Academic Cultures

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Academic Cultures
Perceptions

• Taking Your Liaison Program to the Next Level
  
  Strategies for Outreach and Integration
• ACRL National Conference
• Baltimore, Maryland
• March 29, 2007
• Craig Gibson

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What is Culture?

• (Think-Pair-Share)

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Culture Definitions

• Social or normative glue that holds an
  organization together (Smirchich)
• The invisible tapestry that weaves together
  parts of an organization (Kuh and Whitt)

Smirchich, L. 1983. Concepts of Culture and
Organizational Analysis. Administrative Science
Quarterly 28 339-58.
Kuh, George, and Elizabeth Whitt. 1988. The
Invisible Tapestry Culture in American Colleges
and Universities. ASHE-ERIC Report no. 1.
Washington, D.C. ASHE.
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Culture Features

• Distinctive beliefs, ways of interacting and
  behaving
• Unspoken assumptions, tacit knowledge
• The predominant paradigm that helps those within
  it make meaning and understand the environment

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Culture Hows it Manifested?

• Its the unconscious infrastructure (Kuh and
  Whitt)
• stories, myths, organizational sagas
• rituals, ceremonies
• specialized terminology
• systemic behavior patterns by those within an
  organization, over time

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Layers of CultureExplicit and Tacit Knowledge

• Tacit knowledge
• Attitudes, beliefs, skills below the level of
  awareness
• Subjective insights, hunches, intuitions

• Explicit knowledge
• Words, numbers written down
• Reports, manuals, products

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Academic Cultures
Institutional Culture
Student Culture
Faculty Culture
Library Culture
Administrative Culture
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Academic Cultures
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Faculty Culture

• Identify a recent experience with a faculty
  member that shows a systemic aspect of faculty
  culture. What words would you use to characterize
  that culture?

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Relevant Cultural Aspects
of Faculty Culture

• Emphasis of most academic disciplines on
  research, content, and specialization
• Deemphasis on teaching, process,and undergraduates

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The Five Core Academic Values
(of Faculty)

• Collegiality participation, consensus, the
  collegium the company of equals
• Autonomy individual faculty members ability to
  make decisions without coercion or outside
  intervention
• Academic freedom substantive intellectual work
  requires freedom to choose and profess in ones
  discipline

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Five Core Academic Values (contd)

• Specialized expertise basis for authority,
  credibility, prestige, recognition, and rewards
  within the academy
• Reason/scientific method the basis for
  developing knowledge and expertise
• Barbara Walvoord, Academic Departments
  How They Work, How They Change. ASHE-ERIC Higher
  Education Report, v. 27, no. 8. San Francisco
  Jossey Bass, 2000, pp. 15-17.

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How do faculty view librarians?

• Process, procedure-oriented
• Rule-bound
• Service role rather than educational one
• Not seen as equals
• Not aware of instruction that librarians already
  do

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Student Culture Values

• Collaborative, peer influences
• Credentialism and careerism
• Whats in it for me?
• NetGen/Millenials priorities

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Library Culture

• Order, predictability
• Standards, expertise
• Mature organizations barrier to innovation
  (Deiss)
• Replicability of experience more important than
  risk and uncertainty (Deiss)

Kathryn Deiss, Innovation and Strategy Risk and
Choice in Shaping User-Centered Libraries,
Library Trends, vol. 53, no. 1, summer 2004, pp.
17-32.
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Administrative Culture

• Strategic planning
• Educational outcomes
• Efficiency in resource use
• Sensitivity to external pressures governing
  boards, employers, the public, alumni
• Rationalized myths (subjective interpretations
  and analyses given logical veneer)
• Symbolic action, ceremony

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Coexisting and overlapping
institutional cultures (chronological order)

• Collegial epitomizes the five core academic
  values the core culture of the academy
• Managerial administrative demands for
  efficiency, outcomes, accountability an emergent
  value system
• Negotiating relationship, sometimes adversarial,
  between faculty and administration
• Developmental professional growth, student
  development and services
• Bergquist, W.H. (1992). The Four Cultures of
  the Academy. San Francisco Jossey-Bass.

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Academic Cultures Positioning
Liaison and Outreach
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Perceptions
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Perceptions

• Asymmetrical disconnection
  between
  librarians and faculty

Lars Christensen, Mindy Stombler, and Lyn
Thaxton, A Report on Librarian-Faculty Relations
from a Sociological Perspective, Journal of
Academic Librarianship, 30/2 (March 2004)
116-121.
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Perceptions

• Librarians value contact with faculty and attempt
  to increase it
• Faculty often dont understand the work of
  librarians
• Librarians see lack of communication with faculty
  as problematic, a challenge to be overcome
• Faculty are often so preoccupied that they dont
  identify lack of communication with librarians as
  a problem

Lars Christensen, Mindy Stombler, and Lyn
Thaxton, A Report on Librarian-Faculty Relations
from a Sociological Perspective, Journal of
Academic Librarianship, 30/2 (March 2004)
116-121.
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Realities

• Faculty are affiliated with their discipline
  and/or academic department
• Librarians are affiliated with an agency that
  serves information/research needs of everyone
• Faculty have more flexible schedules
• Librarians work more standard (40 hours per
  week) schedules

Lars Christensen, Mindy Stombler, and Lyn
Thaxton, A Report on Librarian-Faculty Relations
from a Sociological Perspective, Journal of
Academic Librarianship, 30/2 (March 2004)
116-121.
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Cultural gaps and perceptions

• Librarians are attuned to collaboration,
  cooperation, sharing
• Faculty culture is often more individualistic,
  isolated, and proprietary
• Librarians are not seen as true subject experts
  by faculty even if librarians have academic
  preparation and/or degrees
• Faculty are not seen by librarians as truly
  competent/conversant with I.T., searching, or
  teaching (in some cases)

Lars Christensen, Mindy Stombler, and Lyn
Thaxton, A Report on Librarian-Faculty Relations
from a Sociological Perspective, Journal of
Academic Librarianship, 30/2 (March 2004)
116-121.
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Culture, Belief, and Change

• Change doesnt come from following a procedural
  plan or a cookbook approach
• Change comes from deepening the beliefs or
  internal commitments of people
• Change comes from a collaborative learning
  process (shared expertise)
• The role of the leader is to increase
  organizational capacity

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Core Change Strategies within the
Academy

• Senior Administrative Support
• Collaborative Leadership
• Robust Design
• Staff Development
• Visible Actions

Adrianna Kezar and Peter Eckel, The Effect of
Culture on Change Strategies in Higher
Education, The Journal of Higher Education, vol.
73, no. 4 (July/August 2002), pp. 435-460.
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Transformational Change
Visible Actions
Robust Design
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Robust Design
Resources
Flexible Picture of the Future
Change Strategies compatible with the culture
Strategic Directions and Positioning
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Other Change Strategies . . .

• Persuasive communication
• Incentives, rewards
• Long-term orientation
• Connections and synergy
• Working within the organizational culture
• Bringing in outside perspectives
• Using external factors
• Capitalizing on unforeseen opportunities

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Other Change Strategies . . .

• Moderating momentum
• Establishing new expectations
• Using changes in administrative processes
• Resocializing groups
• Placing local change in broader context

Adrianna Kezar and Peter Eckel, Examining the
Institutional Transformation Process, Research
in Higher Education, vol. 43, no. 3, June 2002,
pp. 295-328.
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Whats Your (Librarys Prevailing) Culture?

• (Cultural Audit exercise)