Governance Models and Their Challenges

ARTICLE10.1177/0002716202238568THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYISSUES IN UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE The pressures for efficiency and the achievement of per- formance goals are encouraging college and university presidents to focus more on the management of their institutions and less on the more collegial processes of academic decision making. Presidents are being held more accountable to external constituencies, particu- larly the public officials and business leaders involved in hiring them and the foundations and businesses that supplement their salaries and benefits, and, therefore, feel less accountable to the faculty and other internal constituencies. To increase efficiency and meet goals, presidents are increasingly hiring professional adminis- trators without academic experience, who feel more accountable to their administrative superiors and less accountable to faculty, students, and others within the institution. The focus on managerial values is also filter- ing down to academic departments and nonacademic offices. The net effect is that the faculty role in university governance is decreasing and may be extinguished if current trends continue.

College and university presidents in theUnited States are becoming more respon- sive to outside constituencies and less sensitive to faculty and other internal constituencies, aca- demic administration is becoming more profes- sional, and academic institutions are becoming more bureaucratic. These changes are not uni- versal in American higher education, but they are increasingly common. The question is what

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William L. Waugh Jr. is a professor of public administra- tion, urban studies, and political science in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State Univer- sity. His areas of teaching and research include adminis- trative theory, human resource management, disaster management, and local government capacity building. He is the author of Living with Hazards, Dealing with Disasters (2000), Terrorism and Emergency Manage- ment (1990), and International Terrorism (1982); coau- thor of State and Local Tax Policies (1995); and coeditor of Disaster Management in the US and Canada (1996), Cities and Disaster (1990), and Handbook of Emer- gency Management (1990), as well as author of more than 100 articles, chapters, and reports. He has served in Georgia State University’s Senate for eighteen years and has participated in accreditation and other academic reviews on more than a dozen other campuses. DOI: 10.1177/0002716202238568

Issues in University

Governance: More

“Professional” and Less Academic

By

WILLIAM L. WAUGH JR.

effect the changes are having on the structures and processes of university gover- nance. The short answer is that college and university presidents are responding to pressures for greater efficiency and productivity (likely in that order) and are rely- ing more on professional staff to achieve those ends. The longer answer is less sim- ple. As organizations mature, they typically undergo changes that lead to greater bureaucratization and, when the external environment is unfriendly, they adapt if they want to survive. Professionalization of staff and responsiveness to external constituencies are adaptations to new demands. While the changes are under- standable, they are having a profound impact on the traditional faculty role in uni- versity governance and thus on American higher education. In fact, that role may already be dead, according to Joanna Vecchiarelli Scott (1996).

The changing roles of college and university presidents should come as no sur- prise. Executive-centered management has been the cornerstone of organizational theory and practice for the past century. Indeed, the good government movement of the Progressive Era focused on executive-centered professional management as a cure for political corruption and administrative inefficiency (see, e.g., Stever 1993). Executive-centered management was to ensure accountability by providing leaders with ultimate responsibility for their organizations. Held accountable, executives presumably would find it to their advantage to root out the unscrupu- lous and the incompetent and to adopt techniques that would improve decision making and administration. Reform measures included the development of execu- tive budgets and tighter financial controls. The Brownlow Commission and its suc- cessors encouraged executive-centered management in the executive office of the president. The city management movement encouraged similar reform in local government (see, e.g., Schiesl 1977).

In some measure, academic administration seems to have escaped the scrutiny of reformers—until recently. The constituencies of universities and colleges were not motivated to seek political and administrative reform through mechanisms to enhance executive control. Colleges and universities tended to choose their lead- ers from the ranks of the faculty, often with academic qualifications outweighing administrative skills. To some extent, many academic institutions still follow that model. Presidents, provosts, vice presidents, and deans are still drawn from class- rooms and labs, and their values reflect the consensus-building approach of aca- demic decision processes. To be sure, there have always been authoritarians and those with less than collegial inclinations, but the general pattern of academic administration has been a decentralized, faculty-driven process. Now, however, there is increasing pressure to recruit executives from the private sector armed with skills in business management but without work experience in academic administration. As a result, academic planning, budgeting, and day-to-day admin- istration is becoming more like the management processes developed for the pri- vate sector and increasingly reflects values that conflict with the traditional values of university governance.

