Innovative universities

Abstract

Burton Clark, in Creating Entrepreneurial Universities, defined the characteristics of what he named ‘innovative universities’. The paper considers these characteristics ‐ particularly such universities' willingness to adapt to changing environments and how they seek to do so. It identifies the challenges facing universities and considers why universities need to adapt their research, teaching and learning, and knowledge transfer. Innovative universities do seek to escape history — they adapt to change.     

Challenges to the Academic Role of Change Agent

Through the dual tasks of teaching and research, academics have traditionally been in a prime position of influence; that is, to be an agent of change for both students and the social context in which they operate. There is little doubt that given the momentous changes presently taking place within universities in Australia and the UK, the academic workplace will continue to involve ongoing change. In this paper, it is argued that in the debates ranging over the effects of increased class sizes, reduction in time for research and the greater need for income-producing activities such as consultancies, effects on the university academic role are often overlooked. The shifting role of the academic from an agent of change through their academic activity to one of a victim of change is examined. The issue is explored through consideration of changes in the nature and expectations of the role as universities respond to external pressures. It is suggested that academic disengagement from the role of change agent through interaction and dialogue has potentially serious implications. These are explored in terms of possible effects on the quality of learning for students.     

Why change? A practitioner's perspective on why and how universities tackle organisational change (or don't)

ABSTRACT

Over a number of years, universities have needed to become more adept at managing change as internal and external factors affect their longer term financial sustainability. That sustainability is, for many institutions, closely linked to how straightforward (or otherwise) it is to recruit student numbers of the right quality from often diverse markets. However, the scale of a university's financial challenge isn't always enough on its own to dictate how bravely an institution drives its change agenda, nor the nature and pace of change.     

To what extent is the culture of a university department supportive of equal opportunities for women?

Most British universities now have equal opportunities policies but the extent to which these policies have brought about real change in university departments is not clear. Management theory suggests that when trying to implement change in an organisation it is important to understand that organisation's culture. Opportunity 2000, a business initiative to try to increase the number of women (especially managers) in the British workforce stresses the importance of cultural change. However, there has been little attempt to 'measure' culture in relation to gender in university departments. This article explores the findings from an attempt to use Johnson & Scholes's cultural web to 'measure' the culture in a business studies department in an 'old' British university     

Managing academic personnel flow at universities∗∗

Abstract

Universities experience increasing difficulty in staffing their academic positions. Attracting and retaining highly qualified employees is a general problem that has received much attention in recent HRM literature. But several authors have claimed that the academic career has lost much of its attractiveness. This paper presents seven levers that universities may use to enhance their recruitment and retention power on a difficult job market. Suggestions are made based on experience from innovative organisations, both universities and business organisations. Special attention is given to the creation of multiple and flexible career paths within academia. We contend that a successful application of these suggestions will require major cultural and institutional change at universities.     

Age Friendly Universities and engagement with older adults: moving from principles to practice

Abstract

The global society is facing a new burgeoning element: an ageing population. Response to the educational needs and interests of older adults requires innovative pedagogies and practices of teaching, research, and community engagement. While traditionally geared towards provision for younger adults, the case is presented that universities have the potential to play a major role in innovation for later life learning for older adults. This article outlines one approach, the Age Friendly University (AFU) and highlights 10 principles that offer a possible guide for innovation and institutional change. The integration of AFU’s mission and principles into three universities is reflected in stories from three university cases in Ireland, the UK (Scotland) and the USA exploring potential merits and also major challenges. It is argued the AFU has the potential to bring social, personal and economic benefits to older adults and universities alike.     

Teacher education budget cuts in Romania and the US: points of contrast and comparison

Background

Budgets for teacher education programmes have been substantially reduced as a result of the global economic crisis.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to compare the teacher education budget cutting processes and procedures for universities in Romania versus one university in the United States.

Sample

The data were collected from six Romanian universities that all have teacher education programmes. These universities represent the range of higher education quality in the country as indicated by their publication rates. Data from these universities were compared with those from the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). UNR is the flagship university in the Nevada System of Higher Education, and Nevada has been harder hit by the recent global economic crisis than any other state in the United States and cuts to teacher education there have been substantial.

Design and methods

Data about the budget cutting processes and decisions in the teacher education programmes of six Romanian universities were collected through an electronic survey. These data were compared with the processes and decisions made at the UNR.

Results

The budget cutting processes in Romania were less transparent, and involved less input from stakeholders such as faculty and staff. Most decisions were made at a higher level of authority in Romania, and cuts in Romania were more likely to be across the board rather than more strategically targeted as they were in Nevada.

Conclusions

These differences are discussed in terms of the historical legacy of structures and policies in Romania, and the resistance to reform inherent in those structures and policies.     

