Engaging the Six Cultures of the Academy (review)

Higher education administration is a relatively new field in the constellation of academic disciplines. It cannot compare with astronomy, which dates back to the earliest civilizations, or to music, which cannot be defined by an exact date. Because higher education administration and organizational theory is a new field of study, high-quality higher education administration and organizational theory texts are limited. Many currently available books on higher education theory and practice merely scratch the surface rather than fully explore the deeper structural and interpretive topics of higher education organizations.

Fortunately, W. H. Bergquist and K. Pawlak’s book is an exception. The co-authored Engaging the Six Cultures of the Academy is a second edition and update of Bergquist’s single-authored 1992 book, The Four Cultures of the Academy. However, Engaging the Six Cultures could be considered an entirely new text. The discussion of two additional cultures and enriched discussion of the four cultures outlined in the earlier edition make the second edition an expanded and valuable contribution to the higher education literature.

The authors forecast the depth and comprehensiveness of the text in the preface: “Most analyses of organizational culture are intriguing but not very useful. They provide vivid descriptions, but they rarely provide the historical underpinnings suggesting how the culture came to be what it now is” (p. ix). With this critique of the general organizational theory literature, Bergquist and Pawlak set the tone for a different kind of higher education text. Approaching their topic from a scholarly perspective, they combine theory from history, anthropology, architecture, sociology, and business to produce a volume that skillfully discusses the context, theory, and practice of colleges and universities.

The authors situate their six cultures—collegial, managerial, developmental, advocacy, virtual, and tangible—in a historical and cultural context that is artfully outlined in separate chapters. Collegial culture emphasizes the traditional nature of campus settings and the origins of North American higher education in England’s Oxbridge Model. The discussion of the collegial culture is helpful for those wanting to expand their knowledge about faculty culture, liberal arts traditions, and research and scholarship.

The chapter on managerial culture outlines the administrative side of higher education organizations. The authors locate its origins in the Catholic Church, including a discussion of the Jesuit influence on higher education. This chapter is helpful for anyone wanting to explore ways to manage more efficiently and effectively.

The authors discuss the origins of the developmental culture model in 1960s student activism. Following an interesting historical review of that era, they focus the developmental culture lens on faculty development, curriculum expansion, and institutional research, thus augmenting the discussion of student development topics. The chapter rounds out nicely with a discussion of recent ideas in this area: teaching and learning, Boyer’s scholarship reconsidered, and institutional change.

Though one might think that the origins of advocacy culture would be rooted in 1960s student activism, Bergquist and Pawlak instead discuss faculty unions, collective bargaining, and academic freedom as its sources. This chapter is an excellent introduction to faculty life from which one could better understand faculty priorities and emphases.

The virtual culture, one of the new cultures in this edition, includes a welcome discussion about the realities of working in higher education in the 21st century. Students, faculty, administrators, and staff lives are all firmly entrenched in the technological inventions (e.g., the internet, computers, cell phones) that now define our personal and professional lives. The authors’ discussion of virtual culture, including the advent of online and virtual universities, is essential to understanding higher education today.

The final chapter and second of the two added cultures—the tangible culture—is an outstanding complement to the discussion on virtual culture. Through discussions of space, architecture, and pedagogy, the authors help the reader understand why students, community members, parents, and alumni, among others, are drawn so convincingly and habitually to collegiate environments.

While the two new cultures were a welcome addition to...