Understanding Higher Education

1
Understanding Higher Education

• Lecture 1
• The re-structuring of higher education

2
Key features of UK higher education before 1963

• Elite participation - 8 of age group
• Small, homogenous university sector - just 24
• Narrow subject range
• Generous state funding via the Universities
  Grants Committee
• Dual system of higher education

3
Robbins Report (1963) key recommendations

• Expansion of higher education - 8 to 17 of young
  age group
• CATs to be converted into Technological
  universities
• Broader first degree courses
• Need for more postgraduate provision
• Need for State to fund expansion

4
The post-Robbins transformation

• Croslands Woolwich speech (1965)
• Creation of new universities
• CATs converted into universities
• Funded expansion
• Establishment of the Polytechnics and the Open
  University
• Creation of the CNAA and a new DES
• Innovative nature of new institutions

5
The Polytechnic Experiment success or failure ?

• Impetus from Crosland not Robbins
• Accountability and the CNAA
• Vocational orientation
• Curriculum innovation
• Participation
• Problems of parity of esteem and academic drift
• Corporate status (1988)
• Ending of the binary system (1992)
• sector convergence
• competition deregulation

6
Dearing Report (1997) recommendations

• Expanded provision for all - sub-degree and
  lifelong learning
• Widening participation a key goal
• more effective teaching and learning strategies -
  ILT and staff devt.
• Beneficiaries of HE should pay part of the costs
  (including students)
• value-for-money and cost effectiveness
• National qualifications framework and degree
  standards maintained - QAA, benchmarking,
  franchising control

7
Dearing Report (1997) recommendations

• More work experience for students
• Progress file
• Development of key skills

8
Post-Dearing changes

• Student fees
• Establishment of ILT
• Subject benchmarking
• University college title
• Possibility of Associate degrees
• Funding for teaching learning
• Performance tables on social inclusion

9
Higher Education trends in the 1990s

• Massification
• New managerialism
• Accountability
• Differentiation/stratification
• Globalisation
• Competition

10
Higher Education trends in the 1990s

• Modularisation and semesterisation
• Access and Lifelong learning
• Vocationalism
• Feminisation
• Technology and learning
• Servitisation/McDonaldisation

11
Conclusions

• Rapid transformation from elite to mass
• Higher education now part of the global village
  - knowledge society
• Robbins report internally focused - academic
  community
• Dearing report externally focused - stakeholders,
  wider society
• A new binary divide ?
• research-access
• global-local

12
The pluralism of UK higher education 1. Oxford
and Cambridge 2. University of London 3. The
Victorian civics (eg Bristol, Leeds,
Liverpool) 4. The Redbrick universities (eg
Exeter, Hull) 5. Durham and Keele
universities 6. The Technological universities
(eg Aston, Brunel) 7. The Scottish
universities 8. The Welsh universities 9. The
Northern Irish universities 10. The Open
University 11. The old new universities (eg
UEA, Essex, Kent) 12. The new new universities
(eg Anglia, Brighton) 13. Multi-faculty colleges
(eg Bolton, Nene) 14. Liberal arts colleges (eg
Bath) 15. Further/higher education colleges 16.
Specialised colleges (eg KIAD) Scott (1995
43-53)
13
Key points from Scott (1995)

• Universities are thoroughly modern institutions
• Pluralism of British higher education
• Transition from elite to mass systems a global
  phenomenon
• UK has a mass system but with elite instincts
• Binary divide was largely administrative rather
  than philosophical
• Autonomy eroded by changing expectations not
  state funding per se

14
The H.E. Agency jungle
Funding bodies
eg ESRC, MRC, Charities
HEFCE/SHEFC/ HEFCW/DHFETENI
eg TTA, Health Authorities, etc
Research
Teaching
Research
Teaching
RAE
Reporting
Higher Education Institutions
HESA
QAA, Ofsted, ENB, etc
CVCP, SCOP
AUT, NATFHE
ILT
Quality audit
Representation
Professional accreditation
15
British higher education has become a mass system
in its public structures, but remains an elite
one in its private instincts. Scott (1995) p.
2 Universities are thoroughly modern
institutions.the ancient pedigree of the
universities is largely a myth Scott (1995) p. 11
16
The UGC was seen as an ingenious institution
which, uniquely, allowed British universities to
be both publicly funded and insulated from
political pressure Scott (1995) p. 15 The
dominant reason for the shift to the donnish
university was the states growing stake in
higher education. Scott (1995) p. 63
17
Systems of Higher Education

