Dynamics of the Contemporary University: Growth, Accretion, and Conflict

2. The Dynamics Ramify

40 T W O The Dynamics Ramify academic politics, conflict, and inequality To summarize the first chapter, I laid out a number of types of change that have characterized American higher education—increase in unit size, segmentation of units, differentiation (or specialization and complexity), proliferation of functions, and coordination. I identified one principle of change that to me seems especially salient; it is observable at all levels, and dramatically so in the research university. I called it “structural accretion.” The idea is simple enough. Growth is achieved by adding structures “on the side” of existing structures, but, critically, older structures are not shed in the process, even though their salience may change. The result is, over time, to create a kind of multifunctional monster with a diversity of structures, roles, and groups. My main aim was both to describe the accretion process and to trace a few of its many ramifications as a way of explaining what transpires in t h e d y n a m i c s r a m i f y 41 these institutions. I first analyzed the peculiarities of the quintessential accretion, the academic department, along with remarks about research centers and institutes. Then I identified a particularly intensive and polarized kind of conflict that accompanies innovation and the production of new accretions. Finally, I turned, sequentially, to the relation of accretions to the overloading of faculty activities and the decline of academic communities. What does all this add up to? One set of commentators recently described the modern elite research university as an “agile elephant” (Paradeise and Thoenig 2011: 10). This is very colorful, but upon reflection I have concluded that it is only half-true. The description applies best to institutions’ and leaders’ behavior during periods of growth, which must be “agile” in the face of competition for external support and funding for new enterprises (accretions), and the result of all the accretions has been to produce an elephantine creature. It may also apply to hard times when leaders scramble desperately for new lines of activity, even less profitable ones, in their need for resources. However, it does not characterize the second component—namely, the resistance to shedding. Here the qualifying adjective for the elephant becomes “reluctant ” or “stubborn.” Another way of putting this is that the dynamics of growth are different from the dynamics of shrinking (or, in this case, not shrinking). Growth involves seeking or accepting resources, taking advantage of opportunities, building new units, justifying the intended use of resources, bringing on new personnel, and incorporating them into the institution. Nonshrinking involves mechanisms of inertia, vested interests , in-fighting, and incremental and artistic pruning and shaving. Growing is thus more fun than shrinking, even though both processes involve a great deal of competition and conflict. In this chapter, I push the implications developed in chapter 1 further. I analyze first the implications of institutional stability resulting from accretion, and how institutions respond to external instabilities. Then I turn to the growth of internal and external constituencies; the implications of this growth for group conflict, administration and academic politics ; and, finally, the implications of accretion for systems of academic stratification and institutional prestige. 42 c h a p t e r t w o i n s t a b i l i t i e s i m p o s e d o n i n e r t i a l s t a b i l i t y First, I take up a special range of dynamics. While accretion is one source of growth-related instability for institutions, it does not exhaust those sources. The results of accretion leave a residue of inertia—the stubborn elephant—that makes it difficult, in different ways, to respond to external instabilities. I classify these instabilities as (a) the python-and-goat principle (b) economic fluctuations, and (c) competitors for finite resources . I consider them in order. Of Pythons and Goats The python-goat imagery is a vivid way of describing the impact of certain demographic variations. The most dramatic example is the enormous leap in birth rates during the baby boom after World War II. That created a large population cohort (a goat) that had to be swallowed all at once. That cohort marched through the life cycle (the python) making demands for growth and adaptation and threatening to wreck, sequentially, one institution after another—pediatric care...