Disciplines codify related knowledge and have developed powerful approaches that enable both solutions to a wide variety of problems and efficient further extension of knowledge. Individual disciplines have translated into individual departments within universities. Academic departments tend to turn inward, deepening the knowledge within the…

The author reports on the reigning economic calculus that helps to drive constant expansion and poor utilization of space on many campuses. The author states that colleges could charge for utilities, which might encourage departments to save energy. Most American colleges do not charge for space--in part because doing so would raise the hackles of…

The Department Chair position is perhaps the most important position on a college campus. Not only do Department Chairs have a large number of individual tasks to perform, but a Chair's actions have potentially large repercussions, since the bulk of the pedagogical and administrative decisions made at institutions of higher education are made at…

When the University of Southern California announced that it would shutter its tiny German department, the outcry was out of proportion to the handful of faculty members and students directly affected by the move. In addition to students who advertised their dismay on Facebook and faculty members who complained that their efforts to bolster the…

The reputation of UC Merced as a student centered research university rested on administration's success in attracting top-flight faculty. This chapter describes how this process started, through choosing the deans, then recruiting the faculty. As faculty arrived, the academic picture came into focus. Not surprisingly, the initial ideas about …

In this report, the Commission on General Education in the 21st Century--a panel of University of California faculty and administrators--issues a call for renewed attention to general education in research universities, highlighting specific reforms for University of California campuses. In addition to analyzing the historical, institutional, and…

This position paper of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges begins by examining the philosophy behind different structures in an academic institution. This discussion leads to a discussion of the roles and responsibilities of "chairs" within that structure and how they might be fulfilled by department chairs, division…

This essay examines the ways in which nonprofit universities increasingly emulate businesses, focusing on two of the most direct forms of emulation: the creation of internal university markets at the University of Southern California through adoption of variants of resource center management (RCM) and the privatization of public higher education…