University Governance Structures Research Articles

Status of University Librarian in the Governance Structure of Nigerian Universities

Status of University Librarian in the Governance Structure of Nigerian Universities

A model of senior Indigenous leadership in Australian higher education: An Indigenous academic perspective

PurposeSenior Indigenous leadership positions across the Australian higher education sector has increased over the past decade. Despite this advancement, there is limited understanding in terms of how to best integrate Indigenous leadership into existing governance structures of Australian universities. In 2018 the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project commenced, aimed at establishing a model of best practice for the inclusivity of Indigenous leadership in higher education governance structures. This article presents key findings from the project, namely, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian universities based on the perceptions of a group of Indigenous academics.Design/methodology/approachThrough qualitative semi-structured interviews with Indigenous academic staff, the perceived value, characteristics and challenges of senior Indigenous leadership were examined. The varying opinions held by Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position were also highlighted. In doing so, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian higher education system is presented. The model of best practice presented in this article is underpinned by Indigenous Institutional Theory (Coates et al., 2022), a theoretical framework developed from the Walan Mayiny study.FindingsThe research findings highlight the diverse opinions of Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position. The six essential components are built upon the core characteristics, values and behaviours that senior Indigenous leaders need to have according to Indigenous academics, in order to advance Indigenous success within the academy.Originality/valueGiven Australian universities are being called upon to ensure that senior Indigenous leaders are in the best position possible to forge institutional change, senior Indigenous leaders within the academy may find the contextual Indigenous leadership model beneficial. The model allows one to uphold cultural integrity and fulfil the responsibilities and obligations of their higher education institution, while being able to serve their Indigenous colleagues and communities, leading to the advancement of Indigenous higher education outcomes. Importantly, the model can be adapted to suit all First Nations Peoples globally, who also find themselves working within the shackles of Western institutions.

Research on the Corporate Governance Structure of Private Universities in Sichuan Province, China

Research on the Corporate Governance Structure of Private Universities in Sichuan Province, China

Power distribution in universities on mixed depression among students from a psychological perspective

BackgroundThe allocation of power in universities has a direct impact on students’ mental health, and whether the allocation of power is reasonable or not can lead to mixed depression symptoms in students’ learning process. Mixed type depression usually not only has symptoms of depression, but also is accompanied by manic symptoms. The fundamental way to improve the internal governance structure of universities is to establish a power balance mechanism, effectively ensuring the balanced allocation of students’ political, academic, and democratic power, and forming a scientific and reasonable power structure.Subjects and MethodsThe study selected 50 students respectively from two universities as the research subjects, divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group conducted a balanced allocation of internal governance structure, while the control group adopted traditional management methods. The depression status of two groups of students is compared and analyzed after one month of intervention.ResultsThe study used Excel 2010 and SPSS 23.0 to organize and analyze the data. The results showed that there was no significant difference in mental health indicators between the experimental group and the control group before the power allocation reform (P>0.05), and after intervention, the values of mental health indicators in the experimental group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P<0.05).ConclusionsAccording to the results, it can be seen that the internal power allocation in universities has a certain impact on the mixed depression of college students, and after replanning and rational allocation, the psychological health status of college students can be significantly improved.AcknowledgementGeneral item of pedagogy of national social science foundation (No. BIA210163).

Exploring the Bureaucracy of Student Union in College and University from the Perspective of Organizational Behavior

College student unions are autonomous organizations for self-management, service and education of college students, and they often face some bureaucratic problems in the process of practice. To a certain extent, college student unions are extremely similar to formal organizations of enterprises in terms of organizational structure, promotion mechanism, assessment mechanism and reward, which are important factors for the bureaucratization of college student unions. In order to break through the bureaucratization dilemma of student unions, this paper proposes corresponding solutions to grasp the essential contradictions of college student unions and guide them to be reasonably integrated into the university governance structure.

Institutional Forums

Chapter 3 of the Constitution of South Africa makes provision for cooperative system of governance between the three tiers of government: national, provincial and local. In higher education this provision finds expression through the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 and institutional statutes. Cooperative governance of public universities pivots around key institutional actors as part of democratisation of institutional governance. Cooperative governance is an important twentieth-century governance innovation for South African public universities. In juxtaposing university governance and public accountability, democratisation has been identified as a crucial ingredient in broadening the processes of decision making, promoting greater participation and ensuring inclusion of black “bodies” in university governance. One of the cooperative governance structures of South African public universities is the institutional forum (IF). Born in the crucible of student activism in the 1980s, IFs have had a mixture of success and failures since their first implementation in 1998. They were conceived as agents for social justice and democratisation in the driving of transformation of public universities. This paper examines extant literature on the evolution, functions and challenges of the IF in driving institutional transformation and concludes by suggesting further areas for research.