The pressures for change in how universities and colleges are governed should not be surprising. Economic constraints are forcing a focus on efficiency and accountability. Governing boards and presidents are under increasing pressure to

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be more cost-effective, and that pressure is being passed on to vice presidents, deans, and department chairs. Demands to do more with less are forcing institu- tions to reexamine how they operate. Programmatic changes are also taking place. Indeed, an executive in residence at Washington University suggested that univer- sities “reinvent” themselves by first determining their core functions and then dis- posing of their “unproductive programs” and contracting out or sharing adminis- trative functions with other institutions (Mahoney 1997). Reducing bureaucracy by identifying unproductive programs is the explicit goal, although it is uncertain what “unproductive” might mean for academic departments and programs. Does “unproductive” mean having only a few majors, generating few credit hours, or bringing in little or no sponsored research or training projects?

In addition to financial pressures on institutions and their officials, there are also inexorable processes that all organizations experience as they mature and adapt to the external environment. The processes of institutionalization, bureaucratization, and professionalization change the character and the culture of the organizations. They become more institutionalized as their structures become more differenti- ated. Lines of authority become more clearly defined. Tasks become more special- ized. Relationships become more formal. Hierarchy grows as spans of control shrink and the needs for supervision and coordination increase. The institutional- ization process makes for a much more complex organization, which in turn requires more accountability. Organizations also tend to become much more bureaucratic as they mature. Formal relationships require formal communication, rules and regulations, clear lines of authority, accountability, and so on. Procedural requirements, that is, red tape, ensure consistency in decisions. Professionalization reflects the movement to greater task specialization. Persons formally trained in financial management, human resource management, and other needed skills replace those who learned their skills on the job or as they were needed. In effect, professional managers are replacing the academics that previously filled those administrative roles.

All three of these processes are occurring in American colleges and universities today, and they are having a profound effect on the role of faculty and staff in uni- versity governance. While the faculty role in university governance has been a con- tentious one in many cases, a primary, if not dominant, view has been that faculty have lead responsibility for the design and implementation of academic programs. In many institutions, that role has been jealously guarded by university senates and faculty committees and by individual professors in the name of academic freedom. While some institutions have experienced debates concerning the authority faculty should have over curricular matters, the faculty role in hiring, promoting, and ten- ure decisions has been less controversial, although some presidents, provosts, deans, and other administrators do wield considerable authority in those decisions and may disregard faculty preferences.

Certainly it may be argued that the role of faculty in university governance has long been limited. However, that has varied from institution to institution. Many community colleges have tended to treat faculty as employees rather than the cen-

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tral technology of the institutions because there has been no scarcity of prospective faculty to fill those roles and because teaching loads have left little time for faculty to fulfill administrative duties. For-profit colleges have tended to treat faculty as employees subject to management prerogatives because they were hired much like other employees. The market, that is, student demand, determines program- matic priorities. By contrast, institutions less dependent on the market have tended to define their product in terms of the prerequisites of liberal arts or fine arts or scientific education. In other words, the curriculum determines human resource priorities. Finding enough qualified faculty to cover the desired range of courses is the goal. Institutions adjust to the market demand for liberal arts, fine arts, science, business, and other degrees, but not necessarily to demands for spe- cific courses that might compromise the quality of the product. Notwithstanding the widespread adoption of programs to ensure computer literacy; an appreciation for diversity; an understanding of international issues, analytical skills, communi- cation skills; and other cross-cutting skills and competencies, the content of core curricula has been defended by faculty in most institutions. What has changed? Why is university administration in the United States becoming more professional?

