Sustaining Change in Universites: Continuities in Case Studies and Concepts (review)

The forces of change are many for higher education. An increasing student population requires greater access to a breadth and depth of information unparalleled in recent decades. Meeting these needs raises the stress inherent in relying on complex and volatile sources of revenue. The issues facing colleges and universities raise questions of strategy, leadership, funding, and balance, all the while requiring maintaining a focus on the core elements of the academic mission.

Research has highlighted an international shift away from public higher education, supported and regulated by the government, toward a less-regulated, market-responsive university (Bok, 2003; Newman, Couturier, & Scurry, 2004). Whether this change is perceived as positive or negative, colleges and universities are forced to respond. If, as Burton Clark maintains, "the future of universities rests in their self-reliance," then the subsequent challenge for higher education is to initiate and sustain changes that respond to the competitive market. The challenge, then, is twofold: first, to disrupt the status quo and pursue new methods of operation; and second, to maintain a long-term, committed perspective toward innovation and change.

In Sustaining Change in Universities: Continuities in Case Studies and Concepts, Burton Clark writes that change is not only inevitable, but also—if properly managed and pursued— has the potential to create institutional opportunities. His conceptual framework is that the elements of entrepreneurialism and sustainability center on "reinforcing interaction, perpetual momentum, and ambitious collegial volition . . . an emergent act of will" (93). The difficulty is for universities to find a responsive balance, while giving due consideration to their social obligations and their institutional mission. Not all colleges and universities are able or willing to pursue change. Transformation is deliberate, maintains Clark, and requires the impetus for change and the ability to sustain innovations.

The questions Clark attempts to answer through this text are complex. Why do some universities choose a path of transformative change in response to a volatile marketplace? What allows some to succeed and others to fail? Clark's book represents a shift in the discussion about the implications of the changing nature of American higher education, to a more holistic approach with an international, comparative perspective. Although the book is not a "how-to" manual of change, Clark offers numerous examples of how institutions cope with modern demands.

This volume is best read as a continuation of Clark's 1998 Creating Entrepreneurial Universities: Organizational Pathways of Transformation, with additional references to earlier studies. The current work revisits institutions highlighted in 1998 to discover how innovations have fared. In addition, Clark adds case studies from other universities in Africa, South America, Australia, and the United States. The result carries the reader through multiple cultural contexts for higher education, yet the underlying themes are obvious. How can universities manage state and market pressures while engaging in the process of sustained innovation? How do universities maintain the essential elements of higher education—teaching, learning, service, and, in certain cases, research—while responding to the need for change?

Chapters 1–5 explore Clark's original universities, located throughout Europe. Each case study illustrates components of what Clark labels the necessary transforming elements of change: diversified funding, a strengthened steering core, supplemental peripheral activities, and an integrated entrepreneurial culture.

Change is sustained when it is supported by the diverse array of university stakeholders. At the University of Warwick, for example, administrators coped with decreasing government funding by developing alternate sources of income based on important academic values: "the provision of graduate training, short courses for the commercial sector, recruitment of overseas students, and the research grant/contract income" (p. 13). Free from a reliance on government funding, the university deliberately fostered an ambitious environment of growth and outreach involving all departments.

In Chapters 7–10, Clark summarizes case studies of universities in Uganda, Chile, Australia, and the United States. The individual circumstances are diverse: in Uganda, Makerere University struggled...