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How Universities Work |
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Introduction Throughout the United States, colleges and universities struggle to understand and adjust to competition, variable public support, resistance to tuition, dissatisfaction with various aspects of university life, endless demands for accountability, financial constraints, and a wide range of bureaucratic and organizational challenges. At the same time, these institutions find themselves ever more essential to the achievement of what most Americans consider a good life. Study after study demonstrates that a college education is a minimal prerequisite for access to reasonable middle class standing in America. Parents seek educational advantages for their children at the earliest opportunity, and competition for places at prestigious institutions at every level of education from preschool to graduate and professional school remains intense. Some states in the South, Southwest, and West struggle with problems of meeting the demand for access and face increased pressure from growing populations while others adjust to stable or even declining numbers of traditional college-age students. The nation expects the continued production of university research to drive global economic competitiveness, and each region and state looks to its universities to support the local economic development that promotes prosperity and promises higher paying jobs for its residents. In this context, the organization and operation of post-secondary institutions, always more of an art than a science, challenges creativity and commitment. Faculty guilds seek higher pay, greater security, and more autonomy; student clients and customers demand higher quality, lower cost, and greater attention to their needs; supporters in legislatures and the public seek better education for lower cost and with a higher yield; and alumni and donors expect high achievement and nationally distinguished programs in all areas. These expectations produce countervailing pressures on the institutions, their people, and their management tools. Colleges and universities must become more effective and efficient even as their traditional sources of funds contract; they must become more conscious of quality even as the pressure for lower costs grows stronger; they must seek greater support even as the public asks for ever better proof of their value. Most importantly, they must compete with each other for the scarce talent of faculty and students, and for the money that supports that competition. Institutions meet these challenges in different ways. Some universities disappear behind a facade of complex and confusing discussions about institutional management, expecting the public to tire of the constant confusion of purpose that often characterizes university rhetoric. They hope that the public clamor for reform will pass. Many academic administrators develop this technique to a fine art. They create complex measures that measure nothing. They divide, sub-divide, and regress their programs and activities into such a proliferation of differentiated products that no external observer can measure the comparative effectiveness of their work. Above all, they articulate high-sounding goals focused on values and philosophy without offering a clear method for measuring results. Other institutions recognize the pressure for change as natural and inevitable consequences of the growing global competitiveness that has challenged all of America's great international industries including higher education. These institutions know that academics must confront these changes and respond to them directly and clearly or the outcome, sooner or later, will produce stagnation and decline. They also understand that structure of world economic activity will transfer national and global financial circumstances to the local financial opportunities for post-secondary funding. We focus on meeting the challenge of competitiveness from the perspective that reaches from the research university through the four-year college and community college. We explore a variety of subjects related to the effective operation of these institutions on the premise that effective management is essential. We start from the premise that competitive institutions provide high quality and high productivity, whatever the precise definition of their mission. We know that successful colleges and universities drive both quality and productivity. We also know that the search for improvement must measure both quality and productivity. We observe the organizational and structural characteristics of post-secondary institutions with special interest in management and improvement. We follow the money. all institutions articulate their values most clearly as they manage revenue and expenses. When colleges and universities follow the money, they must measure quality and productivity to invest in improved performance. We explore these topics less to offer a single successful strategy and more to develop the tools for analysis and action. Higher education institutions have different histories and find themselves located in widely different economic, political, and organizational space. Every institution, however, must confront the same issues and problems, and the tools we discuss serve the interests of every kind of institution. This course builds on a long-term discussion of these topics. To begin your participation in this conversation read the following items which also appear in the general reading list:
These items provide some background to inform your reading in the other materials provided in this syllabus. In addition, one of the instructors publishes an occasional commentary under the general heading RealityCheck at Inside Higher Ed an online journal. The instructor's web page has a variety of other materials, some of which are relevant to the course, see the section titled Documents at jvlone.com. Students should read Inside HigherEd and The Chronicle of Higher Education on a regular basis to track the controversies, news, and fads of American higher education. Various general publications also have interesting articles on university issues, especially The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. From Reality Check the column, Inside HigherEd
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