Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University (review)

Gaye Tuchman studies a research university that is aspiring to elite status but is not quite there yet. She began studying Wannabe in 2003, concentrating on professors in four troubled social science departments, then shifted to a more ethnographic approach, focusing on the "transformation" of Wannabe through participant observation techniques that included observation of various meetings, including those of trustees, and interviewing administrators as well as professors.

She presents Wannabe U as a middle-status university trying to conform to what elite research universities practice, while at the same developing a brand of its own. In efforts to conform, Wannabe adopts businesslike models and makes concerted efforts to urge professors to develop external revenue streams. She sees senior administrators as engaged in trying to change professors through the development of an audit culture with more sticks than carrots. Because each ambitious administrator seeks to make a mark that will help his or her own career trajectory, they introduce a bewildering variety of plans and goals, leaving faculty confused and not sure what to focus on. However, there is continuity with regard to increasing emphasis on the audit culture and faculty accountability.

Tuchman looks at broad theories that address how universities change but moves over them quickly to focus on the development of "accountability regimes," à la Dorothy Smith, and "audit cultures," as are developing in the United Kingdom. She sees higher education as undergoing a process of "de-churching," so that the sector becomes more like all other institutions, particularly business. That approach leaves ambitious administrators as the primary driver of change. Administrators seek to "transform" Wannabe (undoubtedly many of them attended transformational leadership courses somewhere in their upward climb) into a unique, outstanding research university; yet ironically, they pursue the goal of uniqueness by imitating their aspirational peers, attending slavishly to rankings and "branding" to indicate distinctiveness.

The power of Tuchman's book is in its account of administrators, who seek to "audit" research activity and punish "shirkers," who cut costs by using part-timers, yet who ultimately expand costs by increasing the number of managers engaged in "quality assurance," "development activities" (fund-raising), and the "incubation" of faculty research. She sees "outside" administrators (those not drawn from the institution itself) as part of "new managerialism," dedicated to their own careers rather than to a specific university. She documents that few administrators above the level of dean ever return to the faculty. Rather, they have careers in a national administrative arena.

Tuchman analyzes the way managers and faculty strategize to improve their individual and collective positions in relation to each other. In this dance, the administration takes the lead and the faculty follow. Generally, senior administrators are concerned with developing an "audit" culture in the name of rationality, economy, and efficiency, all of which give them increasing control over faculty. Because administrators often move to other positions more rapidly than faculty, they seek to make decisive, bold marks on their institutions that will further their careers.

An important mark of administrative success is playing the ratings game—the U.S. News and World Report type, not the National Research Council type. Indeed, U.S. News and World Report does not pay much attention to research, so administrators usually home in on undergraduate education—hence, the rise of teaching-learning centers, learning communities, student-centered curricula, study abroad, and so forth (along with the many non-academic professionals who staff these programs). Ironically, according to Tuchman, as administrators institute an audit culture, they, along with faculty, become subject to its strictures, constricting their own range of action and ability to respond creatively to either opportunity or crisis.

The faculty at Wannabe U are relatively compliant. There is criticism and grousing, but not much open resistance and no revolt. Many faculty believe they are rewarded for research and, because they are focused on the lab and the library, do not pay attention to the small but recurring inroads into their work lives. As an example, Tuchman reminds...