The University in Transition: Of Stars, Cash Cows and Dogs

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The University in Transition Of Stars, Cash Cows
and Dogs
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The Academia at a Crossroad An American and
Chinese Perspectives   Arie Halachmi
and Kinglun Ngok Tennessee State
University (USA) Sun Yat-sen Universi
ty (China) Sun Yat-sen
University (China)
Email Ahalachmi_at_tnstate.edu
klngok_at_126.com     The Fourth
Sino-US International Conference on Public
AdministrationRutgers University, N.J., June
7-8, 2008
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The early roots

• The institution that we today call the University
  began to take shape in Bologna at the end of the
  eleventh century, when masters of Grammar,
  Rhetoric and Logic began to devote themselves to
  the law.
• In 1158 Federico I promulgated the Constitutio
  Habita, in which the University was legally
  declared a place where research could develop
  independently from any other power.

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• Over the years and, in order to secure
  resources and relevancy, more elaborate mission
  statements evolved as illustrated by the
  following unscientific sample

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What is the traditional mission of the
university

• Iowa State University of Science and Technology
  is a public land-grant institution serving the
  people of Iowa, the nation, and the world through
  its interrelated programs of instruction,
  research, extension, and professional service.
  With an institutional emphasis upon areas related
  to science and technology, the University carries
  out its traditional mission of discovering,
  developing, disseminating, and preserving
  knowledge.

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• The University of St Andrews' (UK) mission is to
  deliver high quality education and research in a
  distinctive range of subjects in Arts, Sciences
  and Divinity.

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• The primary mission of the University of
  Washington is the preservation, advancement, and
  dissemination of knowledge. The University
  preserves knowledge through its libraries and
  collections, its courses, and the scholarship of
  its faculty

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• The mission of the University of Manitoba is to
  create, preserve and communicate knowledge and,
  thereby, contribute to the cultural, social and
  economic well-being of the people of Manitoba,
  Canada and the world.

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• The Mission of Harvard College
• Harvard College adheres to the purposes for which
  the Charter of 1650 was granted "The advancement
  of all good literature, arts, and sciences the
  advancement and education of youth in all manner
  of good literature, arts, and sciences and all
  other necessary provisions that may conduce to
  the education of the ... youth of this
  country...." In brief Harvard strives to create
  knowledge, to open the minds of students to that
  knowledge, and to enable students to take best
  advantage of their educational opportunities

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• The mission of the University of Cambridge is to
  contribute to society through the pursuit of
  education, learning, and research at the highest
  international levels of excellence.

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• To a large extent, the University of Paris
  Sorbonne (Paris IV) was the inheritor of the
  former University of Paris Arts and Sciences
  Faculties. Since its creation it has been
  governed by five presidents .
• Their initiatives have been aimed at promoting
  the cultural heritage of the Sorbonne, with a
  focus on disciplines in the literary and human
  science fields. This purpose will be furthered by
  giving top priority to the study of civilizations
  and to the continuance of strong teaching in the
  classics

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• The mission of York University is the pursuit,
  preservation, and dissemination of knowledge. We
  promise excellence in research and teaching in
  pure, applied and professional fields. We test
  the boundaries and structures of knowledge. We
  cultivate the critical intellect.

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• The Mannheim Business School is dedicated to
  leadership in education and research in business
  administration and the management sciences.

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• The primary mission of Peking University is
  training scholars for advanced research in the
  natural and social sciences.

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Finding out what is the mission

• Official missions are compiled for internal
  and external marketing of the university
• The selected phraseology for articulating the
  mission(s) is loaded with high symbolic values.
  The rhetoric in use is aimed to evoke all kinds
  of support (e.g., economic, or political),
  legitimacy and relevancy.
• Yet, they may not reflect accurately the actual
  mission(s) a university is pursuing.

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Mission Creep and the Entrepreneurial University

• James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus of The
  University of Michigan asserts that all of higher
  education faces a certain dilemma related to the
  fact that it is far easier for a university to
  take on new missions and activities in response
  to societal demand than to shed missions as they
  become inappropriate or threaten the core
  educational mission of the institution.

