Governing public universities in Arab countries

Traditionally in Arab public universities, presidents are appointed by government authorities. Recently, in uprising Arab countries universities' presidents have been elected by universities' faculty members. Neither traditional nor self-governance pattern succeeded to modernise Arab universities. Reforming patterns of governance is critical for improved productivity and accountability in Arab universities. Applying the modern pattern of university governance depends on the country's political system and extent of democracy. Arab countries need to establish an improved process of searching for leadership candidates. Improving patterns of universities' governance in Arab countries can lead to improving higher education and research and enhancing competitiveness among faculty members.     

世界一流大学建设的鲍林格理念及其启示

李·C·鲍林格是美国哥伦比亚大学的第十九任校长.他在任期内致力于通过全球化与地方性相结合的治校方略,把哥伦比亚大学建设成为一个融合国际化战略与地方性品质于一身的世界一流大学,显著地促进了哥伦比亚大学的发展.鲍林格校长的办学理念和治校方略可资新时期大学改革借鉴,对当前的世界一流大学建设具有不菲的参考价值.     

国际学科排名指标体系及中国学科格局分析——基于世界大学学科排名数据

本文从四大国际学科排名指标体系及学科评价方法出发, 比较各大世界学科排名异同性;用数据对比中国和美国高水平大学学科的差距,分析中国大学学科格局现状,指出中国建设世界一流大学的学科建设,需不断优化学科布局,加强学科建设。     

Kinesiology in the Cultural Evolution of Academia

Three forces that are reshaping society in this country—the economy, the availability of information and technology, and changes in ethnic demography—are creating major changes in higher education. Federal funding, which has been the major provider of research and training projects, is undergoing reductions and changes in priorities. State funding has shrunk to very low percentages of the overall universities' budgets. A consequence is the “privatization” of universities: the development of university–business partnerships, the scramble for endowments and foundation support, and the sale of university names and icons for large donations. Two other forces changing higher education are the rise of multiculturalism and the aging of the faculty. In order to survive and actualize our visions in the 21st century, kinesiologists and physical educators must use an understanding of the roots and impact of societal change as a compass for charting the future.     

A Kantian approach to the dilemma of part‐time faculty

The author addresses the growing concern with part‐time employment within the academy and argues that reliance on part‐time faculty in universities is morally wrong because this practice violates Kant's respect for persons principle. Further, because universities benefit from the employment of part‐timers, the latter are exploited for gains in the universities' end, which undermines the very moral nature of education as a business practice between and among persons. To maintain morality in higher education, universities have a duty to provide a living wage and meaningful work for their employees.     

发展健康校园音乐文化,助力大学精神建设

大学精神是大学发展和社会进步的文化结晶,是高校自立、自强、自觉、自信的"软实力",是大学文化中得以凝固下来并被继承和发扬的文化精髓,建设一流大学必然应该重视大学精神建设。作为大学文化重要内容与形式之一的校园音乐文化,应摆脱流行音乐垄断校园的局面,而以多种传播途径,实现多元健康发展,从而在建设和传承大学精神的过程中发挥助力作用。     

International University Education: An Australian Perspective

This paper attempts to explore the effectiveness of UK universities' websites. The area of branding in higher education has received increasing academic investigation, but little work has researched how universities demonstrate their brand promises through their websites. The quest to differentiate through branding can be challenging in the university context, however. It is argued that those institutions that have a strong distinctive image will be in a better position to face a changing future. Employing a multistage methodology, the web pages of 20 UK universities were investigated by using a combination of content and multivariable analysis. Results indicated ‘traditional values’ such as teaching and research were often well communicated in terms of online brand but ‘emotional values’ like social responsibility and the universities' environments were less consistently communicated, despite their increased topicality. It is therefore suggested that emotional values may offer a basis for possible future online differentiation.     

吉尔曼的办学理念与约翰·霍普金斯大学的成长

吉尔曼是19世纪中后期美国高等教育思想家和改革家,他创立的约翰·霍普金斯大学是美国第一所现代研究型大学,并成为许多大学学习的榜样。他倡导的学术自由、以人为本、重视师资队伍建设、开展研究生教育等思想在美国高等教育发展史上产生了极其重要的影响。     

