Governance in Higher Education - Issues in University Governance

Issues in University Governance

Due to the influences of public sector reforms, several authors (Kezar and Eckel 2004; Lapworth 2004; Middlehurst 2004) point out that next to the concept of shared and participative governance a new form of governance has emerged, i.e. the notion of corporate governance of institutions that has increasingly become a more dominant approach to tertiary management. According to Lapworth (2004: 299-314), the rise of the notion of corporate governance and the decline of the shared or consensual governance can be seen to be a result of the decline in academic participation, growing tendency towards managerialism and the new environment where the universities are operating.

The American Association of University Professors was the first organization to formulate a statement on the governance of higher education based on principles of democratic values and participation (which, in this sense, correlates with the Yale Report of 1828, discussed by Brubacher (1982: 5) as the “first attempt at a formally stated philosophy of education” for universities, emphasizing at that time that Enlightenment curricula following the establishment of democratic constitutional governance should not be replaced with retrogression to religious curricula). The AAUP published its first "Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities" in 1920, “emphasizing the importance of faculty involvement in personnel decisions, selection of administrators, preparation of the budget, and determination of educational policies. Refinements to the statement were introduced in subsequent years, culminating in the 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities (AAUP 1966). The document does not provide for a “blueprint” for the governance of higher education. Nor was the purpose of the statement to provide principles for relations with industry and government (though it establishes direction on “the correction of existing weaknesses”). Rather, it aimed to establish a shared vision for the internal governance of institutions. Student involvement is not addressed in detail. The statement concerns general education policy and internal operations with an overview of the formal structures for organization and management. In process and structure, the meaning with the end result is an organizational philosophy for shared governance in higher education.

While institutions internationally do not directly have the same genealogy with the idea of shared, collegial governance, universities worldwide are loosely organized by similar structures and based on comparable models. McMaster (2007: 1-9) notes the different cultures in universities and the traditional relationships between faculty and administration, characterizing historical transitions and suggesting that universities today are undergoing transitions in culture. Kezar and Eckel (2004: 371-398) point out the substance of governance has changed during the last decades with more emphasis put on high stake issues and more incremental decisions made in a less collegial mode – the reasons for this stem from trends that have devalued the notion of participation and also from the external pressures for more accountability and demands for quicker decision-making (that sometimes is achieved through bureaucracy). McMaster (2007: 1-9) discusses the same changes in university management resulting from the “huge amount of additional administrative work at all levels within the university, and the requirement for a wide range of specialist skills in areas such as marketing, HR management, management accounting, web development and instructional design.” and the difficulties with the tensions that have resulted between collegial and corporate models of management.

Dearlove (1997: 56-75) emphasises that, under the conditions of mass higher education, no university can avoid the need for some sort of bureaucratic management and organisation, though this does not mean that the importance of informal discipline and profession based authority (internal governance of universities) can totally be ignored. Lapworth (2004: 299-314) advocates what the author believes is a model of university governance with the positive aspects of corporate and collegial approaches. The issues in university governance discussed by these literatures are detailed by Coldrake, Stedman, and Little (2003) through a comparative study of current trends in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with poignant insight into the different models of governance for the management of higher education. Critical of the currents of change toward “corporate governance,” the authors cite reference to literature that calls for “re-balancing” of university governance, maintaining that the re-balancing “would amount to a clarification of shared governance” (Coldrake, Stedman, and Little 2003: 14). With changing roles in human resources and the external pressures for accountability affecting university relationships internally, McMaster (2007: 1-9) provides insights by defining management styles in terms of nested partnership between faculty and administration, contiguous partnership, and segmented partnership. With debates over the recent trends, university organizations, governing associations, and numerous postsecondary institutions themselves have set forth policy statements on governance.