VC’ s corner
Universities established in the 1970s are facing a mid-life crisis as they look towards the internationalising future. By Richard Higgott
Few people would question the globalising imperatives on higher education in the early 21st century. As the number of higher education institutions grows, so too do the pressures to internationalise.
At one end of the spectrum UNESCO’ s 2012 International Handbook of Universities lists more than 15,000 institutions. A realistic assessment suggests there are about 9000 institutions that might reasonably be called universities. Even using this number, or the smaller numbers in the rankings( QS, 800-plus; SHJT, 500; THE, 400) it is clear that there can be no one-size-fits-all strategy that they might adopt for making their way in our world. New universities, in particular, are challenged by the pressures of internationalisation.
Strategies will vary, from those adopted by established universities through to the new private providers joining the sector. For established providers, with secure domestic markets and an international brand, the transformation is largely an evolutionary exercise in selective additions.
At the other end of the spectrum, the imperative to secure a toehold in the global market is a priority for the newest entrants. This, all too often, can entail the adoption of a“ never mind the quality, feel the width” approach to securing students, reflecting a top-down corporate, profitmaximising culture rather than a traditional university mission underwritten by a sense of academic collegiality, an appropriately calibrated relationship between teaching and research and an emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
THE 40-SOMETHINGS One category of institution that faces both constraints and opportunities in making the transition from national to globally competitive is that group of universities born in the 1970s. We might call these the 40-something universities. My own university, Murdoch, turns 40 in 2015. What distinguishes this group is that they were created de novo with a research and teaching mission and an assumption that they would mature into comprehensive institutions. They did not emerge from an earlier incarnation as either a college of education or an institute of technology. But, unlike older more established institutions, they have not had long to establish their reputations, they invariably lack endowments and they cater
( willingly I should say) for a broader range of students than elite institutions. Murdoch, for example, enrols only 35 per cent of its undergraduates directly from high school. In short, they sit in what is increasingly referred to as the squeezed middle.
The future direction of the 40-somethings in the current era can go one of two ways. Down one route lies a mid-life crisis, a lack of direction and a fraught, possibly even schizophrenic, failure to adjust to a global environment with all the stresses and strains on identity and academic legitimacy such crises imply. Down a more positive route lies a potentially successful engagement with the dynamics and imperatives of the global transition.
Not all universities will make this transition and there is no one single route to success and happiness. Options range, at one end of the spectrum, from a greater presence in the further and vocational education sector through to merger with other institutions— the volume approach. At the other end of the spectrum, for a 40-something aspiring to undergo a successful maturation in the changing environment of global higher education in the early 21st century while at the same time maintaining an essential university character, several things, in my judgment at least, are needed.
THE PATH TO ACADEMIC QUALITY First, it needs to be acknowledged that the 40-something universities are never likely to be fully disciplinarily comprehensive. Nor can they simply go for volume if they wish to maintain a calibrated research-teaching balance. They need rather to search for a rounded specialisation in which they have substantial pockets of genuine international research excellence accompanied by an ability to deliver a rounded education across a wider range of disciplinary areas— perhaps the exemplar of the model is the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with its world class science and some world class social science and some breadth in the humanities.
Second, we must remember what the bedrock assumptions of a university are – a commitment to research and teaching, not just research or teaching. Of course, not all members of faculty will teach and not all will research; but the starting assumption of a 40-something university must be that the vast majority of its faculty will do both in recognition of the inseparable link between the production of knowledge and its dissemination. Embedding two classes of academics in an institution can only be culturally dysfunctional.
A third priority is not only to stick to university values and a symbiotic relationship between research and teaching but above all to stick to a quality agenda in all that they do. This is especially important for those universities embarking on an internationalising journey. They must not be driven by a search for increased student load and revenue generation alone. Income generation without quality is unsustainable in the cross-national regulatory age. Regulators are global and joined up.
These are arguments I make with some feeling. They represent the strategy to which the leadership group at Murdoch is committed. This strategy will require us to hold our nerve over the next few years as things get tough. We will almost certainly dip further in league tables, funds will be in short supply and we will have to do less with less if we are to reassert the primacy of quality. It is a strategy that also requires us to bring the academic community along in a format of shared governance rather than in a corporate, rule-maker, rule-taker relationship. Strategy should be developed with a quality academic priority at its core. Some readers, I am sure, will see this strategy as Canute-like in its aspiration. But none of this implies that sustainability and proper management should not be central in the life of a 40-something university. Rather it implies, for Murdoch at least, a retreat from the more corporate system of management that some universities have adopted in recent years. For the quality agenda to prevail, universities need to be academically led and governed, not simply managed.
For sure not all managerial skills are equally distributed. But wherever possible, universities that lack the strength that only comes with depth and longevity should fill their senior positions with the best and most respected academics they have at their disposal. Some among you will say:“ This is blindingly obvious. This is what happens in all good universities.” But deep down many of us know that this is not always the case. Universities in the squeezed middle must value reputation over brand( and yes, dear reader, there is a difference). Reputations, like Rome, are not built in a day. ■
Professor Richard Higgott is vicechancellor at Murdoch University, Perth.
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