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Mission Creep and the Entrepreneurial University

• James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus of The
  University of Michigan asserts that this is a
  particularly difficult matter for the American
  research university because of intense public and
  political pressures that require the institution
  to continue to accumulate missions, each with an
  associated risk, without a corresponding capacity
  to refine and focus activities to avoid risk.
  Whether particular academic programs, services
  such as health care or economic development, or
  even public entertainment such as cultural events
  or intercollegiate athletics, each has a
  constituency that will strongly resist any
  changes.

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Finding out what is the mission

• It is possible to identify at least two other
  sources of information about the true mission
  of the university as it is understood from
  within the university
• Analysis of financial documents
• Content analysis of the questions or debates on
  Campus.

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I. Analysis of financial documents

• Finding out what items in the university budget
  are getting the lion share of resources reflects
  the universitys leadership vision and the
  politics that is involved in the interpretation
  of the formal mission(s)

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I. Analysis of financial documents

• One does not have to be a financial expert to
  conclude that, if less than 50 of the budget is
  allocated to underwrite the cost of academics,
  the institution under study is not in the
  business of higher education.

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I. Analysis of financial documents

• One does not have to be a financial expert to
  conclude that, if less than 50 of the budget is
  allocated to underwrite the cost of academics,
  the institution under study is not in the
  business of higher education.
• The problem is that creative accounting can mask
  such a reality due to its possible ramifications

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I. Analysis of financial documents

• Examining the major sources of revenues may also
  tell about the real business of the university.

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II. Content analysis of the questions or debates
on Campus.

• According to one Past University President there
  is a seemingly endless array of decisions
  bubbling up, swirling through and about, the
  contemporary university. At the core are those
  academic decisions that affect most directly the
  academic process
• Whom do we select as students (admissions)?
• Who should teach them (faculty hiring,
  promotion, and tenure)?
• What should they be taught (curriculum and
  degree requirements)?
• How should they be taught (pedagogy)?

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Other example of possible issues

• Academics v. Entertainment (e.g., sport)
• Research v. Instruction
• Do it or buy it (e.g., support services)
• Social/community/environmental responsibilities
• Public service (or civic education) v.
  scholarship
• Diversity and internalization
• Face to face (i.e., traditional) v. Virtual
  (i.e., IT based) delivery

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What influences the debate on campus?

• Developments in IT
• Globalization
• Devolution of government roles
• Reshaping of the demography pyramid
• Run it like a business demands by government,
  private donors and, the public
• Shifts in popular expectations of the role(s) the
  university should play

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What is the issue?

• As asserted by William G. Bowen, former President
  of Princeton, in his 2000 Romanes Lecture at the
  University of Oxford everything the university
  used to do can now be done better and/or cheaper
  off campus by alternative providers.
• This includes, in particular, instruction and
  research.
• Thus, what should be the role (mission) of the
  university in the future?

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What is the issue?

• Deciding about the future role(s) or mission(s)
  of the university is unavoidable at this
  junction.

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What is the issue?

• Deciding about the future role(s) or mission(s)
  of the university is unavoidable at this
  junction.
• However, the traditional decision making at many
  universities is painfully slow because it is
  process oriented (i.e., shared governance) rather
  than result oriented.

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What is the business of the university?

• The only consensus in the literature is that the
  university is at a crossroad. There are opposing
  views concerning the desired and possible
  directions universities should pursue.

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What is the business of the university?

• This lack of consensus suggests that there is no
  one model or strategy that fits all.
• Each university should develop its own
  mission(s) and chart its own way for the future.
• Such a diversity of approaches and models may
  provide society with some assurance that major
  oversights would not be committed

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The Academia in China

• For a long time, all colleges and universities in
  China had been under a direct state control. They
  were run, funded, and managed by the government.
  Under these conditions of meager funding and
  bureaucratic supervision the development of
  higher education was stifled.

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• However, since the early 1980s the Chinese
  government began to encourage business
  enterprises, private institutions, individuals,
  and even foreign institutions to support academic
  programs in existing educational institutions or
  to sponsor new or joint educational institutions

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• The reason for this change of heart?

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• A realization that the desired economic
  development at home and the international
  standing of the country in the global village
  require a well educated labor force

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• In addition to the central government local
  governments too had an important role in
  expanding the scale of higher education. With
  the decentralization policy adopted in the
  mid-1980s, provincial governments have been
  encouraged to get involved in the sponsoring and
  administration of all Ministry of Education-led
  universities located in the provinces.

