Purpose and Collegiality in Planning Education

Abstract

This article considers the interplay between purpose, collegiality, and performance in planning education. A global transformation of higher education is now underway and this poses new challenges for all academics. This article adopts an international perspective and locates current U.S. debates about performance measurement of planning schools in a broader context. A critique of the highly centralized approach to research performance measurement in higher education in the United Kingdom— known as the Research Assessment Exercise— is followed by a discussion of the trajectory of the values that have under pinned U.S. higher education. The very nature of “scholarship” is now highly contested and this creates new challenges for all faculty, including planning academics. By drawing on a case study, the article suggests that an inclusive approach to strategic planning at the college level may provide a helpful way of building unity of purpose and collegiality in a period when universities are being forced to rethink their role.

Globalization and its challenges for developing countries: the case of Turkish higher education

“…Simply put, well-run, modern universities must have mission statements, 'visions' and clear strategic plans (Hambleton 2006) if they are to participate in the global market. Recently, policies dealing with educational equity have started to be reframed as issues of excellence, and vice versa (Wiseman and Baker 2005).…”

Interface

“…In the US the history of higher education is different. As I argue in more detail elsewhere (Hambleton, 2006a), it can be claimed that for more than a century the American university has had an additional, third mission: public service.…”

Transportation Planning Education in the United States

“…This may speak again to the strong bias for passenger travel rather than freight among U.S. transportation planners. However, existing studies on planning education in general indicate that an international perspective can help programs improve their strategic planning and rethink their role in an increasingly globalized world (26,27 ). Internationalization of planning curricula has already in fact happened (21).…”