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  • Organizational Development and Change in Higher Education: Implications for the Romanian Universities
  • Mariana Cernicova-Buca
Keywords

higher education, theories of change, Bologna process, leadership in higher education

Motto: You cannot step twice in the same rivers: for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

Heraclitus (in Plato, Cratylus)

Change is a rapid, fascinating, complex phenomenon. It stirred vast amounts of literature, originating in Ancient philosophy, and successfully drew into debate most sciences. The fundamental purpose of research is to try and decompose the process, to study it and to recompose it in a meaningful way. Even if meaning is subtle or elusive, scientists from all areas are still proud if they can give the measure for the “how” of change. The “why” and the “to what end” are much harder to grasp.

If change is inevitable—and so it is, proven over and over—can it be purposefully oriented? Can human intervention keep the process under [End Page 65] control and move it towards desirable, predictable results? To what extent can this be held true? If change is seen as evolution, adaptation, or development, what, if any, salient parameters have to be taken into consideration? Having reviewed only some of the questions regarding change and change processes, I turn now to another realm of concern: universities. After almost 1,000 years from their recognition as degree-awarding institutions, a time of almost unchallenged reign over research and teaching, universities are under siege. They developed, flourished, and challenged the wisdom and practice of other institutions in society, be those churches or civilian sources of power. They started purposefully to show an ivory tower image to society, but ceased to be (if they ever were) isolated from the heartbeat of society. However, prepared more to develop and share knowledge, universities at the turn of our millennium found them facing unknown threats:

  • ■ Society itself seems to value more skills then knowledge in the graduating students;

  • ■ Diploma-mills offer the degrees in exchange for more money and less effort for the willing;

  • ■ Businesses developed career centers called “universities”, although by far these new institutions do not offer general knowledge; and

  • ■ Knowledge itself presses for unconventional approaches (such as, for instance, the adaptation of universities to “smart technology” and to on-line courses).

Universities respond to all this to the best of their capacity:

  • ■ They provide ample descriptions of skills for their alumni;

  • ■ They develop or agree to comply to outside control, in the form of accreditation agencies and quality control committees, and develop accountability mechanisms and work with representatives of the public to sort out legitimate programs from bogus ones;

  • ■ They work close with businesses, to aid technology transfer, create public-private partnerships, tailor programs to the desire/needs of companies or institutions;

  • ■ They compete desperately for more funds for development and research, borrowing the language of business for their needs, in order to show productivity and quality parameters understandable for possible donors; and

  • ■ They incorporate new sciences and try to keep in balance culture, knowledge, and interests of the community, while they face globalization (and, as accompanying processes, de-territorialization and even loss of body, when it comes to virtual universities and global audiences). [End Page 66]

As provost of a young, private, Romanian university, which came into existence precisely to give response to some of the above-mentioned challenges, I am called on a daily basis to carry out change due, mostly, to the rapid transformation of the external environment, but also to the sophistication and diversification of academic life in the institution. Romanian higher education institutions are implementing the Bologna Declaration principles, which change drastically the structure of degree-awarding from the existing 4 (or 5) years for graduate studies + master programs (2 years) + doctoral studies (individually tailored up to 4 years) to the 3 + 2 + 3 model. In addition to this, the Bologna process requires countries embracing the model to provide evidence for quality control measures and for skills acquired by the alumni after the completion of each program. Therefore, structurally Romanian HE has to change, due to this new, European context, but it also has to rethink its content and academic procedures. Although the Bologna Declaration gives up...

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