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• Local governments have been enthusiastic about
  their new role in establishing new local
  universities or the updating of existing higher
  learning institutions.
• The common assumption in local government circle
  was that such activities would improve local
  economic and social development.

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• Partnerships between universities and
  corporations,(e.g., the cooperation between Jilin
  University and China FAW Group Corporation in
  training of professionals in auto industry)
  attracted new students

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• According to Delaney (2007 ), Years of booming
  expansion have left Chinese universities
  struggling to cope with mounting debts, hampering
  the operations of some institutions.
• The rapid growth which was encouraged by the
  government took place under the Premiership of
  Zhu Rongji in the 1990s.  

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• The results included ambitious programmes to
  build new campus facilities and subsidise student
  loans. These activities have left higher
  education institutions owing nearly 33 billion
  yuan (US4.5 billion) (Delaney 2007).

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• On 19 March 2007, Jilin universitys finance
  office put up a notice on campus internet
  revealing that the university is in financial
  crisis, and asking proposals from staff and
  students on solutions.

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Two Questions

• Why has Jilin University borrowed so such much
  from bank?
• Why has the bank lent so much money to it?

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• The answer lies in the special relationship
  between the university and the state, and because
  in China universities are special kind of
  state-owned enterprises. Universities have been
  during the last two decades under government
  pressure to expand university campuses and to
  invest in infrastructure so they can enroll more
  students.

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• In fact, borrowing more money meant more benefits
  for the university. Loans improve the teaching
  and research conditions at the borrowing
  university. In particular it allowed universities
  to increase the salary and fringe benefits of all
  their staff. A clever university president was
  expected to borrow as much money as possible.

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• The massification of university education is the
  reason many key universities have been suffering
  from financial difficulties in recent years.

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• It is believed that Jilin University made its
  financial scandal public was to induce the
  provincial and national governments to share its
  debts

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• On May 4, 1998, then President Jiang Zemin
  announced that China must have some world-class
  universities. immediately, building world-class
  universities became a national policy priority in
  China.
• .

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• Since then, World-class universities has become
  a buzzword in China, and a few selected top
  Chinese universities launched their own plans to
  transform themselves into world-class
  institutions
• Or, if you want, to merit a greater share of
  governments funding

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• Borrowing a page from Americas TV shows on how
  to become wealthy

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• In order to build world-class universities in
  China, both the Chinese government and Chinese
  universities have taken great efforts to identify
  the characteristics of world-class universities.
• Since 1998 when such a policy was initiated, many
  forums, seminars, even international conferences
  have been conducted in China to explore what the
  term a world-class university is all about.

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• In his speech at Peking University in May 1998,
  Jiang Zemin outline the basic characters of
  first-rate universities in terms of education
  quality.
• As Jiang put it, first-rate universities should
  (1) train high-level creative talent, (2) turn
  out high-standard, original research results, and
  (3) make outstanding major contributions to
  society (Peoples Daily, 5 May 1998).

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• Though he highlighted some general attributes
  Jiang did not give a clear-cut definition of the
  term world-class universities.

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• Since 2003 the nine universities which have
  benefited from the first and second round of
  funding under the 985 Scheme held a series of
  annual academic seminar on the Theory and
  Practice of Establishing First-Class
  Universities.
• These seminars generated revenues from 2 sources
  Government funding and registration fees

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• At each seminar, top officials from these nine
  universities and well-known scholars shared their
  opinions on what are and how to build up
  world-class universities. Their discussion
  covered different aspects of building up
  world-class universities, especially on the
  dimensions such as academic disciplines, faculty,
  students, administration and equipment.

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• To promote better understanding of the term the
  Ministry of Education supported the creation of a
  new research center on world-class universities
  at Shanghai Jiaotong University.

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• A review of these and Chinese literature on
  world-class universities suggests the evolvement
  of some consensus within the Chinese higher
  education community about the basic attributes of
  world-class universities.

