It seems a really simple idea that learning should be at the centre of post-secondary education, permeating colleges and universities as the air we breathe. Accompanied, of course, by just the right amount of teaching to make sure it happens. It is easy to believe that universities are the very best places in the world for this idyllic environment to develop. After all, our students are there by choice, for a purpose, and the teachers are among the best in the world at what they do. Surely this is a meeting of minds in every sense, a sanctified space where every great teacher and every great learner through the ages would find a home?
I believe many of us working in the academy would agree this is not our everyday experience. All too often we have to deal with demands and pressures we know are not conducive to good learningâthe need to enlarge classes to ensure financial sustainability, the ubiquitous status differential between teaching and research, the perceived disengagement of students, among many others. For any post-secondary instructor this difficult contradiction between ideal and reality lies at the heart of the vocation. For university leaders it is even more difficult, because they may feel that they actually have to do something about it.
This book is inspired by the complexities of creating a learning environment within the contemporary university. On one hand, the people who are facing the challenges of leadership within a college or university can and should be informed by considerations of learning, and how it can be encouraged, supported, and incorporated into everything that we do. To this extent, the discussion mirrors many conversations in primary and secondary schools over the last 20 years. On the other, I want to go well beyond this, because university education faces an extra layer of complexity. Schools are complicated enough institutions, but there is at least relatively widespread agreement on their role to support people (mostly young, in most places) to learn. Post-secondary education suffers from a far more muddled mission. Of course, we are there to support learning. But there is also research. And relevance to employment. Oh, and collegiate sports. And creating the young people of the future. And tackling diversity. And recognising equity while admitting only the very strongest students. These are all absolutely critical issues, but too often there is a perception they contradict or interfere with the opportunity to learn. I argue that all of these aspirations can be brought together, and the mission does not have to appear so muddled, if the idea of learning is placed firmly and seriously at the centre of our institutions.
The problem, as I would describe it, is post-secondary education becoming fundamentally distracted by the ever-increasing number of factors which have to be acknowledged and responded to in our work. Rather than re-assessing and re-configuring the shared central ethic of universities taking these factors into account, we have tried to deal with each factor separately and through different mechanisms. I believe we can do better, by identifying a unifying mission and using it as the central hub of the great wheel of activities spinning around post-secondary education in the twenty-first century. This discussion offers one such approach. I appreciate it might not work for everybody, but I do hope it might be useful to look at the idea of a central core, albeit contingent and contestable, as the way to create a centre from which all other activities can spring. For many people the hub may not be learning, but for me it is, and I hope I can explain why, and what this approach offers, in the following pages.
As I was preparing this introduction, I came across a passage that struck me as fitting well with the spirit of this book. It has become a truism in post-secondary settings, and universities in particular, that world rankings mean very little but are critically important. The rankings tend to portray universities in particular ways, as high status global knowledge creators and providers rather than as institutions embedded within communities and regions, responsive to local needs and aspirations (St. Clair, 2018). One aspect of the rankings is that they are fundamentally unidimensional, and provide only one way to be a âgoodâ university. This means all universities are seen as at least second-rate, apart from a top few, and this dynamic is intrinsic to the rankings systems. The question I have been reflecting on for a while is how a post-secondary institution can develop a challenging, dynamic mission, free from the impossible aspiration to climb rankings. That is when I came across the following quote:
I found this exciting because it suggested a possible alternative way to think about the question of what an excellent university looks like. If the ability of a university to serve as a learning partner were considered as a mark of excellence, it would take us away from a hyper-competitive paradigm assigning failure to most and towards a broader view of the post-secondary landscape where our institutions could claim success in many different ways. A great learning partner would look different in Delhi and Dakar from ones in Ohio and Oxford. It matters how we think about these issues, because they orient and shape our universities. A turn towards learning offers fundamental orientation and shaping built around a shared mission of which we can be proud.Universities can choose to brand themselves as knowledge providers or learning partners. When the university markets its faculty as top researchers who have the newest (and best) knowledge, it supports the perception of the university as an education institution and knowledge provider ⊠Other students will be attracted to a more network-based âambassadorâ model. They look for developmental relations between fellow students and faculty members. They need proof that personal investment is possible and that new knowledge can be developed and addressed by students in relation to their studies. (Löfvall & Nygaard, 2013, pp. 147â148)
The 72% Question
There is one point important to state in the introduction to this volume. Even though I am a university administrator, and have been for a considerable time, I remain certain that the creation of value in a post-secondary setting comes from instructors and researchers. Administrators do not add anything to the institution unless they enhance and support that creation of value. In the proverbial widget factory, every action not adding to widget sales is a lost opportunity to sell more widgets; there is really no neutral ground. Even doing nothing is expensive, because somebody is being paid to do nothing, and using resources that could pay for a new widget polishing machine. Being very simplistic, the same sort of situation pertains in post-secondary education. There is a fundamental mission at the heart of the post-secondary enterprise (thankfully, not selling widgets) and everything else depends upon the success of the mission. This simple truth is easily forgotten, not least by administrators. Of course, the value leaders bring to the organisation can also be overlookedâwe do have opportunities to make real, significant contributions.