Internal governance structure and characteristics of private colleges and universities - Based on the analysis of constitution of 7 private universities in Zhejiang Province

By combing the constitution of 7 private colleges and universities in Zhejiang Province, this paper summarizes the law of internal governance of private colleges and universities, analyzes the structure and characteristics of internal governance of private colleges and universities, and puts forward some thoughts.

Towards a New Conceptual Framework of Student Activism in South Africa

While the phenomenon of student activism is not new in South Africa, it has escalated recently and has taken on new forms. The literature expounds the emergence of a new modality of student activism in the form of protest movements employing social media as mobilisation tools. While such activism traditionally manifested itself in student representation in university governance structures and student demonstrations, protest movements and social media have emerged as its modern manifestation in South Africa. This article systematically analyses extant theories and conceptual frameworks to assess their relevance to these new modalities. After closely analysing key conceptual frameworks including Stakeholder Theory, the Ideal-type Regime of Governance Model and the Activist Leadership Model, it demonstrates their limitations for describing the emerging trends of student activism in South Africa, the paper proposes a new and robust conceptual model called Unbounded Student Activism.

Representation: raising awareness of opportunities and skill development with undergraduate dental students

Representatives for dentists are required for many governing committees, local and national, that contribute to many aspects of the profession related to politics, the workplace, education, or community-building. Developing skills as a representative can begin as an undergraduate in student representation systems as part of UK university governance structures. At one UK dental institution, there was a plan to explore the learning and skill development of current student representatives, review the training, identify any areas where there were gaps or where they should be strengthened, and consider whether a new training programme could be developed. Training gaps in the representation process and preference for peer mentoring in training were identified as students acknowledged learning 'on the job' through observation of experienced peers. Current representation training also fell short of highlighting the relevance to their future dental profession. Staff and students co-designed a bespoke programme of training to help students develop their representation skills, as well as align them to the development of professional skills which were determined to be relevant for their future dental career.

Investigating the association between universities' corporate governance structure and the knowledge transfer performance outcomes

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the relationship between the governance structure of universities and the universities' knowledge transfer (KT) performance outcomes measured in terms of university spin-off firms university spin-offs (USOs).Design/methodology/approachThe universities' board of directors has been analyzed under three profiles: the incidence of internal directors belonging to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) faculties, the incidence of women directors and the incidence of external directors.FindingsThe findings provide evidence of a significant and positive association, for southern Italian state universities, of the presence of university STEM directors and the establishment of university spin-offs (USOs).Originality/valueThe article is original as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study, except for the paper by Meoliet al.(2019), examined the governance of universities in relation to the establishment of academic spin-offs.

Comparative Analysis of Governance Structure of Open Universities at Home and Abroad

In the development process of higher education, open university is an important form of higher education system. 
 Learning from the educational ideas of foreign open universities can provide reference for the development of open universities 
 in China. The internal governance structure of open universities is based on the talent training plan of colleges and universities, 
 perfecting the modern university system and constructing the core education concept. Through a detailed analysis of the internal 
 governance structure of open universities at home and abroad, this paper compares the operation modes of the internal governance 
 structure of open universities, hoping to improve the school running management system of open universities and promote the 
 development of open universities in China.

Os Rankings Acadêmicos: implicações na governança universitária das universidades católicas brasileiras

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze the implications of academic rankings, as external assessment tools, in the governance structure of Brazilian Catholic universities. For the development of this study, exploratory research was carried out through documentary and bibliographic analyses, taking as reference scientific production found in indexed bases, federal legislation, apostolic constitutions, canon law, statutes, regulations and Institutional Development Plans (IDPs) of these institutions. In light of the numerous existing rankings, their use is evident in the strategic planning process of most Catholic universities, through their respective performances in establishing goals and objectives.

EU-China university governance structures—case studies

EU-China university governance structures—case studies

RETRACTED: Application of information technology in college governance structure system and governance

With the continuous development of the modern university system, the focus of university management continues to move downward, and the improvement of the internal governance structure of universities has become a research hotspot in higher education academic circles. This article aims to improve the governance structure of colleges and universities and improve the governance capacity of colleges and universities by discussing the application of information technology in the governance structure of colleges and universities. This paper conducts questionnaire surveys and interviews with some teachers and students and relevant persons in charge of A colleges and universities, and analyzes the current situation of the governance structure of college A, the existing problems and the current situation of governance informatization of college A. 80.46% of the respondents believe that the actual governance of the school is still dominated by administrative power, and the administrativeization of colleges and universities is becoming more and more serious; 93.71% think that academic strength is weakened; 77.48% think that in participating in school governance matters, teacher and student participation is low and the school does not pay enough attention to it. Based on this, they put forward countermeasures to improve the governance structure of universities. The research in this article is helpful to realize the modernization of my country's university governance and university development through the informationization of university governance.