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• Accordingly, world-class universities should have
  first-class academic disciplines, a first-class
  teaching contingent, first-class student sources,
  first-class talent training, first-class
  scientific research results, first-class
  administrative and operating mechanisms, powerful
  financial strengths and material and
  technological foundation, the state-of-art
  equipment, and make outstanding contributions to
  the country and to social development

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• In America philanthropists, faculty, alumni,
  students and university presidents played
  important roles in the development of the current
  mission of their respective universities.
• In comparison, in China the government, at the
  national and local levels had the first and the
  last say about it. The different approaches are
  the result of the different histories of the two
  countries in general and the role of the central
  (and sub-national) governments in particular.

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• The first universities in the United States,
  e.g., Harvard, were not created for the sake of
  economic benefits to the community, the state or
  the country. Nor were they established to
  provide a well educated poll of employees. From a
  sociological point of view, American universities
  were established to serve the needs of the elite.

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• In America, universities evolve as an important
  tool for addressing social and economic problems.
  After World War I and even more so after World
  War II, the academia served many functions.
  Universities played an important role in the
  integration of immigrants, social mobility,
  keeping war veterans off the unemployment line
  and, preparing students for careers.

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• The obstacles American universities face when it
  comes to charting their path from the present
  into the uncertain future has to do more with
  issues of university governance, i.e., faculty,
  administrators, students, alumni, and community
  participation, than government planning or its
  social and economic policies.

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• To become or stay a world-class university a
  campus is not dependent on government approvals
  or policy but on the ability of its top officials
  to mobilize the needed resources.

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• The case of China is very different. In the
  Post-Mao area the reforming of universities has
  been part of the general effort to reform the
  country.
• Universities became the mechanism for grooming a
  skilled labor poll that was needed to carry out
  the economic reforms the government wanted.

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• During that time the top leaders of the country
  stopped looking at universities as a potential
  source of trouble.
• In fact, the government started to consider
  universities as possible partners in carrying out
  the new policies of development, decentralization
  and involvement in the emerging Global Village.

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• The University reforms that evolved as a result
  of the change in the role of (or the interface
  between) the national government and higher
  education was based on such notions as
  decentralization and marketization.

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• Yet, in comparison to American universities, the
  political and bureaucratic control of the
  government over universities is still strong.

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• The party-state has controlled not only the power
  to appoint presidents in the public funded
  universities, but also the power of academic
  degree conferment in the private universities.

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• A major difference between universities in China
  and in the USA has to do with the governance
  structure of the universities.
• In the case of most not-for-profit universities
  in America, whether they are private or public,
  faculty involvement in managing the academic
  affairs of the university is taken for granted.

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• Hence faculty has a say about hiring, promotion
  and tenure of the professors, course requirements
  for various degree programs etc. Such
  participation is also a condition for
  accreditation of programs by professional groups.
  
• As a result of this shared governance practice
  the introduction of changes is difficult and time
  consuming.

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• In China, the important role of bureaucrats, both
  on and off campus, influences the attributes of
  the academic decision making process.
• Solutions to immediate and pressing government
  needs prevail over long term considerations.
• In particular this seems to be true when the
  academia is mobilized to address the urgent needs
  of government instead of addressing the future
  needs of the academia.

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• The freedom American universities have to give
  various objectives (e.g., teaching, research,
  service) different weights reduces the odds of
  myopic vision across the board. In other words,
  the American academic pluralism is reducing the
  probability of great mistakes.

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• The lack of academic pluralism in China
  guarantees, at least in theory, that very costly
  mistake could take place

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• There is no question that universities in both
  China and the United State are at a crossroad,
  though not at the same one.

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• American universities must deliberate what they
  want to be in the future given the new realities
  of the academic market.
• One important attribute of this new market is
  that what not-for-profit universities were doing
  in the past can now be done better by other
  entities, e.g., for-profit universities or
  commercial research laboratories like Bell Labs

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• Academic institutions in China must decide on
  many other important issues such as, whether to
  forego public funding or accept what the
  government decide for them in terms of mission
  and the immediate objectives they must attain
  (e.g., evolving as a world class universities
  by any definition).

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• They need to address significant economic issues
  concerning the existing debt while mobilizing
  resources to underwrite current operations.
• They must come up with new solutions for
  over-crowding in classrooms and dorms, brain
  drain of outstanding young faculty to foreign
  countries and industry, etc.

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• Closer and more collaboration among faculty and
  universities in both countries is not a solution
  to the problem we described.
• Rather, it is a promising strategy in the search
  for such possible solutions.

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