• University-dominated
• (other post-secondary technical education seen as
  quite separate)
• Dual
• (need for co-ordination recognised but
  universities seen as structurally superior)
• Binary
• (2 parallel HE systems but relationship drifting
  from complementarity to competition)
• Unified
• (comprehensive HE system, differences in status
  and reputation emerging)
• Stratified
• (missions of individual HEIs become
  differentiated)

18
The changing campus through fiction

• Lucky Jim (1954)
• - A farce about a history lecturer, Jim Dixon,
  in a stuffy, bourgeois, provincial university
• The History Man (1975)
• - The adventures of a lecherous, left-wing
  History lecturer
• Nice Work (1988)
• Temporary English lecturer, Dr Robyn Penrose
  spends Industry Year shadowing Vic Wilcox, MD
  of Pringles Engineering, in a class and culture
  clash
• The Mens Room (1989)
• - A successful female sociologist with a
  husband and 4 children becomes a victim of sexual
  politics when she has an affair with her new
  H.O.D.

19
Understanding Higher Education

• Lecture 2
• The aims of higher education

20
University traditions

• Knowledge model
• Humboldtian university in Germany
• research is at the heart
• Professional model
• Frances grande ecoles
• professional workers and public servants
• Personality model
• centred on Oxbridge
• civilised gentlemen
• liberal intellectual culture

21
What is special about higher education ?

• Is higher education just another phase/branch
  of education ?
• More of what has gone before (further
  education) ?
• Unique values/conditions necessary for a higher
  education ?

22
Barnetts value background to higher education

• The pursuit of truth and objective knowledge
• Research
• Liberal education
• Institutional autonomy
• Academic freedom
• A neutral and open forum for debate
• Rationality
• The development of the students critical
  abilities

23
Barnetts value background to higher education

• The development of the students autonomy
• The students character formation
• Providing a critical centre within society
• Preserving societys intellectual culture
• (Barnett (1990) pp. 8-9)

24
Vocationalism and liberal education

• Classic dichotomy of educational aims

25
Vocationalism

• Liberal education is elitist
• Practical and useful knowledge is needed for
  economic well-being
• Producing the right kind of citizen is important
  for society (social relevance)

26
Liberal education

• R.S. Peters three interpretations of a liberal
  education
• Pursuit of knowledge for its own sake
• As a general education
• As development of the autonomous free thinker
  capable of approaching what one is told
  critically

27
Changing language of higher education

• Monastic, inward-looking
• lecturer, student, degree, seminar, academic
  freedom, research
• Managed, outward-looking
• access, market, globalisation, lifelong learners,
  performance indicators, partnerships

28
Conclusion

• Aims/values
• strong support for liberal education values
  despite massification vocationalism
• Necessary conditions
• - academic freedom, institutional autonomy
• A false dualism ?
• - a liberal vocationalism ?

29
The aims of higher education
Individual students
Community
I
IV
Affect
Attitudes, Values, Emotional Integrity,
Interpersonal skills
Cultural development
II
V
Knowledge and research as a national resource
Cognition
Knowledge and Skills of thinking
III
VI
Adaptable Occupational Skills
Adaptable highly trained workforce
Employment
Source Bligh, Thomas McNay (1999)
30
The ethos of later-Victorian Oxbridge, a fusion
of aristocratic and professional values, stood
self-consciously in opposition to the spirit of
Victorian business and industry It exalted a
dual ideal of cultivation and service against
philistine profit seeking (Wiener, 1981) pp.
22-23 liberal education, viewed in itself, is
simply the cultivation of the intellect, as such,
and its object is nothing more or less than
intellectual excellence (Newman, 1852, p. 121)
31
men are men before they are lawyers and if you
make them capable and sensible men, they will
make themselves capable and sensible
lawyers.what professional men should carry away
with them from a University is not professional
knowledge, but that which should direct the use
of their professional knowledge, and bring the
light of general culture to illuminate the
technicalities of a special pursuit J.S. Mill
(1867) Inaugural Lecture at the University of St.
Andrews
32
Understanding Higher Education

• Lecture 3
• The academic community

33
The academic community

• The private life of higher education (Martin
  Trow)
• Bechers Academic Tribes and Territories
• epistemological and sociological analysis

34
Academic territories
Hard
Soft
Pure
eg Mathematics eg
English
Applied
eg Engineering
eg Media Studies
After Biglan (1973) and Becher (1989)
35
Territories among business lecturers
Hard
Soft
Pure
eg Quantitative eg Sociology,
methods, Economics
Psychology
Applied
eg Accountancy eg HRM,
Marketing
36
Origins of business lecturers

• Refugees
• dislodged disciplinary specialist (eg the
  economists) refugees from industry
• Nomads
• re-invented individuals (eg fomer economists who
  now teach marketing)
• Tourists
• service a business course from another faculty
  (eg linguists, lawyers)

