In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

14 1. Have our colleges and universities found ways to maintain open ad­ missions and maintain truly college level education? 2. Have they found ways to make part-time education, for those for whom education has to be a secondary concern, truly the equivalent of full-time education? 3. Have the miracles of the computer, of microfilm, andall the audio­ visual technologies created a greater enthusiasm for learning among students? 4. Have we any assurance, despite our emphasis on lifelong learning, that a greater proportion of today's students, will spend more time reading and more time in libraries ten years after graduation than did the graduates of 1959? 5. Have we learned how to induce today's students, many of whom spend no more than 15 hours on the campus each week, to spend a fraction of that time in the library? 6. Has the politicization of the university and of university presi­ dents, vice presidents, deans, and others substituted a leadership who rank political capabilities above accomplishments in scholarship and a concern for learning? 7. Does today's choice of commencement and convention speakers— e .g ■, the state senator rather than the scholar— reflect the image of higher education we wish to fix in the minds of today's students? 8. Does the demand for accountability— the subjection of the university to the constant Kleig-light glare of media and especially constitu­ encies— reflect public appreciation of higher education or the ques­ tioning of the value of the college experience? I take a dimmer view of what has happened and is happening to the gover­ nance of our colleges and universities than do many others. But I concur with Baldridge, et al. , when they conclude with the statement that: " . . . with some levelheaded thought, and some real attention to our academic his­ tory and its rich heritage, we may yet see a resurgence of management, gover­ nance, and leadership that takes educational issues as its focal point" (p. 233, emphasis added). ORGANIZATIONAL INTERVENTION: A MERGER OF THEORY AND ACTION Chris Argyris Center for the Study of Organizations and Intervention Harvard University Each of these books presents a distinctive view; collectively they rep­ resent a pattern of findings and analyses that practitioners and researchers in administration of educational institutions will find of value. Millett chose six leading research universities; nine "other" universi­ ties (enrollments of more than 3,500 students that offered professional and graduate education); and 15 general baccalaureate colleges subdivided into "elite" colleges (high academic excellence), "distinctive" colleges (special kind of mission), "church related," "transitional public colleges," and "new public colleges." Individuals who had extensive experience as professors and/or administrators in higher education visited a site and conducted indepth clinical analyses of the governance structure and administrative activ­ ities. There is no methodological appendix to give the reader the details. 15 One gets the impression that the core activities were reducing the cases to manageable size without destroying their validity and to highlight the dis­ tinctive qualities of each institution as well as the underlying themes among institutions. It appears that Millett performed these tasks, and performed them well. The administrator will find that each university's history and governance are described elegantly (i.e■ , comprehensively with minimal con­ cepts and redundancy) and fairly. Campus governance underwent changes after 1965 as a response to student activism. In research universities campus governance has had little impact on clarifying educational purposes and slightly more impact at the other in­ stitutions. Campus governance was neither innovative nor forward-looking. Indeed there is very little evidence that campus governance resolved any of the critical issues. It may have given some students and faculty a feeling of participation. However, the stronger the academic and research excellence of the institution the less the participation by students in such issues as program objectives in instruction, departmental organization, budget policies and practices, student-teacher ratio, and degree requirements. Campus governance did have a significant impact on student behavior and, in the less prestigious universities, in the evaluation of faculty teaching performance. The underlying assumption of campus-wide governance was that if faculty members, students, professional staff, and academic administrators were brought together, better decisions would...

pdf

Share