Every student must understand higher education organizational structure to effectively influence the campus.
How to Interpret Campus Regulation
Before we discuss campus regulation in detail, every advocate must understand the university’s internal governance structure to effectively influence the campus community. Students who understand higher education’s internal governance also know how to influence university affairs. They know how to influence because they understand the world around them. Therefore, let us examine higher
education’s governance structure to understand how to influence the community within it.
Higher Education Governance
First, it is helpful to realize that higher education has at least three tell-tale characteristics: 1) a decentralized organizational structure, 2) authority delegation and 3) a preference for jurisdictional autonomy.
Readers who understand these classic traits will interpret campus governance better than others who do not and will operate more effectively within it. Therefore, let us examine these traits to understand
higher education governance at the local institution.
Trait #1 - A Decentralized Organizational Structure
First, readers who will engage the university effectively must first understand that higher education organizational structure is decentralized.
In other words, where businesses in the private sector gather decision-making power at the top, such as in the chief executive officer (CEO) or chief operating officer (COO), in the public sector, universities and university systems delegate decision-making towards the bottom of the organization (to such roles as university presidents, college deans, faculty and so on).
Higher education has a decentralized organizational structure, not a centralized one. It is one of its three classic traits advocates must realize to understand the campus appropriately.
Trait #2 - Authority Delegation
A second classic trait is higher education’s delegation of authority.
As we discussed above, top higher education authorities delegate power towards the organizational bottom in higher education. However, this delegation creates layers of authority, which for this essay’s
purpose we will call jurisdictions.
Authority delegation to this extent creates layers within the organizational structure, so much so that one layer fits within another, much like a Russian Doll. A Russian Doll has many smaller dolls within it, but taken altogether is still one Russian Doll. So the university has many subordinate jurisdictions or layers, but each layer still identifies with one university.
For instance, the university's governing board delegates authority from the system-level to local university presidents. This is one layer of authority. Then university presidents delegate authority to heads of colleges (a.k.a., college deans). This is another layer. Then these delegate to faculty department chairs, then these to faculty, and so on. Therefore, while there are authority figures, there are often
many layers of delegated authority. Higher education is like one big Russian Doll: it has many layers within layers, but is still, in the end, one doll.
This is an example of how higher education has many layers of authority due to its decentralized organizational structure and to its authority delegation. In doing so, it creates layers upon layers of jurisdictions. This is another higher education characteristic: its delegation of authority.
Trait #3: A Preference for Autonomy
Lastly, a third classic characteristic of higher education is its preference for autonomy (or for self-rule).
Along with a decentralized organizational structure and reliance upon authority jurisdictions, higher education culture tends to prefer that each jurisdiction exercise its own, high degree of autonomy—that
is, it tends to prefer each area pursue its own discipline independently. Therefore, it tends to prefer little outside interference.
Another way to put this is that university officials typically rely upon certified knowledge to legitimize their decision-making. This often influences officials to rely upon recommendations from authorities closest to the phenomena in question, whether this it is a committee’s report or a department’s specific budget proposal. Higher education officials typically rely upon certified knowledge to legitimize their decision-making.
This preference for autonomy is the third classic characteristic of higher education culture advocates need to know about higher learning institutions.
Conclusion
In summary, higher education has these classic characteristics: a decentralized governance structure, a high degree of authority delegation to subordinates, which creates layers of authority of which advocates must be aware, and finally, a cultural preference for a high degree of autonomy.
These are three traits to higher education culture which every advocate should know to advocate to the local university community. Students who understand higher education’s internal governance will also know how to influence university affairs for their cause.
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