37
Hard and soft knowledge

• Hard knowledge
• Impersonal, value-free, systematic scutiny of
  relationships between variables
• Soft knowledge
• Personal, overtly value-laden, numerous variables
  less amenable to patterning

38
Social features of knowledge communities

• Convergent communities (tightly knit)
• strong fundamental ideologies
• common values
• shared judgements of quality
• fraternal sense of nationhood
• strong external boundaries
• high status
• Divergent communities (loosely-knit)
• lack mutual cohesion and identity
• cognitive borders ragged/ill-defined
• low status

39
Questions of status

• Hard/Pure has higher status than Soft/Applied
• Low status corresponds to external values being
  imposed
• Convergent communities tend to have higher status
  than divergent communities

40
Most academics will have taken their own first
and higher degrees in elite institutions, even if
they currently hold posts in non-elite ones. The
disciplinary values with which they are first
inculcated are therefore the values of the
leading departments in their fields. Becher
(1989, p. 3)
41
Academic freedom 3 claims

• Freedom of enquiry - test out new ideas,
  criticise, present unpopular ideas, etc
• Institutional autonomy - make own decisions on
  appointments, curriculum, objectives, etc
• Academic rule - academic community is
  self-governing, makes own decisions about
  curriculum, etc

42
Defining academic freedom Freedom within the
law to question and test received wisdom and to
put forward new ideas and controversial and
unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in
jeopardy of losing their jobs. Education Reform
Act (1988), Section 202(2) The principle which
gives both students and faculty in the classroom
the right to say whatever they believe is
pertinent to the subject at hand. Nelson Watt
(1999) p.22
43
A more inclusive definition

• Lehrfreiheit - freedom of teaching and enquiry
• Lernfreiheit - freedom of students to study what
  and where they choose

44
Problems with academic freedom

• Institutional autonomy has been eroded
• Many definitions are self-regarding and ignore
  students
• To what extent are academics any longer in the
  business of making new, controversial knowledge
  claims in an expanded system ?

45
An alternative identity ?

• traditional definition of academic freedoms too
  self-regarding, insular, ivory tower ?
• Need to be more outward-looking, responsibility
  for social justice ?
• Academic freedom as freedom for others to learn
  (Nixon)
• professionalisation/ILT ?

46
The system must now evolve greater diversity ,
so that there is effective responsiveness from
the local through to the global. The critical
issue is that universities define their missions
and pursue them with vigour. David
Blunkett University of Greenwich speech, 15
February, 2000
47
A new 3 tier system ?

• Research universities
• Russell group
• Regional universities
• new universities
• Community Colleges
• Further Tertiary education colleges

48
Understanding Higher Education

• Lecture 4
• Institutional management and development

49
Key issues the new vocabulary

• Managing change and organisational culture
• Managing stakeholder interests
• Quality management
• Leadership determining mission

50
University cultures
Control of policy
loose
A
B
collegial bureaucratic
Control of practice
loose
tight
C
D
entrepreneurial corporate
tight
McNay (1995 1998)
51
Collegial culture

• Leadership based on consent of academic community
• Emphasis on institutional autonomy and academic
  freedom
• other academics seen as main external reference
  point
• works best in small organisations
• person culture
• Oxbridge ?

52
Bureaucratic culture

• Emphasis on regulation and control
• Slow, committee-based decision-making
• External influence of controlling agencies strong
  via influential administrators
• works best under stable conditions
• Role culture
• University of London ?

53
Entrepreneurial culture

• Power centralised but delegated
• Leaders with freedom to operate but results
  tightly monitored
• Client/market needs dominant external reference
  point
• Task culture
• University of Phoenix or the OU ?

54
Corporate culture

• Power is dominant concept VC as chief executive
• Power networks key not formal election
• External input linked to contacts cultivated by
  senior management
• risk of lack of control over executive
• Power culture
• South Bank University ?

