HUMANE
Heads
of University Management & Administration Network in Europe
SEMINAR
University of Stockholm
Umea University
Luleĺ University
of Technology
Friday 17th
to Sunday 19th June 2005
Governance & Accountability: Merging & Major
Changes; Leadership
Introducing a governance and executive reform programme
Ian Creagh,
University Secretary, City University London
Leadership challenges in the Rhone-Alpes region:
marketability, research, cost-effectiveness, partnerships and mergers
Francoise Granger, Secretaire-General, Ecole Normal
Superieure de Lyon and Philippe Wisler. Secretaire-General,
Universite Joseph Fourier (FR)
In
1982 the French Parliament created 22 “régions” which were given competence,
especially over the local economy. The administration of our educational system
remains divided into 28 regional authorities, “académies”, and is still far too
centralized. Despite the fact that the
law did not grant the regions competence in higher education, they do provide
some financial support to our universities and are partners in developing
research and teaching projects.
France
is also a country where passing a law to reform the educational system is a
high risk strategy, for it often leads to strikes which put an end to
reforms. We have more than 200
universities and high schools spread all over the country, some of them with more
than 30,000 students, others with less than 1000 or even 500 students. Our
public research system is in the process of being reorganized by a new law; we
are expecting that “centres for research and higher education” will be created which
will bring together public institutions and private firms in the same
geographic area, together with their local communities, to cooperate in the
fields of education, research and development.
World
university rankings are not very positive for French universities at the
moment.
The
“academies” of Grenoble and Lyon are both part of the Rhone-Alpes region, which
hosts 230,000 students (10% of the students in France). Grenoble and Lyon are the two main cities of
the region but they have different geographic, political, and economic
backgrounds. They have developed different methods of cooperation between their
several universities and graduate schools so as to gain increased international
visibility, improve attractiveness and reduce costs.
In
Grenoble, the approach was initially more pragmatic, putting together the means
to administer a campus which is shared by several institutions; it is now a
true entity called “Grenoble universités”.
Lyon adopted a more formal way of dealing with the existence of more
than 10 institutions; 4 universities and graduate schools are now joining a
plan to cooperate in the research field. An attempt to cooperate between Grenoble and Lyon – the
Rhone-Alpes University Conference - was not really a success.
We
will explain to what extent our two separate experiences have been successful, what difficulties we have met, and what developments
to enforce cooperation may be expected.
Mergers are anticipated but do not seem possible yet. We are in a
position in which there are for now more questions than answers.
In
the Netherlands students flow freely into university and colleges of higher
education, provided they have the right secondary school diplomas and provided
the highly specific material requirements for certain study programmes do not
necessitate a restriction on intake.
Universities
and colleges of higher education see their student intake as an indicator of
the attractiveness and quality of their programmes.
As
the number of incoming students is one of the parameters for funding further
education, universities (and colleges) in the Netherlands compete vigorously
with one another for new students.
Dutch
Law prohibits mergers between state universities and colleges of higher
education. Although the resulting dual system is debated fairly regularly in
Parliament, no prospects of a repeal have emerged so far.
The
introduction of the Bachelor/Master system has complicated the inflow into the
Master’s phase and further heightened the tension between universities and
colleges in relation to student intake.
Colleges
of higher education in the Netherlands award only Bachelor’s degrees (except
for a few very specific professional programmes). A Bachelor’s degree then
entitles the holder to join a Master’s programme at a university. Quantitavely
speaking, this inflow is not insignificant.
Colleges
of higher education have a strong teaching profile and often pay more attention
to methodology and didactics than universities, where the emphasis is on
research.
As
far back as the mid-1990s, the Universiteit van Amsterdam maintained that it
would be sensible and prudent – especially with a view to the teaching profile
– to team up with a college of higher education. The idea was that a
coordinated teaching curriculum would help lower the drop-out rates among more
practically oriented first-year university students, as it would facilitate a
switchover to the ‘partner’ college. The reverse would, of course, apply to
college students with a more theoretical mind.
On
the basis of a compatible (broad) teaching profile, the Hogeschool van
Amsterdam turned out to be the best prospective partner for the Universiteit
van Amsterdam. The university and the Hogeschool both believed that a
partnership would significantly enhance their attractiveness for future
students – a key factor in cost defrayment.
As
the Law prohibited an official partnership between the two institutes,
scenarios were worked out in a confidential setting to, effectively, deliver
the same result.
An
off-the-record meeting with the Minister of Education and Science revealed that
the government was not averse to submitting trial legislation to Parliament,
which would make it possible for the two Amsterdam institutes to engage in a
close partnership. This legislation never materialized, mainly because it was
sidelined by a government crisis.
From
the outset, the prolonged confidential contact between the management of both
institutes and with the Minister of Education and Science precluded ‘normal’
open discussions with the staff and student representatives. Internal and
external communication, which is essential to the success of such an invasive
process of collaboration, was sluggish and piecemeal, especially at the start.
As a result, each institute (especially the university) became distrustful and
suspicious of what the other was doing. The support base for a good partnership
between the university and the college – possibly even a merger (if the Law
allowed) – became weaker instead of stronger as the process continued.
At
the same time, cuts in government spending more or less dashed all hopes of
setting up an experimental partnership at discipline level.
As
is usual in such cases, the national and university press had a field day,
reporting on the atmosphere of unrest and disquiet which had spread in the
meantime (among personnel and students) in the university in particular.
In
my lecture I shall discuss the administrative and communicative attempts of the
management of both institutes to alleviate this unrest. Success is still a long
way off at the moment. The question I shall pose is whether, given the
background, it might still be possible to realize a strong and productive
partnership or merger – and if so, under what circumstances.
Trinity College is a four
hundred year-old university which has had a traditional structure of six
faculties under which were grouped 65 separate departments.
Funding and decision-making
in relation to finance, staff and academic affairs are largely centralized,
with administrative support available at faculty office level.
Staffing and related budgets
were also held centrally.
Following detailed
consideration and consultation over the past eighteen months, the College is
moving, in October 2005, to a new structure which, in effect, abolishes the
concept of Faculties and creates 19 separate Schools/Units.
Simultaneously, the College
is introducing a resource allocation model, which ensures that all resources
will be allocated to individual Schools/Units.
The process by which the
College got from where it was, where it originally intended to get and where it
now is will be presented. The
outstanding issues will be discussed and some of the remaining challenges
raised, including issues for management.
This is a work in progress
and advice and comment will be welcome.
Recovering
from financial and management crisis
John Furstenbach, Head of
Administration, Royal University College of Music, Stockholm (SE)
The Royal College for Music in
Stockholm is one of six rather small art colleges in Stockholm. With 600 full
time equivalent students and a budget of about 13 million Euro in 2000 it had
recovered from three years of annual deficits, the worst in 1997 with 5.5
million Euros.
The college was organized in 21 so
called “departments”, acting as suppliers of teaching to 11 study programme
managers. Each department head had different business relationships to
different programme managers.
Among other irregularities, the
study programme committees did not meet during 2001. The effects of cuts in the
administration also began to show, and the confidence in the Vice Chancellor,
appointed in 2000, reached a low in November 2001, when the trade unions rose
the issue of non-confidence in the College Board. The only positive signal was
that the College got an increase in grants from 2002 to provide for a new
building.
Now much has changed. Six
departments are responsible for all teaching, the two programme committees are
operating, the curriculum is being restructured and plans for the new building
is well under way.
These are effects. I will try to
describe how we tried to implement a structural rather than personal
organisation, build participation in the change processes and build a
constructive relationship to the trade unions.