Academic Leadership and Executive Accountability

Higher education in the United States is clearly undergoing profound change. Issues of access, program quality, cost to students and their families, and cost to tax- payers are challenging universities and colleges to reexamine their products (or services). Public institutions are experiencing decreasing state support, and as a result, they are increasing tuition to make up the difference or face serious deterio- ration of program quality. The costs of education are not rising so much as public subsidies are decreasing, with students and their families picking up the tab (see Winston 1998). In many cases, raising special fees only reduces the state subsidy. Moreover, tuition discount or scholarship programs are increasing the number of students—further straining college and university resources. For example, the much lauded lottery-funded HOPE scholarships in Georgia are increasing the numbers of students in colleges and universities at the same time that state support is being cut.

In this environment, university presidents are under increasing pressure to meet performance standards, usually measured by the number of students enrolled and the credit hours generated, but increasingly measured by evidence of reputation and endowment growth (or occasionally by the success of the sports teams). In great measure, the pressure comes from politicians who know little about leading or running academic institutions and see the institution only in terms of its statistical profile. The pressure also comes from business and government leaders who do not understand the unique nature of academic institutions. The

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complaints of faculty are not taken seriously until academic stars choose to leave for more hospitable environs.

There is also a cultural divide that encourages politicians and business leaders to intervene in academic affairs. Roger W. Bowen (2001), president of the State Uni- versity of New York at New Paltz, has criticized the interference of political leaders and their lack of tolerance for faculty, including faculty-administrator, opposition. Bowen concluded that the academic world, which values free-thinking, intellec- tual risk taking and challenges to authority and the rules, conflicts with the political world, which prefers “certainty, order, and rules” (p. B14). Political leaders do not like their authority to be challenged, and that is precisely what leaders face in aca- demic institutions. Bowen went on to compare the academy with the Church and suggest the need to separate politics, the state, from the academy to preserve the search for truth, rather than power (p. B15). In essence, political leaders do not understand the nature of academic leadership and often encourage the hiring of administrators whose work experience fits their own notions of how leaders should lead.

There is also a problem of accountability to boards of regents or other governing bodies when presidents may receive a substantial portion of their compensation from third parties, such as the university or college foundation or a separate endowment set up by alumni. For example, the total compensation for the presi- dent of the University of Louisville in 2001-2002 was $597,455. The state of Ken- tucky contributed $263,305 in base salary, $21,000 in deferred compensation, and $8,250 for an automobile lease. The University of Louisville Foundation provided an additional $98,361 as compensation as a consultant to the foundation, $85,389 in performance bonuses, $121,151 in deferred compensation and benefits, another automobile, a club membership, and a house. If the president completes his ten-year contract term at the university, which will end in 2008, he will receive a $1.5 million bonus (Basinger 2001, A24).

It is not unusual for presidents to receive supplements to their base compensa- tion from their university foundations, endowed chairs, and other sources. A 2000 report published by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Col- leges indicated that about one-third of public governing boards said that their pres- idents received supplementary compensation from outside sources. The question is whether the outside compensation affects their accountability to institutional and state boards of directors or regents (Basinger 2001, A24). The boards that over- see the colleges and universities have little control over foundations; consequently, conflicts of interest may well be present. Corporate-sponsored chairs may also cre- ate conflicts of interest (Basinger 2001, A26).

Even the hiring process for university and college presidents has become more formal and legalistic. Contracts outline performance expectations, including fund- raising and programmatic changes. These are not new issues for many of the busi- ness people on the institution’s governing board or for the corporate recruitment services hired to provide a pool of candidates and to assist in the selection. The negotiations may result in agreements quite inconsistent with the institution’s mis-

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sion and the traditional responsibilities of faculty and administrators (Basinger 2002, A29).

Being held accountable to outside constituencies, whether foundations, corpo- rations, or boards, lessens the chances that presidents will feel accountable to an institution’s faculty, staff, or students. While most would feel that embarrassing votes of no confidence and other demonstrations of nonsupport would not be in their best interest, their jobs depend on those external constituencies that do the hiring and provide the salary and benefits. Hiring staff to ensure that those external constituencies’ expectations are met only makes sense. Professional staff are more likely to feel primarily responsible to the president rather than to the faculty.

