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NAVIGATING THE ‘IN BETWEEN’ SPACES: BEYOND THE ACADEMIC/MANAGERIALISM DIVIDE IN UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCEDr Julie RowlandsCentre for Research in Educational Futures and Innovation, Deakin University

OVERVIEW• Global trends in higher education and

governance• Academic governance models• Collegial versus managerial governance• A critique of the collegial/managerial divide• How are the in-between spaces represented?• The absence of the academic voice• Need for international comparative research

GLOBAL TRENDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION• HE as a personal good, especially within

Anglophone nations (Naidoo & Williams 2014)• Increased student numbers associated with mass

or universal HE (OECD 2007)• Global competition for positioning and fee-

paying students (Marginson 2008)• Increased inequality (Altbach et al. 2010)

CHANGES IN UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE• Decision-making in universities faster and more

responsive to commercial environment with corporate (managerial) and entrepreneurial forms of governance dominating (Rowlands 2013)

• Internal and external accountability more central (Stensaker & Harvey 2011)

• Increased state expectations despite reduced funding (Palfreyman, Tapper & Thomas 2011)

WHAT IS ACADEMIC GOVERNANCE

• Core university work remains teaching and research

• Special nature of universities’ academic work has led to some unique governance process and practices

• In simple terms, academic governance is oversight of teaching and research and the protection and enhancement of their quality.

TRADITIONAL ACADEMIC GOVERNANCE MODELS

Figure 1: Controls and cultures in education institutions (McNay, 1999, p. 45)

COLLEGIAL VERSUS MANAGERIAL GOVERNANCE

Figure 2: The relationship between collegial and managerial modes of governance

WHAT ARE COLLEGIAL AND MANAGERIAL GOVERNANCE?Collegial governance• Consensus based university decision-making by

(or a proportion of) academic staff (Middlehurst and Elton 1992).

Managerial governance• The adoption of corporate-style governance and

management practices more commonly found in the private sector (Deem, Hillyard & Reed 2007).

A CRITIQUE OF THE COLLEGIAL/MANAGERIAL DIVIDE• There are significant, well documented

weaknesses associated with both managerial and collegial forms of governance.

• Managerialism is not something ‘out there’; we are all doing it, alongside and as part of our traditional research and teaching activities.

IN-BETWEEN SPACES IN CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE• Academics and managers often not two distinct

categories (Macfarlane 2015)• Many researchers have coined phrases

describing academic staff working across boundaries

• However, this is contested space.

HEGEMONIC MANAGERS• Not all scholarship represents collegiality and

managerialism as dichotomy – some argue that blended models exist (Tight 2014)

• For e.g. radically modified collegial governance in which academic managers are now hegemonic rather than professors (Rowlands 2014a)

NETWORK GOVERNANCE AT NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEVELS• Bleiklie (2012) argues that academics now have

less influence on institutional decision-making but that their focus has merely shifted to governance of other, external, forums.

• This suggests the development of new modes and new sites for academic governance.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ACADEMIC VOICE IN ACADEMIC GOVERNANCE• Shattock argues that academic advice and

consent is critical in good university governance (Shattock 2012)

• But practising academics do not always have agency (Rowlands 2014b)

• In 2010 more than half of all members of Australian academic boards were not practising academics (Rowlands, 2012)

WHAT SHOULD FRAMEWORKS FOR ACADEMIC GOVERNANCE CONSIDER?• Key issue is not who makes the decision but that

academic issues and academic voice are heard• Acknowledging blended academic/management

roles still highlights need for input from practising academics

• In addition to more traditional governance modes, outward focused network governance needs to be added

THE NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE RESEARCH• While much existing scholarship highlights

limitations of existing academic governance models, there is very little empirical research and none that is international and comparative

• This research is urgently needed as are international networks of scholars engaged in these issues.

REFERENCESAltbach, PG, Reisberg, L & Rumbley, LE 2010, Trends in Global Higher Education:

Tracking an academic revolution, UNESCO and Sense, Rotterdam.Bleiklie, I 2012, 'Collegiality and hierarchy: Coordinating principles in higher education',

in AR Nelson & IP Wei (eds), The Global University: Past, present and future perspectives, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 85-104.

Deem, R, Hillyard, S & Reed, M 2007, Knowledge, Higher Education and the New Managerialism: The changing management of UK universities, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Macfarlane, B 2015, 'Dualisms in higher education: a critique of their influence and effect', Higher Education Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 101-18.

Marginson, S 2008, 'Global field and global imagining: Bourdieu and worldwide higher education', British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 303-15.

McNay, I 1999, 'Changing cultures in UK higher education: the state as corporate market bureaucracy and the emergent academic enterprises', in D Braun & F-X Merrien (eds), Towards a New Model of Governance for Universities: A comparative view, Jessica Kingsley, London, pp. 34-58.

Middlehurst, R & Elton, L 1992, 'Leadership and management in higher education', Studies in Higher Education, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 251-64.

Naidoo, R & Williams, J 2014, 'The neoliberal regime in English higher education: charters, consumers and the erosion of the public good', Critical Studies in Education, pp. 1-16.

OECD 2007, On the Edge: Securing a sustainable future for higher education, report of the OECD/IMHE-HEFCE Project on Financial Management and Governance of Higher Education Institutions, OECD, Paris.

Palfreyman, D, Tapper, T & Thomas, S 2011, 'Series editors' introduction: international studies in higher education', in B Stensaker & L Harvey (eds), Accountability in Higher Education: Global perspectives on trust and power, Routledge, New York, pp. xiii-xv.

Rowlands, J 2012, 'The role of the academic board in the contemporary Australian university', PhD thesis, Deakin University.

Rowlands, J 2013, 'Academic boards: less intellectual and more academic capital in higher education governance?', Studies in Higher Education, vol. 38, no. 9, pp. 1274-89.

Rowlands, J 2014a, 'Present but not counted: the tenuous position of academic board chairs within contemporary university governance', International Journal of Leadership in Education: Theory and Practice, DOI 10.1080/13603124.2014.925978.

Rowlands, J 2014b, 'Turning collegial governance on its head: symbolic violence, hegemony and the academic board', British Journal of Sociology of Education, DOI 10.1080/01425692.2014.883916, <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01425692.2014.883916>.

Shattock, M 2006, Managing Good Governance in Higher Education, Open University Press, Maidenhead.

Shattock, M 2012, 'University governance: an issue for our time', Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 56-61.

Stensaker, B & Harvey, L 2011, 'Introduction and overview of the book', in B Stensaker & L Harvey (eds), Accountability in Higher Education: Global perspectives on trust and power, Routledge, New York, pp. 1-6.

Tight, M 2014, 'Collegiality and managerialism: a false dichotomy? Evidence from the higher education literature', Tertiary Education and Management, pp. 1-13.