Regulatory Incoherence and the University

Penn State has been subject to a series of governance shocks over the last years.  It is now an excellent laboratory for the ways in which large and complex institutions respond to stress.  The effects of these stresses on university faculty, as an autonomous unit of governance, are among the most interesting. The role of the faculty at a university suggests the ways in which changes in the cultures of governance and in the forms of administration in collaborative governance structures, that is changes in the internal governance culture of an institution, can put substantial stress on the viability of formal systems.  In the university, in particular, the reluctance to change formal structures even as the realities of governance culture changes preserves the appearance of a governance role even as it is effectively reduced. 

 

("Sleeping Dog", pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

This post links to my comments of these issues as they relate specifically to the changes at Penn State.

Form and Function in Faculty Governance: Aligning Governance Structures With Changing Realities of University Administration

 Senate Forensic on Senate Institutional Reorganization  (Jan. 8, 2013), 

Responding to the Senate Self Study Forensic--The Senate Can Work Better.