The Professionalization of Academic Administration

Pressures for efficiency and productivity encourage academic administrators to focus on management processes. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that academic institutions would choose to hire administrators trained in techniques designed to achieve management goals. The issue, however, is whether manage- ment goals and academic goals are the same or, at least, not conflicting. Unfortu- nately, the evidence is that the professionalization of academic administration is resulting in more attention to management goals and less attention to academic goals.

Certainly, there are still scholars and scientists serving in administrative roles in most colleges and universities. While the hiring of professional financial and human resource managers may be increasingly common and the hiring of execu- tives, including chief executives, who do not have academic experience beyond their own undergraduate and graduate educations is growing, the administrative reins of most institutions are still largely in the hands of people who understand tra- ditional academic values and have some appreciation for the central roles that fac- ulty have had in university governance.

For those institutions in which professional staff has become the norm, the fac- ulty may well find themselves left out of decision processes because staff feel pri- marily responsible to the president and vice presidents and do not share informa- tion that might cause disagreement with their decisions. In meetings, the staffers are representatives of the administration rather than resource persons for the fac- ulty. While faculty may be involved in some decisions directly or in advisory roles, the participation is becoming more peripheral, and in some cases, it is disappearing altogether. The marginalization of faculty is all the more difficult to understand when faculty members have specific skills in planning, financial management, and other management techniques and often serve as consultants to private firms, non- profit organizations, government agencies, and even other academic institutions.

The growing number of administrators lacking academic experience portends even more major changes in academic administration. Already, some institutions

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are making the argument that department chairs and division coordinators should be full-time administrators, rather than faculty members, because their duties may not permit time in the classroom and may require management skills not com- monly found among faculty (see, e.g., Evelyn 2002). While that may be relatively uncommon in four-year and larger institutions, the numbers of professional man- agers are increasing rapidly. Staffs are expanding as business managers, assistant department chairs, and a proliferation of assistant and associate deans, provosts, and vice presidents are hired to manage nonacademic and academic offices. There are pressures on academic administrators to acquire management training to facili- tate their work, as well. Harvard University, Bryn Mawr College, and other institu- tions have nationally recognized programs for university administrators. Their stu- dents range from presidents to department chairs to registrars. The courses cover strategic management issues from enrollment management to fund-raising and basic management techniques, from outcome assessment to strategic manage- ment to quality management. Administrators can also be trained in state-of-the-art course management systems in which many institutions are investing (see, e.g., Olson 2001).

As more and more senior administrators come from outside the institution and even academia itself, the concern about administrator interference in faculty gov- ernance is growing. Conflict between university presidents and faculty senates is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There is increasing conflict at all levels. A case in point is the recent conflict between members of Harvard University’s Afro- American studies department and the university’s president. One of the issues has been whether a university president should question a tenured faculty member’s productivity. Interestingly, the initial report concerning the conflict cited the bureaucratic treatment received by a prominent member of the faculty and later by his colleagues. The tone of the interaction was confrontational rather than colle- gial (Wilson and Smallwood 2002, A-8). Rather than simply having a conversation concerning the faculty member’s activities, the president challenged the value of the activities to the institution. While the president had some academic experi- ence, most of his recent experience had been in government, where executive con- trol is more accepted. Similar conflicts have arisen with public intellectuals who have the credibility to comment on the issues of the day and, thereby, may create political problems for administrators who wish to avoid controversies that might jeopardize the support of officials, alumni, and other constituencies.

Administrative values may also conflict with academic values. Because budgets so often are driven by credit-hour generation, encouraging the enrollment of more students in more classes makes perfect administrative sense. However, the weak- ening of standards to boost enrollments makes little academic sense unless the institutional leadership is consciously choosing to reduce the quality of its pro- grams. Allocating resources with a strong preference for those programs with many students may well spell doom for degree programs and departments that are less popular, even though their courses are central to the educational mission. A better example that is becoming more common in American research universities is to

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favor those programs that generate indirect or overhead monies. To be sure, the pursuit of grants and contracts and the overhead that they bring may be affecting the allocation of university resources. But many departments and faculties may fail the market test if that is a principal criterion for allocating resources. In short, the policy choices that might be considered very desirable in management terms are often very undesirable in academic terms. Faculty participation in decision making can reduce the likelihood that academic interests will be ignored.