公立高校教师聘用合同的法律性质重审 ——基于控权论的立场

在高校人才竞争加剧的背景下，受行政管制与市场调节两种制度逻辑彼此嵌套的影响，高校教师聘约义务的约定日趋多元、复杂和严苛，由此产生的法律争议不断增多。当前，法院的司法裁判倾向于支持高校聘约义务设定的自主权，而缺乏对教师择业自由和职业安全等合法权益的法律保障。公立高校教师人事争议案件中权利导向的缺失，源于劳动、人事关系“并轨”背景下法院对教师聘用合同法律性质的认知偏差。忽视学术职业的特殊性与公益性事业法人的公共属性，简单机械地适用劳动法领域的原理和法律技术，暗合了学术评价的“五唯”取向以及高校人事管理的“行政化”，不利于教师权利的法律救济。应以控权论为基本立场，增强高校聘用制改革的权利导向。通过高校内部治理的变革与司法审查立场的转变，进一步强化教师聘用合同作为特殊劳动合同的“特殊性”。     

Faculty: Thy administrator's keeper? Some evidence

Colleges and universities face a principal-agent problem. There are information asymmetries over the actions chosen by administrators. Because non-profit constraints limit the financial stake of trustees there may be insufficient monitoring of administrators and, consequentially, shirking. It is conceivable that faculty will serve as “delegated monitors” given the proper incentives. Faculty monitoring will most likely benefit a university when: (1) monitoring costs are low and (2) administrators cannot impose significant punishment costs on faculty. The practices of organized faculty participation in governance and tenure naturally achieve such ends. Empirical evidence from a sample of colleges and universities in the United States supports the hypothesis that features of a faculty's employment have significant effects on a university's financial performance.     

The Impact of the Bologna Reform on the Productivity of Swiss Universities

The Bologna reform aims to enhance several dimensions of the universities' activities, by favouring mobility and mutual recognition of higher education degrees across Europe, with the objective to create a European Higher Education Area. The radical changes induced by the Bologna Process affect universities' productivity both directly (for example, implementation costs, curriculum streamlining, evaluation intensity) and indirectly (for example, the ability to attract more students and higher levels of competition among institutions). The decentralised organisation of the Swiss university sector provides an ideal setting to test this hypothesis, as the panel data of departments permits the consideration of the unobserved heterogeneity across both universities and scientific fields. The empirical results support the claim that the Bologna reform enhances university productivity. Furthermore, there is no evidence of substantial costs of the system transformation.     

A Market/Value Based Approach to Satisfy Stakeholders of Higher Education

ABSTRACT

What value does the university offer in terms of economic and social development? Having stakeholders question the contribution and value of colleges and universities is not new nor is it unique to American universities. Institutions of higher education are currently facing a crisis of confidence by parents, prospective students, alumni, congressional committees, and the media. Many stakeholders are concerned about the value provided by colleges and universities. Although there has been an effort to call attention to the issue and to examine select educational processes, there is a dire need to address all aspects of the university product. This article provides a market-based paradigm to help university/college administrators understand the critical aspects of identifying, defining, managing, and delivering superior value to all stakeholders of the institution. This article also provides a university planning process model for incorporating value in the strategic planning process of any university. Faced with increasing pressure to reduce the churn rate of students and increase retention, universities' focus must shift toward attracting students who fit with the value proposition (delivery) of the institution. This article is not an attempt at resolving the debate over the role or purpose of the university; our intent is to present a market-based approach to facilitate the delivery of value to all university stakeholders in keeping with the vision and mission of the institution.     

Measuring faculty learning in curriculum and teaching competence online courses

Online education is used for a variety of purposes in higher education. Two such purposes are improving one's performance over time and understanding one's professional development in the context of online teaching and learning. Relying on data from online staff development courses delivered in five Spanish universities, this article explores online faculty learning through the lens of staff development theory. This theoretical perspective emphasizes the universities' quality assurance contexts and offers an empirical examination of the ways in which faculty members learn curriculum and teaching competencies (CTCs) in online staff development programmes. At the core of this analysis is the contention that faculty members understand and respond to quality teaching lessons and activities. Finally, this study highlights the points deemed important when designing, implementing, and evaluating Internet CTC training courses.     

美国大学教师的学术自由权利:历史的视角

美国大学教师的学术自由权利经历了"学院时代"与"大学时代"两大历史时期的发展。美国大学教师学术自由权利的争取过程,同时也是赋予学术自由权利以认识论和政治论意义的过程。历史证明,学术自由权利是保障大学教师从事知识创新与探索活动的基本权利,是保护教学与研究工作免受各种不合理干扰和限制的必要权利,是赋予大学教师适当社会地位和必要经济保障的重要权利,也是一项与学术责任相伴生的有限权利。     

