From serving students to serving the economy: Changing expectations of faculty role performance

In this article, it is argued that academic managers in state bureaucracies and universities are changing their expectations of faculty role. Such changes are generally justified as a necessary response to the fiscal crisis faced in many states. The nature and degree of these changing expectations are assessed through analysis of the goals and objectives addressing teaching, research and service in state, system and university planning documents as these bear on a single university over a ten year period (approximately 1970 to the present). Next, faculty behavior, as indicated by university statistics based on faculty activities reports, is examined to see if it is changing to conform to emerging managerial expectations. Finally, these changing role expectations are looked at in light of shifts in role resources.In the main, it is concluded that managers currently expect faculty to be more productive in specific ways: training students for high tech, high cost, high return jobs; securing more and more research monies; serving the public by linking research to industrial revitalization. However, managerial expectations may be based more on their perceptions of what is the most likely source of increased funding than on a realistic assessment of resource possibilities. Thus, changing managerial role expectations for faculty may simply result in greater managerial control of the university.