The Collegial Tradition in the Age of Mass Higher Education

This book will examine the relationship between collegiality and the collegial tradition in the context of the development of mass higher education. The collegial tradition in higher education has been shaped above all by the collegiate universities. In all its various forms (as commensality, as a mode of governance, and as a critical force in shaping the process of teaching, learning and research) the collegial tradition has found sustenance in many sectors of higher education. It may well be that the tradition as expressed in these forms now has more strength and depth in the non-collegiate than in the collegiate universities. This work will give a fuller picture of the present-day character of British (especially English) higher education. Although this is a book that will rely particularly upon the Oxford experience of collegiality, there will be extensive comparative and international reference to the idea of collegiality, the various challenges to it that have emerged within different national systems, and the contrasting patterns of adjustment to those challenges. Much of our writing re?ects a long-term commitment to the analysis of the col- gial tradition in higher education. This commitment is re?ected most strongly in Oxford and the Decline of the Collegiate Tradition (2000), which we are pleased to say will re-appear as a considerably revised second edition (Oxford, The Collegiate University: Con?ict, Consensus and Continuity) to be published by Springer in the near future. To some extent this volume, The Collegial Tradition in the Age of Mass Higher Education, is a reaction to the charge that our work has been too narrowly focussed upon the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (Oxbridge). Not surpr- ingly, you would expect us to reject that critique, while responding constructively to it. The focus may be narrow, and although the relative presence and, more arguably, the in?uence of Oxford and Cambridge may have declined in English higher e- cation, they remain important national universities. Moreover, as the plethora of so-called world-class higher education league tables would have us believe, they also have a powerful international status. This, however, is essentially a defensive response dependent upon the alleged reputations of the two universities. This book is intent on making a more substantial argument. To examine the c- legial tradition in higher education means much more than presenting a nostalgic look at the past. This book explores the development of the collegial tradition within the context of mass higher education. Although the collegial tradition has been determined above all by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in its various forms it has found sustenance in many different systems and institutions of higher education. Most critical are the integral values and practices that shape both institutional governance and the pursuit of teaching, learning and research. This book examines the contemporary pressures to which models of higher education have to respond. Within this broad context the book analyses the challenges that the collegial tradition faces and how, within differing national systems, it is responding to those challenges. The underlying purpose is to ask the question whether the collegial tradition is intrinsic to the idea of the university. Will it survive and, if so, in what form? --Book Jacket. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Collegiality: Setting the Agenda....Pages 3-15 The Collegial Tradition in Higher Education....Pages 17-37 Collegiality: The Contemporary Challenges....Pages 39-55 Front Matter....Pages 57-57 Collegiality as Colleges....Pages 59-74 The Slippery Slope Known as Federalism....Pages 75-91 Managerialism as Collegiality: The Impossible Conjuring Trick?....Pages 93-110 Front Matter....Pages 111-111 Lessons from America: A Comparative Perspective on the Collegial Tradition....Pages 113-133 Lessons from Continental Europe: The Collegial Tradition as Academic Power....Pages 135-154 Front Matter....Pages 155-155 Collegiality Revisited: Continuity, Rejuvenation or Demise?....Pages 157-172 Back Matter....Pages 173-187 This book examines the contemporary pressures to which models of higher education have to respond. Within this broad context the book analyses the challenges that the collegial tradition faces and how, within differing national systems, it is responding to those challenges. The underlying purpose is to ask the question whether the collegial tradition is intrinsic to the idea of the university. Will it survive and, if so, in what form? --Résumé de l'éditeur