Under-tapped potential: practitioner research as a vehicle for widening participation

Abstract

Practitioners working to widen participation to universities in England are an increasingly important and professionally diverse group but surprisingly absent from the academic literature and lacking in access to bespoke professional development pathways in HE. In England current approaches within policy and research also tend to position them as gatherers of evidence with a mission to inform change rather than developing their capacity to be(come) agents of change in their own right. Drawing on the perspectives of three widening participation practitioners who had recently completed a research-based MA, this paper explores the opportunity that this provided to illuminate the complexities encountered in routine practice, contributing to positive change. Rather than being methodologically inferior, practitioner research emerged as highly complementary and in the case of WP its transformative potential is currently hugely under-tapped.     

A University Name Change: Significance of Faculty Involvement

ABSTRACT

The landscape of higher education is more competitive now than ever before. Colleges and universities are changing and refocusing their identity, missions, and strategic visions to better serve students, prospective students, partners, and other external constituencies. As a result, many colleges and universities have changed their name to distinguish and differentiate themselves in this growing and evolving marketplace. This study takes a closer look into the phenomenon of a university strategic name change process and faculty involvement. It addresses the following questions: How much faculty involvement is needed to facilitate a successful university strategic name process? What is the impact of faculty involvement on a university strategic name event? What are the drivers of a university strategic name change? What are the roles of faculty members in fulfilling the desired outcome(s) of university strategic name change events. This paper proposes that faculty involvement is pertinent to the process and outcomes of a strategic university name change.     

Young People in Vichy France and Forced Labour in Germany∗

Abstract

The focus in this article is not on the state‐university relationship itself but,

• (a) on the contribution which the way in which the university is governed makes to the political socialisation of its members to the values of a liberal democracy, and

• (b) on the extent, if at all, to which that contribution has been eroded in recent years in Britain and West Germany.

• It is assumed that universities are agencies of political socialisation and that because they educate future elites they are particularly important ones. The further assumption is made that the character of the university's internal and external governance constitutes an important part of such political socialisation.

• The main changes in the governing arrangements of West German universities, introduced over the last 15 years, as part of university reform, and of British universities, brought about in more recent years by financial retrenchment, are briefly investigated and their significance for the university as an agency of liberal democratic political socialisation suggested.

• Two main conclusions are reached. First, that no lasting structural change has so far been done to university autonomy in Britain, despite clear threats to that autonomy, or to the capacity of the universities in Britain to act as effective agencies of political socialisation in a liberal democracy. Secondly, the historical ambivalence in the structure of the German university between academic freedom à l'allemande and regulation by the state remains, despite some changes, essentially intact and inhibits the West German university's value as an agency of liberal‐democratic political socialisation.

     

The curious promise of educationalising technological unemployment: What can places of learning really do about the future of work?

Abstract

University education is full of promise. Indeed universities have the capacity to create and shape, through staff and students, all kinds of enthralling ‘worlds’ and ‘new possibilities of life’. Yet students are encouraged increasingly to view universities as simply a means to an end, where neoliberal education delivers flexible skills to directly serve a certain type of capitalism. Additionally, the universal challenge of technological unemployment, alongside numerous other social issues, has become educationalised and portrayed in HE policy, as an issue to be solved by universities. The idea that more education can resolve the problem of technological unemployment is a political construction which has largely failed to deliver its promise. In this article, we look at educationalisation in hand with technologisation and we draw on a Critical Discourse Analysis of HE policies, to demonstrate the problems arising from taken for granted visions of neoliberal social development related to education, technology, and employment. To disrupt the tired visions of ‘techno-fixes’ and ‘edu-fixes’ we identify in these texts, we call for a radical re-imagining of HE policy. Instead of attributing responsibility for social change to abstract notions of education, market and technology, a new shared vision is needed where more agency is explicitly attributed to the researchers, teachers, and students who are the genuine human future of work.     

Why Do Chinese Universities Seek Foreign University Partners: An Investigation of the Motivating Factors Behind a Significant Area of Alliance Activity