The trend over the last several decades has been to add administrative layers and positions to institutions. If pressed, leaders will usually say that this is because the external demands have increased (quality control, for example). If we consider the extra functions many post-secondary institutions have to manageâmore concern with equity, better student services, international recruitment, complex research requirementsâit is not hard to see the truth of this response. Nonetheless, in most places in the world, these requirements bring little extra resource into the institution, so the main income streams of teaching and research support (where available) pay for all of it. The work is not only conducted by the academic staff, it is thought up and managed by them too.
It is important to consider how much can be leveraged on the academic workforce without it becoming unsustainable. When I was working at the University of Glasgow several years ago, I became interested in this question. The UK has one of the most complex and micro-managed post-secondary sectors in the world, with very detailed costings for all of its operations. In the UK, and the European Union more widely, research grant money often includes salary for the researcher, support for research assistants and materials, and money to employ administrative staff. Support for teaching, beyond the contribution students make in the form of tuition, is delivered through a grant which varies by institution. Universities have all sorts of income flows, but it is possible to calculate how they bear on the work of lecturers and professors. For example, one can take the teaching grant and divide it by student seats, and then multiply by students in a class to get a rough idea of the gross grant income that the class generates. This makes it possible to calculate in a broad sense how much income oneâs work is generating given the amount and source of research money, level and number of students, and so on. In my best calculation I was bringing in about 3.5 times my salary each year across all these different income streams.
There are several ways to look at this. Of course, it makes sense that academic work is the main income generation opportunity for our institutions. And there is a possibility of shared interests where the lecturer gets to be involved in more interesting and extensive work, and the post-secondary institution benefits. Alternatively, I could claim I was paying 72% of the value I was generating to the university for the pleasure of working there (it really was a pleasure, I should add!). And the following question is what I, or the people who were paying me to be there, were actually getting for that 72%.
This experience, and specific question, has deeply shaped my approach to leadership. Of course, we need to spend money to make things happen, but it is critical, in my view, to show our reasons for doing so, not only for it to make sense but also so that it can be explained. When we decide to employ a communications officer, questions such as why, why now, and why that person are likely to come up. If we visit China or another country at some expense, what do we hope to come out of it? How do we show that the resources we invest in are not just following the herd or thoughtless squandering?
There is a limit to how much of an inverted pyramid we can make balance on relatively skinny academic missions. When academics complain about how many people work in central administration, it may not just be the semi-good-natured grumbling endemic to our field. It may be the beginning of awareness of an imbalance in the whole edifice, a sense of instability as class sizes grow, tuition increases, elective courses get cut, and course releases get fewer. I believe the right to know extends to everybody within the organisation, and when I hear these questions, I am committed to answering them. It is important and correct to acknowledge that everybody has the obligation and the responsibility to ask about the 72%.
Post-secondary institutions are not military, and their resemblance to corporations is illusory. Post-secondary institutions, from community colleges to Harvard, are pseudo-hierarchies, more like political governance structures than anything else. The folk who lead do so only through the consent of those in the wider community, and leaders in post-secondary institutions are mainly charged with responsibility for an organisational structure and not directly for the people within it. The people within the structures comply with the ideas of the leadership on a fundamentally voluntary basis, not least because one day they may themselves be in the leadership role and hope people might listen to them when they reach that point.
