managing in the comprehensive university: boundaries, identities and transitions bruce macfarlane,...
TRANSCRIPT
Managing in the comprehensive university: boundaries, identities and transitions
Bruce Macfarlane, Ourania Filippakou, Liz Halford and Arti Saraswat
SRHE Annual Conference 2007
Background
Merger between Thames Valley University and Reading College (2004)
HEFCE LGM project funding (2005-2008)
Dual sector/post-secondary comprehensive institutions in other national contexts
HEFCE LGM Project
Stage 1: National and international comparison
Stage 2: Interviews with manager-academics at TVU
Stage 3: Management development programme
The middle ‘manager-academic’
Someone with a primarily academic identity carrying a managerial role (Deem, Clegg, etc)
Challenges oversimplified collegiate/managerial dichotomy
Interviewees: Heads of subject, Directors of study, programme and curriculum leaders
TRANSITIONS
IDENTITIESBOUNDARIES
Managing the comprehensive university
TRANSITIONS
IDENTITIESBOUNDARIES
Managing the comprehensive university
Lecturer-focused
Student-focused
Systems-focused
TRANSITIONS
IDENTITIESBOUNDARIES
Managing the comprehensive university
Lecturer-focused
Student-focused
Systems-focused
Governance issues
Funding & Quality audit bodies
Teacher accreditation frameworks
Faculty organisation
Boundaries
• System focused
‘FE is a much more regulated environment, there is Ofsted inspection regime…..you are much more closely monitored ….its about targets, attainments, goals, those sorts of things whereas HE is a more relaxed environment and the presence of research culture makes it different as well’ (Head of Subject)
• Systems and identities
‘We don’t need a pink version of red and white’ (Anon.)
TRANSITIONS
IDENTITIESBOUNDARIES
Managing the comprehensive university
Lecturer-focused
Student-focused
Systems-focused
Contractual issues
Role of research
Staff development
Career progression
Identities
‘a university is a post 18 institution, which has a focus on scholarship … an FE institution, by its very nature, is about skills’
‘your university may not be a university for very long …. It’s an issue where you have more FE students than HE students then you run the risk of not being a university’
‘a university is a community of scholars … Is an FE college, within that sense, a community of scholars?’
TRANSITIONS
IDENTITIESBOUNDARIES
Managing the comprehensive university
Lecturer-focused
Student-focused
Systems-focused
HE ‘Environment’
Curriculum design/innovation
Progression ‘ladders’Buildings/Social
facilitiesProgramme ‘nesting’
Transitions
‘I think if you want progression to work and that seems to be one of the major, major issues we have is getting the students to aspire and the only way to get them to aspire is to give them something to aspire to….Where it works the most successfully, and again this is from talking to staff at other institutions, is where the FE and the HE is separated out on the campus so there’s an HE building that you aspire to go to…’(Programme Leader)
Conclusion: key points
• Boundaries are not regarded as easily permeable
• Identities are firmly entrenched in cultural assumptions
• Location and student aspiration are seen as more central to transitions than curriculum structures
• Different views on ideal organisational form: ‘intersectionists’ and ‘integrationists’
Contact
Bruce Macfarlane: [email protected]
Ourania Fillipakou: [email protected]
Liz Halford: [email protected]
Arti Saraswat: [email protected]
www.tvu.ac.uk/research/1centres/create.jsp