trying to achieve with profiling? The data comprised 15 interviews with leaders at different organisational levels in two Finnish research universities. Two general conceptions of research profiling were identified: profiling as an instrument of strategic management and profiling as symbolic management. The conceptions were connected to various rationales, such as strengthening research and communicating to the external environment. By emphasising the variability and incoherence of leaders’ conceptions and the underlying rationalities, the study contributes to understanding how academic leaders make sense of the complex issues they face and how they cope with various demands.     

Democracy or intervention? Adapting orientations to development

Many institutional cultures resist change, and within universities academic developers vary their response to such resistance, depending on the type of change, the institution and their own characteristic styles, working preferences and strategic judgements. Variables influencing the successful introduction of innovation in academic practice include the inherent susceptibility of the institution to innovation, the nature of the innovation and the approaches of the change agents involved. This paper explores responses to resistant institutional culture; it presents a dichotomous model of educational development orientations which emerged from an action research project within a research-intensive university and suggests that by adapting developmental orientations according to context, developers can explicitly influence the responsiveness of members of the institution to innovation in academic practice.     

The research assessment exercise in English universities, 2001

At intervals of 3–4 years, researchquality in English universities has beenexternally reviewed 5 times over the past 16years. Assessment is based on peer-review ofmaterial submitted by universities to 70separate subject panels. The principalcomponent is information on research output,usually publications, from all academic staffidentified as ``research active'. Researchquality is rated on a numerical (1–5*),criteria-based scale. Ratings in all subjectareas and across all universities haveincreased to give an average rating in 2001corresponding to a level of ``attainablenational excellence'. Between universitiesthere are significant variations. In theprestigious Loxbridge group, where almost allacademic staff are research-active, 90% ofsubject areas achieved ratings at level 5 in2001; in contrast, in the New universities,where only 40% of academic staff isresearch-active, level 5 was achieved in 7% ofsubject areas. A combination of high researchquality and high cost research (medicine,science, engineering) concentrated in the Olduniversities is similarly evident in thedistribution of research funding. Income fromboth research subsidy and research grants andcontracts is divided: Old universities, 94%(Loxbridge, 35%), New universities, 6%. High institutional costs of the assessmentprocess, particularly for areas of low-costresearch, and increasing concern about theinadequacies of the rating system and failureof its direct link to funding suggest thatsubstantial revision will be needed for futureassessment exercises.     

Strategies to enhance learning and teaching in a research-extensive university

Challenges confronting those who seek to bring about change within large organizations include the need to engage with the values and beliefs held by those involved. In universities with academic cultures that have traditionally lauded and rewarded disciplinary research, attempts to enhance the status and effectiveness of teaching and learning practices must take account of the ongoing power of the research culture. In Australia and elsewhere, prestigious research-extensive 1 universities are now seriously committed to improving the educational experience of student learners from their first year on campus. The focus on teaching and learning is buttressed by another aspect of cultural change - one which values the scholarship of teaching alongside traditional disciplinary research. To the need to re-emphasize teaching, and the need to value that teaching as a scholarly, research-based activity is added a third dimension of change - a focus on the student rather than the teacher. This paper will utilize Fullan's (1991) model for educational change in outlining strategies for change within a large research-extensive university in Australia. While it is too early to ascertain whether those strategies have effectively enhanced student learning, indications are that the strategies have had an impact on the beliefs, behaviour and teaching practice of academic staff. It is suggested that the culture of a university can and will shift given the right conditions for institutional change.     

如何实现大学教学与科研并重——一个研究框架的构建

随着一流大学、一流学科建设步伐的不断加快,大学对科研生产日益重视。"唯论文"成为了一些高校开展教育评价的重要手段,致使不少教师在科研付出与教学努力方面出现厚此薄彼现象,这引起了学界的广泛关注。如何实现大学教学与科研并重?制度理论提供了一个从组织环境的角度去研究、认识的出发点。通过深入剖析大学的基本功能入手,在制度理论逻辑下进行研究发现:第一,大学的教学功能符合制度环境的合法性要求,符合政府、社会、家长、学生的关切,是推进人才培养层次提升的必然要求。而大学的科研功能是技术环境所追求的效率标准的产物。高校所开展的科学研究、知识创新,对经济社会发展起到促进作用;以教师论文(著作、教材)生产为主线的教育评价方式便于量化,这些都是大学服从技术环境的规则选择的结果。第二,以科研为先的大学组织面临着教学与科研失衡的困境。一方面是面临来自组织外部的排名压力。高校行政管理人员与教师在对待科研生产方面,具有较强的异质性;高校倾向于制定各种实现绩效最大化的政策与激励措施,以便调动广大教师的科研的潜在动力;科研奖励模式对于青年教师群体而言,其促进效果是突出的。另一方面是面临来自组织内部的科研竞争压力。科研评估不仅是大学实现自身合法性的需求,也是大学为二级学院设立的竞争机制的需要。第三,应借助帕累托改进方法,建立组织代表构成规则、学院对资源再分配、树立教学权威,构建大学教学与科研并重的理想状态。大学应充分利用已经积累起来的科研资源,促进科研成果转化、服务于教育教学,把教学与科研之间的差距缩小到可以承受的水平;尊重教育教学与科研生产的内在差异和运行规律。     

基于产学研结合平台提升大学生学术科技创新层次的研究

目前,各级政府和各高校正大力推进的产学研合作平台,在此基础上各高校提升大学生课外学术科技创新活动层次必须充分利用和发挥产学研结合这一平台,获取大学生课外学术科技创新活动的新动力,进一步提升大学生学术科技创新活动水平,充分加强开展各项活动的保障力度,从而建立更加科学、更具有可持续发展性的大学生课外学术科技创新活动体系。