Research and Teaching at the All-Administrative University

Abstract

The Ongoing Transfer of power from professors to administrators has important implications for the curricula and research agendas of America’s colleges and universities. On the surface, faculty members and administrators seem to share a general understanding of the university and its place in American society. If asked to characterize the “mission” of the university, members of both groups will usually agree with the broad idea that the university is an institution that produces and disseminates knowledge through its teaching, research, public outreach, and other programs. This surface similarity of professorial and administrative perspectives, however, is deceptive. To members of the faculty, the university exists mainly to promote their own research and teaching endeavors. While professors may be quite fond of their schools, for most, scholarship is the purpose of academic life, and the university primarily serves as a useful instrument to promote that purpose. Many professors are driven by love of teaching and the process of discovery. Others crave the adulation of students or the scholarly fame that can result from important discoveries and publications. But whatever their underlying motivations, most professors view scholarship and teaching as ends and the university as an institutional means or instrument through which to achieve those ends. For administrators, on the other hand, it is the faculty’s research and teaching enterprise that is the means and not the end. Some administrators, to be sure, mainly those who plan to return to scholarship and teaching, may put academic matters first. Most administrators, though, tend to manifest a perspective similar to that affected by business managers or owners. They view the university as the equivalent of a firm manufacturing goods and providing services whose main products happen to be various forms of knowledge rather than automobiles, computers, or widgets. This perspective was famously articulated by the late president of the University of California, Clark Kerr, when he characterized higher education as the “knowledge industry,” and suggested that universities should focus on producing forms of knowledge likely to be useful in the marketplace.

How Dark Is It? From Administration to Faculty

“…Having to establish an academic identity, secure research money, successfully publish-all of which involve peer scrutiny and competition-is difficult to understand unless you have done it. Several participants reinforced Lincoln's (2018), Ginsberg's (2011), andPaul's (2015) observations that over the years university governance has moved from an academic model to a managerial modeloften lead by administrators and boards with MBA degrees and without established scholarship practices. Without the academic voice at the leadership tables, it is challenging for administrators to relate to faculty working conditions.…”

“…At one time faculty and administrators worked closely together, relied on one another to operate the university, and had a shared understanding of the university's priority role in knowledge creation and dissemination (Rhodes, 2017). In the 1960s the top administrators and mid-level managers often came from faculty for short contract periods (Ginsberg, 2011). With so many faculty-turned-administrators engaged in the institution's management, their relationship was stronger.…”

“…With so many faculty-turned-administrators engaged in the institution's management, their relationship was stronger. Administrators supported faculty and faculty provided administration with the output necessary for the institution to prosper (Ginsberg, 2011). The culture was collegial, with both parties engaged in shared governance and committed to student learning and the institution's continued success (Paul, 2015).…”

The credibility crisis and democratic governance: how to reform university governance to be compatible with the nature of science

“…1Leaf [33] describes widely varying levels of democratic governance across different US Universities, yet indicates the direction of change is toward less democracy. For the rise of managerialism in US Universities, see Ginsberg [34]. For the variability in extent of democratic governance across Europe, but the same direction of change as the UK, see de Boer & File [35].…”

The new quantitative revolution

“…Moreover, simple agreement runs the risk of reinforcing the very quantitative/qualitative divide Johnston et al rightly question. In the all-administrative university (Ginsberg, 2011) where an audit culture legitimated as productivity measurement has evolved into a Parsonian structural–functionalist content creation infrastructure, the opportunity costs of time and attention mean that any endorsement of quantitative methods, spatial science, and GIScience as core components ‘of all undergraduate degree curricula’ (Johnston et al, 2014: 17) will be perceived as denigration or disinvestment from their methodological others—the kaleidoscope of humanistic, literary, interpretive, ethnographic, and other qualitative approaches. I am torn apart by such choices, and if you’re reading these words you are too—because the essence of any dialogue in human geography is a pluralist spirit of ‘both/and’ engagement that builds alliances as far as possible until we are forced into the contentious choices of ‘either/or’ (Barnes, 2009).…”