Unlike most businesses, universities are both capital-and labor-intensive; yet contrary to standard business practice, they wring the most use and value out of their plants and payrolls for fewer than seven months a year. University presidents may appear to be very much like chief executive officers, but their powers to change course--or even a…

Germany has recently gone through a fundamental process of reform of its higher education system. The last 15 years have been characterised by significant changes in virtually all aspects of the system. The impacts of the Bologna Process have been far reaching. The reform of the governance and funding systems in higher education has also been…

Historically, the definition and measurement of academic standards in British higher education have been the exclusive prerogative of the academic community. The calibration of standards across institutions was the responsibility and purpose of the external-examiner system. But the mechanisms in place to achieve these ends have broken down under…

As Americans near the end of the first decade of the new millennium, higher education in the United States is caught in a classic "good news/bad news" dilemma. The good news? Broad recognition of the importance of higher education to the country's future, along with larger federal funding increases than at any time in their history. The bad news?…

The release of the "Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research 2007" by the Australian Government in 2007 was welcomed by Go8 (Group of Eight) institutions, particularly in relation to the improvements and broader scope of the matters covered by Part A of that Code. However, as foreshadowed by the Go8 during the consultation…

The managerial form of university governance has changed the conditions of academic work in many countries. While some academics consider this a welcome development, others experience it as a threat to their autonomy and to the meaningfulness of their work. This essay suggests a stance in response to the current conditions that should serve…

This paper presents an empirical investigation into how universities approach the need and means for motivating university researchers through their management practices. The role of work motivation for this group deserves attention because pressures from outside and within the universities are said to have made university research less of a…

Expectations of trustees have undergone a dramatic change in the wake of the Enron debacle, the new strictures of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and several new state policies, laws, and executive actions. Additionally, well-publicized examples of inadequate trustee oversight have affected the public's and policymakers' perceptions of higher education.…

The University of Sydney is a large, research-intensive, campus-based Australian University. Since 2004 a strategic initiative of project-based eLearning support has been creating teams of non-academic and academic staff, who have worked together to develop online resources to meet identified needs. The University's aims in continuing to provide…

Academic freedom and the protection of human research subjects are central tenets of American universities. Academic freedom protects the rights of tenured professors to conduct autonomous research; human subject protection ensures that research causes as minimal a risk as possible to study participants. Although the two principles are mutually…

This article focuses on the theory and practice of teamwork in "top management teams" in UK higher education institutions. It is informed by some of the key findings from a recent two-year research project sponsored by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education that investigated the different ways in which UK higher education…

Writing fellow or writing associate (WA) programs trace their heritage to a single point of origin: the model developed at Brown University in the early 1980s by Tori Haring-Smith (Soven, 1993, 2001). Since then, the Brown model has spread to hundreds of schools. WA programs are so adaptable because they consist of many discrete elements, each of…

The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) has served as a voice for quality assurance and promulgation of standards in higher education for over 25 years. CAS was established to promote inter-association efforts to address quality assurance, student learning, and professional integrity. CAS includes membership of over…

This paper briefly reviews the historical development of the university system in Chile, and describes the current structure of funding, supply and demand for tertiary education, research and university services. Both public and private universities in Chile have expanded and restructured, access to tertiary education has improved, and…

Sustainability has become a central consideration across the board in university business decisions. Passing a tipping point, it has become a pivotal focus of management. College leaders are increasingly drawing connections between sustainability, institutional missions, and higher education's fundamental purposes. Administrators readily rattle…