Re-empowering academics in a corporate culture: an exploration of workload and performativity in a university

Neo-liberal reforms in higher education have resulted in corporate managerial practices in universities and a drive for efficiency and productivity in teaching and research. As a result, there has been an intensification of academic work, increased stress for academics and an emphasis on accountability and performativity in universities. The paper proposes that while managerialism in modern universities is now the norm, corporate approaches have disempowered academics in their institutions and reduced productivity because they ignore the nature of academic work. Using Foucault’s conception of power relations in institutions, policies that directly affect academic work such as workload allocation and performance management are identified as key ways in which power is exercised in universities. The paper reports on a case study in one university which explored the relationship between the academic workload allocation and performance management policies and concludes that a more balanced power relationship is needed in which academics can have more influence over these key processes which control their work so they preserve the self-managed aspects of academic work and the intrinsic motivations driving their careers.     

Fish-out-of-office: How managerialised university conditions make administrative knowledge inaccessible to academics

Academics report feeling unable to cope in the managerialised university. To confirm these feelings are symptoms of managerialism's tightening grip, we use Bourdieusian concepts of field and capital to compare academics and professional staff experiential statements in an Australian university. We compare their field conditions and examine how their differences enable or hinder the accumulation of capital that defines their field. Findings show that managerialism requires professional staff to share work tasks and be on-campus, which enables them to accumulate the capital they require. Managerialism also permits and resources academics to working out-of-office to accumulate their required capital. Consequentially though, university operational knowledge becomes informal and only accessible to professional staff who accumulate the required social capital to access it. Professional staff are thus fish-in-water; easily accumulating social capital through day-to-day activities. But academics become fish-out-of-water (office); they flounder to access operational knowledge, which leads to feelings of not coping.     

Professional loyalties of university academics: Four ideal types

University academics display a high degree of internal differentiation in terms of their professional interests, diverse roles and divided loyalties. Perceptions from academics at the University of Melbourne regarding these elements are used in this paper to construct a typology which distinguishes four different groups according to their levels of research and institutional commitment. Such typologies serve to highlight not only the essential nature of universities but also the importance of the research culture. Implications of emphasising research are seen to have possible detrimental effects on the functioning of a university and these are addressed.     

Redefinition of the relationships between academics and their university

This paper primarily deals with the relationships between academics and their university in European countries. The aim of this paper is therefore not to produce new results but provide a synthesis of the main trends that can be identified from the literature and then suggest what can be borrowed from sociological theories to highlight the on-going evolutions. The first section of the paper reviews the main results to be drawn from previous research on this issue and focuses on the management of academic careers and the management of academic activities at the university level. The second section suggests alternative interpretative frameworks to be borrowed from sociological theory in order to complete the already existing research and develop new perspectives to explain and interpret these changes in the relationships between academics and their institutions. Four perspectives are successively explored particularly useful here: a sociology of work; a labor market perspective; an analysis in terms of careers and trajectories and finally considerations about the traditional tension between organizations and professions.     

创新高校思想政治工作的思考

从新世纪开始，我国将进入全面建设小康社会，加快推进社会主义现代化建设的新的发展阶段。新世纪、新形势、新任务对高校思想政治工作提出了新的、更高的要求，高校思想政治工作要想得到真正的改进和加强，必须在继承和发扬优良传统的基础上，在观念、内容、方法、手段、机制等方面求是创新，在为时代发展服务中确立自身的地位，在改进和创新中推动高校思想政治工作的发展。     

From mentoring to monitoring: the impact of changing work environments on academics in Australian universities

In 1996, the Art and Design Admissions Registry (ADAR) merged with the Universities and Colleges Admissions System (UCAS). This ended a 30-year specialist admissions system designed for the needs of Art and Design. One of the main reasons put forward for this change was to unify admissions and harness the benefits of a 'one address system'. This study set out to test this claim and evaluate any advantages or disadvantages which the UCAS system has had on the Art and Design students applying to Higher Education (HE), and the role of the Further Education (FE) tutor in providing progressional support and guidance. The study focused on the level of unity, choice and clarity which the system offered FE students and staff, and found that duality (as opposed to unity) currently exists; student choice is increased only for those using Route A or making split applications, but has been reduced for those using Route B only. There is a lack of clarity over UCAS procedures and form-filling, and there is confusion over the diverse use of Route A and Route B by HE and students. The study observes that HE administrators, rather than FE staff and students, are the primary benefactors of a unified system of applications.     

Making sense of a teaching programme for university academics: Exploring the longer-term effects

To professionalise teaching in universities, certificated teaching programmes for academics are increasingly widespread and often mandatory for new lecturers. Evaluations of impact have escalated in the past decade. Existing studies show mixed results but few consider the differential effects on individuals over the longer term. This study examines narratives of course participants a number of years following completion to understand how lecturers made sense of formal teaching development. Powerful outcomes materialise for some individuals, highly focused by personal reference frames and career experiences. Findings are related to wider studies of teacher growth and individual orientations to teaching professional development.     

论如何做好高校办公室工作

本文就如何做好高校办公室工作进行了论述,并提出工作人员应具备的五种意识和五种能力,以及办公室应建立健全的六种制度.     