While it is easy to be cynical or dismissive about the idea of teaching staff as sole contractors pulled together around a common grievance regarding the cost of parking (Kerr, 1963), there is great value in supporting a loose-tight fit between the institution and the people who work within it. The main resource universities offer to academics is the space to follow their vocations. Leadership in this context is not control; it is service in the broadest and deepest sense. Done well, it reinforces the deepest values of our academic community.
That is where the topic of this book comes in. Learning provides an anchor for our work and our thinking when it comes to leading one of these awkward, lumpy organisations. When I am asked why I used the 72% in the way that I did, I want to be able to show that I made decisions that promoted learning. Learning not just for the students, but for our instructors, our administrative staff, and for our leadership.
On Leadership
Leadership in higher education is not easy, and I want to acknowledge the commitment of the people who choose to take it on. The traditional model, where individuals take turns at doing various leadership roles, is being replaced by a far more specialised approach. Some academics, from this perspective, are the knowledge experts, while others make careers as administrators. Tied to this notion is the principle of cumulative and progressive experience: to become a university president you need to have been a vice-president, to become a VP you need to have been a dean, and so on. This means the administrative, or leadership, route is a multi-decade commitment rather than a three-year hiatus in a career of teaching and discovery.
There are costs to the emerging approach to leadership, both for institutions and individuals. For individual academics there is a practical need to abandon activities making the academic lifestyle attractive in the first place. Reading, writing, and reflection are almost always pushed out by the pressure of paperwork and meetings, and pragmatism comes to replace theoretical insights. This is especially unfortunate since it is usually talented academics who are lured into leadership positions. This is part of the cost for institutions, but an even deeper concern is the growing sense of âus vs. themâ in campus communities, with academics and leaders on different sides of the equation (Bess & Dee, 2014). As leadership is more frequently managed by an emerging professional corps, it is perhaps not too surprising that this creates tensions with collegial management expectations.
This book attempts to address this tension by presenting a value-centred collaborative and inclusive approach to leadership. The argument centres on the possibility of decision-making based on a shared set of values, allowing the collaborative and collegial aspects of higher education institutions to move front and centre once more. This does not undermine the professionalism of university leaders but does imply there is more than one way to be professional.
I will close with a word of encouragement. The task of leadership in universities does not lead to a termination or end point. There is no perfect state to which we can aspire. It is always a case of managing the process, and any change in the process. The role is political and undergoes the same sorts of curves of credibility and possibility as political positions, from excitement about the new leader all the way through accruing disillusionment to the lame duck period of the few months. Just as with politics, there is no way to attain perfection and please everybody. The best we can offer is sincere and principled engagement with the puzzles confronting us.
Pessimistic though this may sound, leadership does make an enormous contribution. Leaders try to manage the balance between the continuity essential to our institutions and the change necessary for their survival. They try to ensure the right degree of tippiness in our organisations, so they can be responsive to challenges from a position of strength and stability. While they may not always attain our goals, they can help move universities in directions reflecting honest and meaningful commitments. The measure of leadership is, in the end, not what you do, it is what you make possible.
A Brief Note on Terminology
Different parts of the world use different terms to talk about the same thing. Universities, post-secondary, higher education, colleges, and schools are all used in a variety of ways. In this book, the central form of institution considered is the research university with graduate and undergraduate programmes, multiple missions, and some level of public funding. One reason for this choice is my own experience, which has mainly been in this type of institution. Itâs also the most common form of university. A further rationale is that this is the most complex institutional form, so it should be easier for readers to skip the bits that do not apply to them if they work in another type of institution and still, I hope, get some value from the ideas here. In the text I will refer to universities, higher education, and post-secondary institutions since these terms overlap enormously and it helps to prevent too much repetition.
References
- Bess, J. L., & Dee, J. R. (2014). Bridging the divide between faculty and administration: A guide to understanding conflict in the academy. New York: Routledge.Crossref
- Kerr, C. (1963). The uses of the university. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.
- Löfvall, S., & Nygaard, C. (2013). Interrelationships between student culture, teaching and learning in higher education. In C. Nygaard, J. Branch, & C. Holtham (Eds.), Learning in...