A Path Dependency Approach to Governance Practices at a Public University of the Western Cape, South Africa

This paper investigates the governance practices embedded within governance structures at the disposal of students at a public tertiary education institution, and student unrest as a mechanism to sway decision-making and reform policy at the case study institution of higher learning. In particular, the study is guided by a qualitative research paradigm using a structured interview tool to gather primary data using the University of the Western Cape (UWC) situated in Cape Town, South Africa, as a bounded case study, against the backdrop of the 2015-2016 #FeesMustFall (FMF) protests. It is suggested in this paper that student unrest is not the main reason, but rather a symptom of the broader inadequacies of the current participatory mechanisms available in university governance structures in general, and at the UWC. Employing a Path Dependency Theoretical (PDT) Approach. The article concludes by analyzing the findings of the empirical research, by identifying several themes and sub-themes.

Building World-Class Universities in Russia: Redefining the Relationship between Academic and Managerial Self-Governance

This paper explores the influence of the Russian University Excellence Initiative (Project 5−100) on university governance structures. We conducted a qualitative study of the university, focusing on changes in academic and managerial self-governance. We found the following. First, the role of the administrators in university decision-making has been strengthened, especially the distribution of financial resources. Separate governing bodies were created from the central administration, the role of professional managers has become more prevalent in the Academic Council, and the tight control on academic departments was increased. These changes were brought about by the newly created role of rector, accompanied by new institutional capacities and financial resources. Second, although the university has called for the participation of academics in new initiatives, the formal governance structures remain relatively unchanged. Academics, including beneficiaries of the university transformation, have not gained greater formal decision-making power.

Application of Artificial Intelligence Techniques in Operating Mode of Professors’ Academic Governance in American Research Universities

Artificial intelligence technology is an important transformative force for teaching innovation in the intelligent era. It is being widely used in American school teaching, including the design of intelligent tutoring systems to achieve precise problem solving, the machine learning technology to ensure personalized activity design, the creation of intelligent virtual reality to promote classroom teaching contextualization, and the development of intelligent evaluation systems to ensure the scientific evaluation of capabilities. In the process of advancing the teaching and application of artificial intelligence technology, the United States has built a linkage mechanism of federal leadership, university follow‐up, and social collaboration and implemented the smart technology in school teaching and professors’ academic governance. This paper is aimed at studying the professors’ academic governance of American research universities by Internet data mining, historical analysis method, documentary method, survey method, and other methods. Professors’ academic governance is a vital part of the modern university system that causes the institutional reform of the internal governance structure of modern universities. The United States is a powerful country in higher education, and professors in American research universities have always participated in university academic governance for centuries. By studying the definition, history, and development and mode of operation of professors’ academic governance in American research universities, the results indicate a clear division of power and responsibility between the professors and administrators based on an artificial intelligence decision system in American research universities. Also, there is a good communication platform based on artificial intelligence environment for professors to discuss their opinions on academic affairs. Third, professors exercise academic power under the guarantee of diversified guaranteed systems based on the artificial intelligence evaluation system and the ideology of mutual respect based on the artificial intelligence management and service system. Studying the application of artificial intelligence techniques in operating mode and enlightenment of professors’ academic governance in an American research university is of great significance to promote the construction of other modern universities’ professors’ academic governance system.

University governance and leadership in Continental Northwestern Europe

ABSTRACT With regard to the governance structures of European universities, changes have been proposed aimed at their democratic nature, the composition of governing bodies, the degree of centralisation in decision-making and redirecting the balance between collective and individual governing responsibilities. In this article, we address the effects of such governance reforms in public, comprehensive universities in Norway and the Netherlands. Differences across countries, even within a relatively homogeneous region such as Northwestern Europe, can be traced back to differences in underlying political visions towards university governance. After an overview of the main features of university governance structures in the two countries, we argue that a specific regional university governance practice has emerged with different combinations of executive and democratic elements.

The Configuration of Action Space in the Governance Structures of Chinese Universities: An Analysis of Interview Data

This paper presents an analytical framework of the configuration of the action space in the governance structure of Chinese universities from the perspectives of formal and informal structures and gives concrete explanations of the factors in the analytical framework based on data from interviews with party committee general secretaries and presidents of 16 Chinese universities. The study found that informal relationships play an important role in governing Chinese universities and are an important aspect in creating the diverse state and action space configuration of university governance. This partially reflects the loose coupling properties of this system.

基于“双一流”建设下的广西民办高校内部治理结构优化研究

基于“双一流”建设下的广西民办高校内部治理结构优化研究