新建校区对高校生均收入的影响——基于教育部直属高校的实证分析

1999年高等教育大规模急剧扩张以来，高校办学资源日趋紧张，很多高校难以达到“生均一分地”的办学标准，不得不建设新校区以拓展办学空间。新建校区的出现对高校经费运行系统造成了强烈的冲击。本文基于1998—2016年教育部直属高校经费数据的研究发现：第一，虽然新建校区高校的生均总支出和生均总收入均显著高于非新建校区高校，但生均总收入的增长速度略慢于生均总支出，无论是财政性的基建拨款还是自筹收入都跟不上基建支出速度，且尚有较大规模的银行贷款收入和还本付息支出未纳入统计，收支不平衡为高校债务危机埋下了隐患。第二，新建校区高校的经费筹措规模整体扩大，但未能实现经费来源渠道多元化，其中财政拨款主要为教育事业费和基建拨款，自筹收入主要为事业收入。第三，新建校区对不同高校生均收入影响具有异质性，“985工程”院校生均总收入显著高于非“985工程”院校，统一入驻当地大学城能显著缓解高校经费筹措压力；相较于年级型，学院型布局模式会加大高校经费筹措压力。因此，建议我国高校一方面要进一步提高经费自筹能力，积极开拓经费来源渠道，减少对政府经费和事业收入的依赖；另一方面应尽可能优化新校区建设模式和布局模式，从降低成本角度减缓经费筹措压力。     

New politics of higher education: Hidden and complex

Public universities in the United States are in a changed political environment, resulting from past enrollment growth and increased budget needs, centralization, the routinization of state-university relations, government budget uncertainty, and the emergence of strong competing claims on state or federal monies. The author argues that centralized government intervention is carried through technocratic approaches that mask the political forces at work. The article discusses characteristics of government intervention such as: buffer groups, formulas and data monopoly. It suggests these technocratic approaches hide the political weakness of the public universities. These, in turn, have been weakened. In conclusion, three new trends are suggested: (1) public universities will seek to do with less government support - that is, the privatization of some American public university services; (2) they will seek to increase government's or society's dependency on what it is the public universities do - that is, making universities more immediately useful to government and society; and (3) they will increasingly organize political coalitions both inside and outside the universities. This last strategy implies greater collaboration between faculty, students and university administrators and between higher education, the public schools and other potential allies.     

Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Revising Promotion and Tenure Standards According to Boyer

If one acknowledges that scholarship comes in many shapes and forms, and if one agrees with Boyer's argument that it is time to reconsider scholarship in light of the role of faculty members within departments, colleges, and universities, the next logical step then is to see if Boyer's principles can be effectively applied in a university setting. At the 1995 NAPEHE conference, Boyer acknowledged that the next step, as indicated by the title of the Carnegie Foundation's forthcoming sequel Scholarship Assessed, is to identify ways to fairly and equitably evaluate faculty scholarship within the context of the professoriate in general, and in higher education institutions in particular. The authors argue the case for differential application of standards within and among universities, based upon the diversity of missions and goals. Following that, examples are given for how Boyer's classifications have been applied to promotion and tenure standards at one comprehensive land grant university in the midwest. Administrator and faculty (new and old) commentary provide sup port for the new standards.     

Changing Definitions of University Autonomy: The Cases of England and Japan

The purpose of the paper is to elucidate the different meaning of university autonomy historically and comparatively. The paper examines the shift in the definition of the university autonomy in England and Japan. It argues that the definition of university autonomy in England and Japan differed traditionally. In England, university autonomy functioned as the universities' ideology to protect the universities from outside of pressure. In Japan, university autonomy was understood in relation to the Ministerial coordination. The market‐oriented policies in those countries have changed the meaning of university autonomy, bringing about “contractual autonomy” in England and institutional autonomy in Japan.     

An Update on the Use of Ranks in Calibrating and Marketing Higher Education

ABSTRACT

An analysis of ranking data, taken from Maclean's magazine's 2001 rankings of the 47 Canadian universities, is presented. Consistent with previous research, the rank data show that the specific measures and indices used by the magazine are inconsistently related to each other and to the universities' final assigned rankings. Some implications for the counselling and welfare of students, with special reference to selected issues in higher education, are outlined. Comparative information from related analyses, involving 2002 rankings of American universities recently published in U.S. News, and 2002 student satisfaction rankings published in the Toronto Globe and Mail, using increasingly popular evaluation indicators, is also presented.     

What Tertiary Institutions will be like and how we are to manage them through the 1980s

This essay relates collective bargaining in American higher education to the evolution of collegial governance and its erosion on some campuses. The diversity of American higher education and the industrial model of collective bargaining being transplanted to campuses explain the modest contribution made by collective bargaining to university governance. Based on the author's experience as sometime General Secretary of the American Association of University Professors, he concludes that faculty should have the right to decide to bargain collectively but that the cost of collective bargaining usually outweighs its benefits. He recommends that strengthening collegial governance is a preferable strategy for the future.