The Bureaucratization of Academic Administration

The bureaucratization of academic institutions is a normal process, and the professionalization of staff is a major contributor to the process. Most institutions become more bureaucratic as they mature. Colleges and universities are taking on the characteristics of classic Weberian bureaucracies with increasing levels of hier- archy, divisions of labor, task specialization, formal communication, and impersonality. Standard operating procedures, plans, decision rules, and other administrative conventions reduce flexibility. The distance from the top of the organization, the offices of chief executive officer or president and chief adminis- trative officer or provost, to the level of the organization at which services are deliv- ered (including the level at which classes are taught) is increasing. There are more people, from vice presidents to deans to division and department chairs, between the chief academic officers and those laboring in classroom and lab. The growing numbers of non-tenure-track and other part-time faculty further lengthens the dis- tance from the president’s office to the classroom. As a result, seemingly simple decisions may involve layers of staff and officials over relatively long periods of time.

The bureaucracy is increasingly made up of people who have little or no aca- demic experience and do not understand the academic enterprise. Their work experience has been in traditional private or nonprofit sector organizations that have regular business hours, well-defined products and/or services, a distinct mar- ket, and so on. Conflicts between faculty and bureaucrats over administrative and academic issues are understandable. While conflict may be frequent and acrimoni- ous in some institutions, it is no different from conflicts between line and staff in many organizations. In academic institutions, the conflicts may be as mundane as the scheduling of early morning meetings when faculty teach late into the evening and scheduling classes in rooms which are inappropriate for instruction. Increas- ingly, however, the conflicts may involve extending registration periods to ensure higher enrollments, with the result that students join classes several weeks into the term, and reducing book orders to minimize costs to bookstores, with the result that there are not enough books for all students and instructors have to spend more time dealing with the issue. The first set of examples reflects differences in organi- zational culture, and the latter set reflects differences in the goals of faculty and

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administrators. As academic administration becomes more bureaucratized, the cultural and administrative conflicts between faculty and staff will increase. Indeed, the conflicts between staff and students will also increase, and faculty and students may find themselves with common complaints. The levels of conflict also tend to escalate as both sides become more frustrated in their interactions.

The development of a professional bureaucracy is creating a new culture. The language of higher education is increasingly punctuated with references to cost and revenue centers, customer-driven programs, and other terminology more common to the business world. While the profit motive is certainly appropriate in private for-profit institutions, profit or value is defined quite differently in aca- demic institutions. The implications of business language, however, should not be dismissed lightly. The change in language reflects the change in values. Institutions are being “reinvented.” Presidents, provosts, deans, and department chairs are becoming more “entrepreneurial,” and their programs are becoming more “cus- tomer friendly.” While some of the terms are simply buzzwords of the day and mean very little, the impact may be substantial (Waugh 2001). Allocating resources on the basis of economic measures affects more than the business functions of the institution. Administrators become more accountable and responsive to the chief executive or chief administrative officer. Faculty become a peripheral concern and may, in fact, be considered an obstacle to be overcome or avoided rather than par- ticipants in university governance (Waugh 1998). Moreover, the business tech- niques on which decisions are made may be ill suited to the kinds of decision pro- cesses that are associated with academic institutions.

It should be remembered that colleges and universities are not the same as busi- nesses, and the same economic assumptions do not apply (Winston 1998). For example, strategic planning involves (or should involve) broad involvement of internal and external constituencies. However, the planning process is essentially top down in that senior executives guide the development of the mission and vision statements, the identification of strategic issues, and most important, the choice of participants. Many people may participate and there may be relatively open com- munication. But faculty become just another stakeholder group, along with stu- dents, staff, alumni, and local dignitaries. They may find themselves fighting for a niche in a new mission because that niche will determine their resource allocations for the coming years. Organizational change has become an administrative respon- sibility rather than a faculty responsibility (Waugh 2001).