55
You have 100 points to allocate among the 4
cultures to represent the present situation of an
institution known to you.
Control of policy
loose

collegial bureaucratic
Control of practice
loose
tight
entrepreneurial corporate
tight
56
You have 100 points to allocate among the 4
cultures to represent the future situation (say 5
years time) of an institution known to you.
Control of policy
loose

collegial bureaucratic
Control of practice
loose
tight
entrepreneurial corporate
tight
57
Mapping stakeholder interests
Level of interest
Low
High
A
B
Minimal effort
Keep informed
Low
Power
D
C
Keep satisfied
Key players

High
58
Map stakeholder interests in higher education.
Where would you place stakeholders such as
students, the government, employers or staff ?
Level of interest
Low
High
Minimal effort
Keep informed
A
B
Low
Power
Keep satisfied
Key players
D
C

High
59
Map stakeholder interests in your subject area at
the present time
Level of interest
Low
High
A
B
Minimal effort
Keep informed
Low
Power
D
C
Key players
Keep satisfied

High
60
Map stakeholder interests in your subject area in
the future (say, 5 years time).
Level of interest
Low
High
A
B
Minimal effort
Keep informed
Low
Power
D
C
Key players
Keep satisfied

High
61
Definitions of quality in higher education

• Exceptional
• Perfection
• Fitness for purpose
• Value for money
• Transformative
• (Harvey Green, 1993)

62
How do stakeholders in your subject area define
quality ?

• Stakeholder group

• Definition of quality

63
The call for diversity of mission
The system must now evolve greater diversity ,
so that there is effective responsiveness from
the local through to the global. The critical
issue is that universities define their missions
and pursue them with vigour. David
Blunkett University of Greenwich speech, 15
February, 2000
64
A new 3 tier system ?

• Research universities
• globally competitive research strong global
  brand
• Regional universities
• - serving economic and social needs of region
  predominantly access-based
• Community Colleges
• serving local needs sub-degree provision as
  bridge between school and higher education

65
Additional slides
66
The shamrock organisation

• The core
• The flexible labour force
• The contractual fringe
• The self-service culture

67
The shamrock university

• The core
• full-time, permanent lecturers
• The flexible labour force
• part-time, temporary lecturers
• The contractual fringe
• contracting out of services, franchising to
  further education overseas
• The self-service culture
• self peer assessment, distance on-line
  learning, work-based learning ?

68
4 phases of the old universities

• Civic phase (late 19c.-early 20c.)
• Victorian benefactors and civic sponsorship
• Donnish phase (1920s-1960s)
• role of UGC key
• Democratic phase (1960s-1970s)
• ephemeral era of student protest
• Managerial phase (1980s -)
• cuts in funding, massification and increased
  accountability
• (Scott, 1995)

69
Cults in Leadership development in HE

• The cult of the gifted amateur
• The cult of heredity
• The cult of deficiency
• The cult of inadequacy
• The cult of the implicit
• The cult of selection
• The cult of the intellectual
• (Middlehurst, 1993)

70
The University hierarchy

• Principal or VC
• Other management
• Academic teaching staff (or faculty)
• Professional support staff
• Technical staff
• Clerical staff
• Manuel staff

Watson Taylor, 1998, p.112
71
Understanding Higher Education

• Lecture 5
• Ethical issues in higher education

72
Domains of professional ethics of higher education
Assessment objectivity, granting assignment
extensions, dealing with plagiarism
Pedagogic ethics
Research methods, students as research subjects,
credit for research, plagiarism
Research ethics
Meeting student special needs, encouraging access
and equal opportunities
Social ethics
73
The conditions which make ethics a particular
challenge

• Universities and colleges are complex
  organisations whose employees perform highly
  specialised work
• Academic departments and schools often have great
  autonomy
• Faculty may have tenure
• Universities are peer regulated resembling
  legislatures more than bureaucracies
• Standards of ethical conduct may vary somewhat
  across disciplines
• Whicker Kronenfeld (1994)

74
Analysing pedagogic ethics relevance of justice

• Power of assessment
• Relative autonomy
• Students as customers

75
A Justice framework for the lecturers pedagogic
role

• Procedural
• Sticking to the rules, consistent procedures
• Retributive
• Punishment for wrong-doing
• Remedial
• compensating the victim
• Distributive
• morally correct distribution of things social
  justice

76
Procedural justice

• classroom management
• assessment procedures
• arbitrating in disputes
• Key requirements
• integrity
• objectivity
• avoiding conflicts of interest
• consistency

77
Retributive justice

• Punishment for wrong-doing
• balance between severity and leniency
• arbitrating in disputes
• Key requirements
• consistency
• proportionality

78
Remedial justice

• Extending deadlines to individuals
• Making provision/allowance for students with
  learning difficulties
• Key requirements
• consistency
• balancing fairness for the majority with needs of
  individuals (utilitarian reasoning)

79
Distributive justice

• Social justice
• access social inclusion equal treatment
• monitoring of social justice agenda
• Key requirements
• sensitivity to social justice agenda ?
• self-evaluation

80
Possible principles emerging from justice
framework

• Integrity
• Objectivity
• Avoiding conflicts of interest
• Consistency
• Proportionality
• Social sensitivity
• Self-evaluation