Divided Conversations: Identities, Leadership, and Change in Public Higher Education - Softcover

Esterberg, Kristin G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826518990 ISBN 13: 9780826518996

Verlag: Univ of Chicago Press behalf of Vanderbilt Univ. P, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

Through their interviews with faculty and administrators (from department chairs and deans to provosts and presidents) from a sample of eight public universities in the Northeast and their own experiences in both worlds, the authors provide a unique window into the life experiences and identities of those who struggle to make universities work. The book examines the culture of academic institutions and attempts to understand why change in public higher education is so difficult to accomplish.

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The men and women on the campuses of the public universities described in the book make clear the challenges that universities face in terms of budgets, legislative politics, collective bargaining, rankings, and control of academic programs. If public institutions are truly to serve a public purpose, faculty and administrators must find ways to engage each other in shared conversation and management and find ways of engaging the university with the community.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Wooding served as Provost at the University of Massachusetts Lowell for four years, before returning to the Department of Regional Economic and Social Development, where he was a founding faculty member and chair. He is the coauthor of two books on the work environment.

Kristin G. Esterberg is Provost and Academic Vice President at Salem State University. She is a former chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she also served as Deputy Provost. She is the author of a book on gender and sexuality and a book on qualitative research methods.

Aus dem Klappentext

Faculty and administrators, often speaking at cross-purposes

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Divided Conversations

Identities, Leadership, and Change in Public Higher Education

By Kristin G. Esterberg, John Wooding

Vanderbilt University Press

Copyright © 2012 Vanderbilt University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8265-1899-6

Contents

Preface: A Public Higher Education, vii, 
Acknowledgments, xxiii, 
1 Divided Conversations and Pathways of Connection, 1, 
2 Learning the Language: Faculty Beliefs, Values, and Identities, 31, 
3 On Becoming an Administrator, 59, 
4 Disciplines, Departments, and Chairs, 81, 
5 Cultivating the Communal and Administering the Campus, 105, 
6 Purpose, Power, and Innovation: Some Pathways to Change, 135, 
References, 165, 
Index, 173, 

CHAPTER 1

Divided Conversations and Pathways of Connection

As any number of analysts of higher education have noted, American academic communities are notably fractured places with "tribes" and "territories" (Adams 1988; Becher 1989) and unruly forms of governance (Eckel and Kezar 2006). Some characterize academe as a culture of complaint, one in which we can't "just get along" (Frazee 2008). The cultures on our campuses too often frustrate change and innovation, deny access to talented potential students (and faculty), and fail miserably to keep struggling students in college when financial, emotional, academic, or family pressures make it difficult for them to continue. Centrifugal forces, including reward structures that essentially shift faculty and administrators' attention outside their institutions, ultimately reduce the focus on students and stymie attempts to create a more cohesive campus community. These cultures stifle both the intellectual work and the institutional commitments of both junior and midcareer faculty, cutting off a much-needed critical perspective for change.

By focusing on academic administrators' and faculty life stories as they play out on campus, this work provides a different perspective from recent scholarship on higher education. Much has been written about the crisis in higher education, but this crisis literature has rarely touched on the lives of faculty themselves, their training, and their relationships with university administration (Bok 2003; Boyer 1990; Calhoun 2006; Ehrenberg 2006a; Hersh and Merrow 2005; Kirp 2003; Schuster and Finkelstein 2006). Nor has it delved deeply into the lives and career aspirations of senior administrators. By examining their experiences, and by analyzing the relationships between and among faculty and administrators, we provide insights into the divided conversations taking place on our campuses.

During the course of our research, we interviewed thirty faculty, chairs, deans, provosts and associate provosts, and presidents/chancellors on eight campuses in the Northeast over a six-month period in 2008. The interviews were semi-structured and conducted in person, each lasting one to two hours. The campuses ranged in size from around nine thousand students to well over twenty-five thousand students, and they varied in terms of prestige from less to more selective. The sample included both rural and urban campuses. Like most public campuses in the Northeast, all were unionized.

We interviewed on several types of campuses: four flagships (which we call Large Rural Flagship, Small Rural Flagship, Big State University, and Rural Midsize U), three regional campuses (Suburban Branch, Urban Branch, and City Campus), and one master's level comprehensive (Comprehensive U). One of the campuses was the result of several mergers. Another had been established to accommodate the surge of enrollments in the 1960s, and two others had grown up around former state teachers colleges. In several cases (Urban Branch, Large Rural Flagship, Big State U), the campuses had explicitly set the aim of moving up in the prestige rankings.

We used chain referral sampling techniques, beginning with our personal contacts and moving outward from there. We do not pretend to have drawn a representative sample; nonetheless, we actively sought out respondents from a variety of disciplines and with a variety of experiences. We aimed to include both those who had relatively traditional degrees (political science, literature) and those who had experience in professional education (business), as well as those who had been in their positions a long time and those who were relatively new to their positions. We also aimed to include as many campuses in the Northeast as we could gain access to in the time allowed. Our sample included eleven women and nineteen men. Three of our administrators were African American; the rest, white.

Ultimately, our sample included four who had served as presidents or chancellors. Three of these had served on regional campuses (and one had served on two such campuses). The other had served on a flagship campus. Only one of these had not gone through the faculty ranks (and did not hold a doctorate). Strikingly, three of our four presidents/chancellors were women.

Of the eight provosts and two associate provosts (both of whom went on to assume a provost position), one served on a state comprehensive college campus, seven served on regional campuses, and two were from flagship campuses. All the provosts had served in a number of administrative roles, including stints as dean, graduate dean, vice provost for research, and department chair. Two had served as provosts on more than one campus. All who served as provosts or associate provosts had held tenured faculty positions. Two of the provosts interviewed ultimately moved on to a president/chancellor role. In this group, three were female and seven male.

The deans included one honors dean and seven academic deans, six from flagship campuses and two from regional campuses. The deans represented a variety of fields, including arts and sciences, business, and engineering. Two of the deans were women. Each of the deans except one had served as a department chair. All held tenured faculty positions.

For five of our interviewees (four males, one female), the role of chair was the highest administrative position held. Each of these was from a regional campus. We also interviewed three faculty members who had never served as department chair or in any other administrative position; these represented two flagship and one regional campus. Two were female and the other male.

In selecting interviewees, we sought to include multiple perspectives from the same campus. On two campuses (Urban Branch and City Campus), we were able to interview respondents at all levels, from rank-and-file faculty to president or chancellor, along with a representative from the system's office. This vertical sample enabled us to understand the campuses and the unique challenges they faced from multiple perspectives. At another (Rural Midsize U), we were able to interview at all levels from faculty to provost. At others, we were able to interview only a few respondents (Big State U, Large Rural Flagship) or a number of respondents from a more restricted range (Small Rural Flagship). We supplemented our interviews, where possible, with direct observations of the campus over time.

Our interviews and observations document that our campuses resemble a conglomeration of tribal communities organized into the villages and hamlets of departments and disciplines. The sense of identity glorified at college football games and alumni reunions rarely spills over into the day-to-day lives of students, faculty, and administrators. For senior administrators and campus leaders this poses a unique challenge:...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Univ of Chicago Press behalf of Vanderbilt Univ. P
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0826518990
• ISBN 13: 9780826518996
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 208
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland