University Governance: Weak at the Top (original) (raw)
2020, The Strategies of Australia’s Universities
In the romanticised 'golden age' of universities the ivy-clad sandstone buildings formed a sacred site and the beating heart of a university was its tenured scholars. Many people bonded themselves for life to their university. The vice chancellor's door was always open to these scholars. The role of vice chancellor was a part-time appointment occupied by one of the 'older gentleman'. Someone once said that the leader's role was to consider the university to be a rare, delicate, antique crystal bowl. The task was to carry the bowl through a maze of slippery corridors. It didn't matter which corridors were chosen. The only requirement for success was that the vice chancellor must never drop the bowl. In this world the academics were responsible for the curriculum, student experience and research, while the vice chancellor was responsible for buildings, ceremony and external relations. Heads of departments and faculties defined the direction of their empires and the progress of their academic staff. Many also controlled a discretionary budget for special purposes. In some cases, governance involved a degree of collective decision-making, or at least the sharing of information and the lively discussion of issues that has now largely disappeared from university life.
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