学院人的“癖好”与大学的制度安排

在研究型大学中,学院人是一个有着独特精神气质的群体,它反映了大学内部学术活动的特征和以学术为志业的人们的职业习性。也正是这种职业活动的特殊性,决定了大学制度安排中所存在的相对松散的倾向,以及对学者们带有典型的“个人主义”取向的宽容,没有对这种倾向的容忍,就很难有真正意义的学术创新。     

Contemporary approaches to learning science: technologically-mediated practical work

This paper describes the current state of science education in Arab states and anticipates some of the challenges faced by those states as they reform their science education. After discussing problems of illiteracy, access and quality we provide contextual information about the structure of the educational systems and describe recent efforts to reform them. We focus on issues pertaining to science curriculum and textbooks, language, religion, student learning in science, science teacher education and science education research and summarise the challenges and opportunities for research faced in each area. We conclude the paper by proposing a set of policy and research recommendations that could aid in the development of lasting solutions for recurring problems.     

Surviving the performance management of academic work: evidence from young Chinese academics

ABSTRACT

Despite predominant macro-level changes of performance management at Chinese universities, little attention has been paid to how the disciplinary technologies have been interpreted and enacted at the level of individual academics. Using qualitative data with 26 participants at a Chinese research university, this study provides evidence of collective compliance with the performative imperatives. The study indicates that tacit compliance has been reinforced through the coercive powers of reward, punishment, and bureaucratization and consolidated through the normative influences of the Chinese Confucian culture and subjectification via creating new notions of ‘academic success’. Moreover, the process of perverse learning, during which opportunistic behaviors are taken to ‘play the game’, has contributed to the emergence of performance paradox. In addition, the findings do not indicate any vocal resistance in public but conscientious efforts have been taken in private by some of the participants to navigating through the performance paradox in order to alleviate the dysfunctional consequences caused by the perverse learning.     

Assessing university brand personality through logos: an analysis of the use of academics and athletics in university branding

For colleges and universities whose survival depends on external stakeholders, developing a strong brand should be an important component of their marketing strategy. University brand managers could benefit from developing a better understanding of how consumers interact with their brand in order to develop more effective recruiting material, advertisements, and other marketing efforts. The current study applies the concept of brand personality to university academic and athletic logos and examines subsequent relationships between the perceived brand personalities. Results of an online survey indicate that competence is a brand personality dimension mostly associated with academic logos, and excitement is the brand personality dimension mostly associated with athletic logos.     

The perceived impact of quality audit on the work of academics

Quality audit has become the dominant means of assessing the quality of university teaching and learning. This paper addresses this international trend through the analysis of academics’ perception of quality audit. It presents a new way to understand quality audit through the interpretation of how frontline academics in England perceived and valued the audit culture and its practice. The paper reveals that quality audit was regarded as symbolic regulation instead of power control over the work of individual academics. The increased awareness of the importance of good teaching practice was related to the fact that the internal audit process set up within the institution worked more effectively and was seen as more legitimate than the external one. There is evidence that academics’ notions of professionalism have affected their attitudes towards the audit and its related quality mechanisms.     

如何做好大学新生班主任工作

大学班主任的工作是大学生校园生活管理中的重要环节,作者通过自己担任四年班主任工作的心得体会,得出做好大学新生班主任的几点建议。     

Limited legitimacy among academics of centrally driven approaches to internal quality assurance in Vietnam

For more than 15 years, Vietnam has worked to develop a quality assurance (QA) system as part of its effort to reform higher education. The government’s effort seeks to respond to widespread criticism over the quality of training in higher education. The appropriation of western QA mechanisms and the effectiveness of the QA system as it has been implemented, however, is still viewed with scepticism. This paper reports on a study of academics and QA practitioners’ perceptions of quality assurance. Documentation and in-depth interviews were used in the study. The findings show that QA remains a new concept in the country, which appears to have promoted a compliance-driven approach to mandated policies rather than a system that promotes academics’ engagement in continuous improvement. Moreover, the appropriated mechanism may be seen as contradictory to the values respected by academics and rooted in a Confucian society.     

Exploring the hermeneutic foundations of university life: Deaf academics in a hybrid `community of practice'

This paper derives from a study oforganizational socialization and induction inuniversities. It uses some of the data fromthat study to critique social practice theoryand to further develop a model to illuminatethe characteristics of professionalknowledgeability and practices underpinningdaily life in universities. This is donethrough the analysis of a case study of oneunusual sub-departmental workgroup in anunchartered English university: one thatcomprises both Deaf and hearing academics.Using such a case study highlights factors thatare less evident in hearing-only situations,displaying important features in exaggeratedform which exist less palpably in mostmicro-social situations in universities. As aresult it offers a suitable locus for themodelling of the processes underlying muchwhich is taken for granted in universities'daily life. The structure of the paper is asfollows: it outlines the broader study fromwhich this is derived and makes some generalcomments about using `unusual' case studies. Itthen goes on to describe the characteristics ofworkgroups in university contexts through thecase study example and to explore theirtheoretical corollaries. Finally the paperconsiders the implications for aspects of themodel developed, particularly in terms of localleadership.     

高校教师教学工作量标准比较研究

确定高校教师的教学工作量基本标准,是高等教育管理规范化的要求,也是高校人事分配制度改革深化过程中必须解决的问题,因为它直接涉及高校人力资源的投入数量,与人力资源的效益密切相联.对美国、印度、德国的教师教学工作量基本标准的确定依据、确定结果进行了初步比较分析研究,并在此基础上对我国高校教师教学工作量标准提出建议.