Responses of American research universities to issues posed by the changing environment of higher education.

Autor/inn/en	Schmidtlein, Frank A.; Taylor, Alton L.
Titel	Responses of American research universities to issues posed by the changing environment of higher education.
Quelle	In: Minerva, (1996) 3, S.291-308Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0026-4695
DOI	10.1007/BF00120329
Schlagwörter	Linear Fashion; Cost Containment; Societal Change; American Research; Daily News
Abstract	Conclusions This study clearly reveals that the benefits ascribed to strategic planning typically are achieved through a variety of means. A formal process that seeks to plan in a comprehensive, linear fashion is likely to be too complicated, politically divisive, expensive and inflexible, and to ignore how decisions are made in a complex, highly decentralised university. While many approaches to planning are used, universities must ensure they provide periodically opportunities for university staff—freed from daily responsibilities—to consider strategic concerns. Accurate and relevant information must be available to all who make and carry out decisions. Planning should be viewed as a learning process rather than a document producing exercise. Extensive communication among university staff and faculty is needed to ensure informed debate and substantial acceptance of decisions—otherwise they are unlikely to be implemented. Perhaps most important is not the process employed but the decision-maker's breadth of perspective and sophistication. No process will overcome lack of competent leadership. The importance of daily decision-making in various councils and committees on issues such as cost containment and budgetary priorities is underestimated in the literature on planning. Critics have doubted whether universities' structures and processes permit them, or their leaders have the resolve, to confront the emerging issues. However, in many respects, the universities' decentralised, multiple decision-making practices may suit them well. They face the same challenging societal changes as other sectors of society. Their staff include some of the most capable individuals in the United States, and in the past they have been highly adaptable during periods of profound social change. Universities do not appear to be less aware of the need to adapt, nor more constrained in adapting to new conditions, than other sectors of society. In fact, university research and scholarship will be highly important in pointing the way for the whole of society to meet this era's challenges. If pessimistic predictions about current trends turn out to be accurate, universities no doubt will adapt at least as well as other kinds of institutions. The travails of business in this environment are daily news! There will be occasional casualties among the universities, as frequently occurs during major social transitions, but institutions that have grown in importance for over 1,000 years, will doubtless emerge from this period perhaps somewhat changed but still performing their historic social functions.
Erfasst von	OLC
Update	2023/2/05