ABSTRACT

Considerable research has been undertaken into the issue of Sino foreign strategic alliances in the area of higher education, particularly since the late 1990s, when universities in China signed an increasing large number of alliance agreements with foreign universities (Willis 2000, 2005a). Although there has been considerable research regarding various aspects of these alliances, including the types of activities undertaken, and the levels of alliances formed in this sector (Hayhoe 1989, 1996; Willis 2000), there has been less evaluation of the factors which have motivated the majority of Chinese universities to actively seek suitable foreign partners for collaboration particularly in regard to the delivery of activities and programs within China. This research identifies a range of factors driving the Chinese desire to form alliances with foreign universities. These in general relate to the special and somewhat idiosyncratic role of universities as agents of social and economic change in China. To effect this change they have often sought foreign partners who are able to assist China to develop a market economy. Universities within the Chinese top 100 university system have become increasingly selective in their choice of foreign universities and are requiring far higher levels of commitment than hitherto. It is now not unusual for foreign universities to deliver degree programs in China, and not just via study abroad and distance means. Gradually, over time, Chinese universities have become more discerning, particular and careful in the selection of foreign university partners. To this end, this paper identifies three distinct phases of Chinese university selection of foreign partners, dating back to 1978. The current phase, which emerged around 2000–2001 underscores the growing desire on the part of Chinese universities to select better quality, more committed and longer-term foreign partners–partly an issue of signing agreements with fewer, but better universities than in the past when a more “scattergun” approach was utilised.     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Transnational higher education in Uzbekistan

ABSTRACT

As marketisation, stratification and performance measurement besiege Higher Education, managing change becomes a critical leadership and administrative skill. Managing the student experience and organisational reputation take on renewed significance. Yet whilst much attention is paid to quality assurance and validation processes as Higher Education seeks to develop programmes that address stakeholder demands, little work has been done that looks at course closure. It is suggested that fresh perspectives drawn from change communications scholarship, can provide practical value to university leadership teams. In particular, by recognising course closure as a form of trauma, then universities might be better placed to communicate with and support students on closing courses.     

Repositioning Colleges Using Changing Student Quality Perceptions: An Exploratory Analysis

ABSTRACT

Colleges and universities must respond to competitive pressure in the marketplace by embracing the concept of quality as a marketing tool. Many colleges and universities have recently looked to the business arena and have adopted techniques, strategies, and the language of quality management.

This exploratory study focuses on the identification and evaluation of student perceptions of salient attributes. The findings suggest that standards of quality are difficult to establish, since evaluations of university performance are not consistent, even among an undergraduate student population.     

Province/Ministry-Coordinated Industry-University-Institute Cooperation and University Development: Based on the Experiences of Guangdong Province

Abstract

The industry S&T missioners, industry-university-institute innovation alliances, industry-university-institute regional model bases, and other provincial-level industry-university-institute cooperation mechanisms that Guangdong Province has formed through its practical efforts play an important role in training a large batch of practical talent in universities, forging the teacher corps combining theoretical and practical skills, perfecting the teacher evaluation system, raising standards for discipline building, enhancing the ability of universities to serve society, improving school administration, and other areas. Practice has proven that the beneficial interaction of the dynamic triple helix formed by universities, industry, and governments can promote innovation in administrative mechanisms and talent training models at universities.     

Changing Values? Early retirement and the new universities

Abstract

This article examines the potential impact of the recent changes to the Teachers Superannuation Scheme (TSS) and the resulting wave of early retirements, on the nature of academic work and cultures in the ‘new’ universities. In doing so it considers the potential for one externally driven initiative, implemented outside of the control of organisational managers, to have a quite extraordinary effect on workers across a whole occupational sector. It assesses the force of an early retirement programme as a catalyst for increased managerialism, relative to other recent pressures, drawing upon the literatures of organisation culture, strategy and labour process; and utilising new empirical research concerning academic careers, culture, change and security. Findings indicate that academic staff in new universities may be insulated from the effects of managerialism, albeit that this may vary between and within institutions. It speculates on whether the effects of large‐scale early retirement will have an impact on academic cultures through the ‘releasing’ of staff with old values and the ‘buying’ of replacements who have new values. Further, it argues that because the TSS changes affect only the new universities, the resultant changes may differentiate them from the pre‐1992 universities, making at least some of them more similar to the managerially focused further education sector, and reinforcing the binary divide within a supposedly unified university sector.     

Strategic management in European universities in an age of increasing institutional self reliance

Abstract

This paper contrasts the emphasis on planning in universities when funding from the state was stable and resources followed student numbers, with the emphasis on strategic management when state funding is declining and universities are of necessity much more market orientated. Planning processes could work well when universities had a predictable future, but are less appropriate when the climate is turbulent. The paper suggests that the following are the key words for successful universities in the new environment, competitiveness, opportunism, income generation and cost reduction, relevance, excellence and reputation. It goes on to argue that this framework of key characteristics demands a new approach to strategic management in universities requiring universities to take a holistic view of their activities, to coordinate institutional strengths so that they reinforce one another and to create machinery whereby academic, financial and physical planning strategy is decided on an integrated basis.     

In Search of the 'Local' University: Considering issues of access for mature learners

This article offers a discussion, based upon empirical data, of the position of universities vis-à-vis local adult populations, arguing that universities need to think of themselves as primarily local institutions if lifelong learning is to become a reality.