Administrators may not understand the values inherent in their management techniques. The techniques are not value-free tools. They require a structuring of decision making and a selection of information that affect the range of alternatives considered and the choice. The selection of participants and the nature of their participation affect decisions. In academic institutions, the faculty are becoming stakeholders rather than the central technology of the institution (Waugh 1998). In strategic planning processes, as well as in the hiring processes for presidents and other high-level officials, faculty are one of many stakeholder groups and are often outnumbered by staff representatives and external constituents. The management processes effectively marginalize faculty in the institution. Decision makers tend to

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give numerical information, especially dollar amounts, more weight than qualita- tive information. Increased focus is on sponsored research, with indirect cost rates, faculty buyouts, and support for graduate research assistants, postdoctoral faculty, and equipment purchases. Some departments rely on indirect cost revenue gener- ated by external research for their basic operating expenses and certainly for the amenities such as faculty travel. The revenue-generating departments and colleges often subsidize the units that do not or cannot generate their own revenue. Engi- neering, business, public policy, education, and other professional programs are often the cash cows of the university, while the humanities and others have far less opportunity for external funding. The allocation of indirect or overhead revenues is a controversial issue, with some universities absorbing all such revenue, some allo- cating a portion to the college and/or department that generated the revenue, and some ensuring that faculty who generate such revenue receive a portion large enough to encourage the pursuit of additional sponsored projects. In a large research university, successful grant writers can support legions of graduate stu- dents and finance state-of-the-art laboratories.

A more legalistic approach to academic activities may also be reflected in bureaucratic interpretations of academic parameters. For example, course length is generally expressed in terms of classroom or contact hours and specified by accrediting agencies. A regular semester system typically has two fifteen- or sixteen- week terms. However, the contact hours in a semester may be fit into a few days rather than three or four months. Forty-five contact hours in a typical semester, for example, could be satisfied in a long week or two or three three-day weekends, depending on the length of the class days. The literal or legalistic interpretation of standards may not be a problem in some courses, but it can be a serious problem in courses that require reflection and research. Creative curriculum design is an important marketing tool because students may appreciate the convenience and not the pedagogical problems.

Faculty, too, are often pressured to behave more like employees in a business. Requirements to wear business attire and work business hours are common. Many faculty experience serious problems fitting their activities into a typical, forty-hour, nine-to-five workday when research, professional travel, and even teaching may be done at night or on weekends and many faculty work fifty or more hours per week on average (particularly if they are seeking tenure or simply enjoy their work). Many faculty find it difficult to relate their work to a typical work schedule when projects frequently require long days and weekend work and professional confer- ences often span weekends. Smaller institutions often require that faculty have fre- quent contact with students and alumni outside of the classroom. Religious institu- tions may require attendance at services, as well.

Increasingly, the job of the department chairperson is to play the managerial game—to manipulate or, at least, to live with the performance measures. Success is getting courses inserted into core curricula to justify more faculty, increasing cost effectiveness as measured by cost per student or credit hour, creating graduate programs because the weighed credit hours may justify more faculty, eliminating outside electives to keep credit hours in house, lengthening programs to generate

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more credit hours, and increasing course offerings at the last minute to capture unanticipated demand. The point is that the management decisions are driving academic decisions, often at the price of academic quality.

Conclusions

Given the economic and political environment of higher education, it is under- standable that college and university presidents, as well as other academic adminis- trators, will focus on external constituencies. Given recruitment and selection pro- cesses, it is also understandable that presidents are more accountable to external constituencies, whether they be the boards that oversee the institution and hire presidents or the foundations that supplement salaries and provide amenities. Presidents, nonetheless, have a responsibility to their institutions, and academic quality should be a standard to which they are held.

It is also understandable that presidents will hire administrators who can help them reach economic performance goals. The pursuit of rationality and efficiency, without regard for the impact on faculty and students and others, may well be a form of what Adams and Balfour (1998) called “administrative evil.” The applica- tion of business management techniques in universities may be saving money or more rationally allocating resources, but it may also be having a detrimental effect on students, faculty, staff, and other constituents. As long as efficiency is the sole criteria against which the techniques are measured, their effects on university gov- ernance will not be accurately assessed. Leaving faculty out of the decision-making processes that affect academic programs and other faculty concerns increases the likelihood that academic values will not be served and may well result in actions that are “evil” in their effects (Waugh 2001).

