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<DIV><FONT face="Arial Black" size=2>Dear Colleagues: I thought this
article might be of interest, since it has implications for developments here in
Canada, both current</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Black">and future.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Black">(I apologise that the text was marked 'available
to subscribers only' the first time that I sent it.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Black">Enjoy! I guess.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Black">Denis.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
href="mailto:d.salter@videotron.ca" title=d.salter@videotron.ca>denis</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A href="mailto:Denis.Salter@Mcgill.ca"
title=Denis.Salter@Mcgill.ca>Denis William Salter</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A href="mailto:rplant@CHASS.UTORONTO.CA"
title=rplant@CHASS.UTORONTO.CA>Richard Plant</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, May 07, 2001 6:47 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Times Higher Education Supplement - THES.htm</DIV></DIV>
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<TD align=right bgColor=#cc0000 class=redbar height=18
vAlign=center width=150>07 May
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<TD colSpan=2 width="100%"><B class=redtextlarge>Corporate
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<TD colSpan=3><B>Rebecca Boden<BR>20 April
2001</B><BR><BR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><SPAN class=black>As
academics struggle to perform for quality assessments, Rebecca Boden
is concerned about the 'creeping cancer of managerialism'.
<P>Successive corporate scandals in the late 1980s ensured that
governance became a buzzword as stakeholders sought to reassert
control over corporate management elites.
<P>While academics have embraced this field of study, the same
cannot be said about the governance of universities - despite
significant changes in higher education.
<P>Over the past decade, universities have, without exception, been
subject to a creeping cancer of managerialism. Professionalised
classes of managers have emerged and formed a corporate layer at the
top of institutions. A glance through the relatively well-paid jobs
at the front of <EM>The THES </EM>appointments will confirm this.
All too often this has been accompanied by a shift in power away
from academics to "managers".
<P>The past ten years in Britain have also been marked by the
development of the audit society - systems of rules and practices
directed mainly at the performance of empty rituals of verification
that, nevertheless, empower those who control such processes. In
universities, this is exemplified by the research assessment
exercise and teaching quality audits.
<P>Such "performance review" has become the means by which
government and managers can exercise control over the labour of
academics. The financial cost is some £250 million a year, the lost
academic opportunities are immeasurable. The measure of our value is
determined by systems and indicators that lie beyond our control.
<P>The question that vexes me is, who exercises governance over
managers in the newly corporatised universities? These are places
where students are urged to leave rather than use their voice as
stakeholders, picking their courses from league tables and taking
their accumulated brownie points from institution to institution. It
seems all too long ago that students were occupying the offices of
vice-chancellors.
<P>Academics can exert no effective governance, for we are all pawns
in the process. <EM>The THES </EM>Whistleblower column is regularly
filled with sad tales of academics who have fought incompetent or
corrupt managers.
<P>And the government? In stark contrast to the money spent on
teaching audits and the RAE, the Higher Education Funding Council
for England has a handful of staff devoted to the regular review and
special investigation of universities' corporate layers.
<P>Hefce has long regarded universities as private sector
institutions for whom delving too intrusively into their affairs
would be inappropriate. The corporate layer supports this line,
claiming proper accountability controls over managers would
compromise academic freedom. This deliberately obscures the fact
that it is poor governance that compromises academic freedom and
that managers are rarely active academics.
<P>David Blunkett recently wrote that Hefce special reports into
university affairs would remain confidential, even under the Freedom
of Information Act. The reason given is that, as a public body with
audit functions, Hefce can only conduct its work within the bounds
of confidentiality, supporting Hefce's view. Such a stance generates
a second stark governance contrast: audits and reviews of academics'
work are almost instantaneously made public - usually on the web -
and stakeholders are urged to make extensive use of them.
<P>There is, then, a governance gap when it comes to our managers.
This does not become a serious issue where, as in the majority of
instances, the corporate layer retains a professional commitment to
public service and accountability - just as most academics would
continue to teach and research well without the RAE and the Quality
Assurance Agency. But, increasingly, we see evidence of universities
where such professionalism among managers is deficient, and in these
instances there is no effective governance.
<P>The answers are straightforward. Reassert the rights of students
as members of academic communities, not as customers. Relieve
academics of crippling audit and surveillance, and make the academy
a site of real collegiate control. Give Hefce adequate resources
(perhaps with special teams to investigate failing universities) and
an injunction to report publicly on the conduct of university
managers. The obstacle, of course, is political will.
<P>Rebecca Boden is professor of accounting at Bristol Business
School, University of the West of England.
<P></P></SPAN></TD></TR>
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