Cary Nelson (1999), a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has characterized the conflict between faculty and adminis- trators as a “war” and called for a resistance movement to fight back against “evil” administrative actions (p. B4). The ethical choice may be to resist threats to aca- demic freedom and to protect the faculty role in university governance. To do less would amount to complicity. Although budget cuts, resource reallocations, and mission redefinition may be necessary to the health of the institution, the choices should be made with full understanding of their academic, as well as their financial, implications.

Bureaucratization may be a problem for all—faculty, administrators, students, and external constituencies. It is common for bureaucracies to grow and to clog decision processes with standard operating procedures, regulations, and other impediments to innovation and flexibility. It is common for bureaucratic reward systems to encourage perverse behaviors. It is common for rational decision-making techniques to be utilized without a full understanding of the assumptions that underlie their method. In those regards, universities are suffering the same prob- lems that other large organizations have suffered after long periods of growth. It is also common, however, for large organizations to reinvent themselves, reducing

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bureaucracy to provide greater procedural flexibility and to encourage program- matic innovation.

Traditional university governance processes, as aggravating as they may be for all involved, may be far more appropriate to the university role in society than cen- tralized, bureaucratic processes. Collegial processes, in the long term, will be more effective in maintaining the health of academic programs. Admittedly, change is difficult in traditional academic institutions where programs are run by faculty with interests rooted in narrow disciplines and where departments are heavily depend- ent on internal resources. Changing a few courses in a core curriculum, for exam- ple, might radically alter the fortunes of a department faculty. It is no wonder that academic turf battles erupt over changes in core curricula when so many credit hours are generated through service courses, like those English, history, and politi- cal science courses that are required of all students. The loss of a course in the core curriculum can mean a loss of thousands of credit hours and result in the loss of one or more faculty members. Service courses also draw majors and minors and pro- vide institutional visibility. Losing a faculty member or two might mean that there will be no one to cover Asian politics, contemporary European history, environ- mental chemistry, or other important academic areas.

To be sure, the articles and letters to the editor of the Chronicle indicate that while some faculty are experiencing a loss of power or control over curricula, courses, and instructional delivery, not all are. Moreover, not all faculty regret the loss of administrative responsibility. For some, expectations are different. They have little or no interest in academic policy making or politics. If the work environ- ment becomes unpleasant, they will simply move on. The reduced administrative load means more time for consulting, research, student contact, and other activi- ties. A question that should be asked is whether disconnecting faculty from those responsibilities contributes to a sense of disconnection with the institution itself.

The distinction between administration and governance is important, and it is a distinction that is increasingly overlooked as university presidents and governing board members extol the virtues of business management techniques in higher education and leaders seek to effect fundamental change in mission and method. Administration is those processes that are related to the allocation of resources, including planning, human resource management, and particularly financial man- agement. Governance is those processes related to the technology of the university, including the academic programs, faculty, and scholarship. Preserving the distinc- tion, so that the dog wags the tail, rather than the reverse, is essential for maintain- ing healthy academic institutions.

An answer may be to separate academic and nonacademic units. Ironically, busi- nesses long ago learned that their more creative units may have to be located away from their production or factory units because of differences in organizational cul- ture and operational imperatives. Research and development units also are often located in different buildings or in wooded industrial parks, away from the head- quarters, so that creativity will be nurtured rather than managed. The cultures of some of the most technologically creative firms in our society have become the stuff of legend. As a result, creative organizations may now be more closely associ-

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ated with nonhierarchical structures, informal relationships, casual attire, and min- imal attention to the clock. In short, business campuses have come to look very much like traditional university campuses, and they have taken on the ivory tower role. Given that university faculty are generally considered the creative technology of the university, the logical answer might be to relocate the more factory-like busi- ness operations to the fringe of campus or to another site altogether to prevent contamination.

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