New Roles for the University: The British Experience

1976 ◽  
Vol 159 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-54
Author(s):  
Michael Pinto-Duschinsky
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open University ◽  
Full Time ◽  
University System ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Robbins Report ◽  
Time Courses ◽  
The University

To survey the expansion of British higher education during the last twenty years is to conduct an inquest into an almost unmitigated disaster. The greatly enlarged university system and the new polytechnics have yielded few of the advantages originally claimed by the proponents of rapid growth. The main reason for this failure is that “expansion” has generally been seen as “more of the same.” Since the 1950s, and particularly since the authoritative Robbins Report of 1963, the new universities and polytechnics have too easily become replicas of the old. Higher education has remained geared to the traditional Oxbridge function — the provision of full time, non-vocational, residential, degree courses for 18 – 22 year olds. Significantly, one of the most notable success stories has been the Open University. Unlike conventional institutions, this has introduced a fresh concept of higher education. It offers part time courses catering mainly for adults. The courses are based on correspondence materials and television lectures. The Open University has shown how it is possible to extend the role of the university.

scholarly journals Tensions in the Sustainability of Higher Education—The Case of Finnish Universities

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1941 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annina Lattu ◽  
Yuzhuo Cai
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Corporate Sustainability ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
University System ◽  
Leadership And Management ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The University

Universities are increasingly engaged in marketization and are also expected to transform into more sustainable institutions and be change-agents pushing forward the movement of sustainable development. This article introduces an analytical framework originated by Hahn et al. (2015) for understanding tensions concerning corporate sustainability to the context of the Finnish university system in order to answer the following questions: What are the tensions relating to Finnish universities’ social and economic sustainability, and what strategies might universities use to cope with these tensions? Through analyzing interviews with university managers and officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland, we find that Hahn et al.’s framework is generally applicable in analyzing tensions of sustainability in universities, and we identify six tensions relating to the sustainability of Finnish universities. The tensions are related to (1) academic leadership and management legitimacy, (2) regional political tensions and university profiling, (3) political power over the university system, (4) changing academic work and profession, (5) academic autonomy and the role of the state, and (6) the future role of the university institution. Moreover, the article discusses issues regarding how to adapt the framework of corporate sustainability to the context of higher education.

scholarly journals The Regional Structure of Higher Education and the Role of Distance Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
Melinda Krankovits ◽  
Irén Szörényiné Kukorelli
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Distance Learning ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
University Education ◽  
Full Time ◽  
University Selection ◽  
Catchment Areas ◽  
The University

Abstract In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic the importance of distance learning is being enhanced, while formal, full-time, face-to-face university education is being converted to distance learning. The study explores the role of the Universities in distance learning market and reveals the factors that influence the students’ university choice. The regional embeddedness of higher education in the Western Transdanubian region is analysed, highlighting the catchment areas of the region’s universities. The educational commuting of distance learning students to the region increases purchasing power, has a positive impact on the rental market, the labour market and can boost future settlement. Commuting, university selection and training selection behaviours of correspondence and distance training of students is examined using questionnaires. The aim is to establish whether the university selection of correspondence training students is influenced by distance and by the characteristics of the student‘s place of residence. The findings show that distance is one of the main factors during the university-selection process in the case of any kind of distance learning.

scholarly journals Incorporating the Hybrid Learning Model into Minority Education at a Historically Black University

10.28945/2970 ◽  
2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Buzzetto-More ◽  
Retta Sweat-Guy
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Historically Black ◽  
Hybrid Learning ◽  
Learning Model ◽  
The State ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Classroom Experiences ◽  
University System ◽  
Historically Black University ◽  
The University

Proponents of hybrid learning proclaim it to be an effective and efficient way of expanding course content that supports in-depth delivery and analysis of knowledge (Young, 2002) and increases students satisfaction (Campos & Harasim, 1999; Dziuban & Moskal, 2001; Rivera, McAlister, & Rice, 2002; Wu & Hiltz, 2004). In the years to come, hybrid learning is poised to cause a paradigm shift in higher education (Allen & Seaman, 2003; Lorenzetti, 2005; Young, 2002). Graham B. Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University, was quoted in Young (2002) as saying that hybrid learning presents “the single-greatest unrecognized trend in higher education today.” This benefits of online and hybrid learning have been recognized by the State of Maryland. In a move to stimulate the use of alternative delivery methods, the regents of the University System of Maryland instituted a policy in 2005 that all students take on average 12 of their credits through out-of-classroom experiences and other nontraditional means. Included in the regents' definition of out-of-classroom experiences are e-learning, internships, student teaching, and a host of other activities. Diana G. Oblinger, vice president of Educause, was cited in Lorenzetti (2005) as saying that the Maryland system is recognizing that some online learning is an enhancement to students’ higher-education learning experiences even when those students are full-time on-campus residents. She asserted that the Maryland initiative indicates, and will result in, tangible growth in the hybrid learning model. This paper presents the findings of a study that examined student perceptions of hybrid business courses at a historically black university that operates within the University System of Maryland. Founded in 1886, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) is a historically black, 1890 land grant institution and a member of the thirteen-campus University System of the State of Maryland.

scholarly journals Digital Lifelong Learning and Higher Education: multicultural strengths and challenges in pandemic times

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (111) ◽  
pp. 360-377
Author(s):  
Ana Ivenicki
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Public University ◽  
Educational Policies ◽  
Open University ◽  
Digital Learning ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University

Abstract The paper aims to discuss digital learning for lifelong learning at the university level in Brazil, taken as a case study. It is structured in the following way. It presents concepts of digital learning in multicultural approaches within lifelong paradigms. It then presents a cursory look at Brazilian educational policies in that area, particularly focusing on the role of the Universidade Aberta (Open University) in Brazil. Lastly, it discusses digital learning in the context of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemics in Brazil. It tries to gauge the impediments and the challenges that may jeopardise a multicultural potential in educational policies, particularly focusing on government political directives as well as responses from university associations and from a public university. It concludes, by presenting possible ways ahead for reflections and contributions in the area.

scholarly journals Redefining the Role of Universities in a Rapidly Changing Landscape

2021 ◽  
pp. 245-248
Author(s):  
Datuk Abdul Rahim Hashim
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The Political ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Research Programmes ◽  
The University ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Ministry Of Higher Education

AbstractOver the past few decades, the Malaysian higher education sector has experienced important reform, particularly guided by the Malaysia Education Blueprint for Higher Education 2015–2025 to stimulate continued excellence in the system. However, the dawn of 2020 has unfolded many challenges as COVID-19 rages across the globe bringing sudden paralysis to the whole world. Indeed, the pandemic has affected the world and greatly impacted our lives not only from a health perspective, but also from the political, economic, and social aspects. To date, universities in Malaysia have been closed for more than four months, although the Ministry of Higher Education has recently permitted postgraduate students undertaking full-time research programmes to return to the university should their research necessitate their physical presence in laboratories, workshops, design studios or to use specific equipment available only on campus. For other university students, online or virtual teaching and learning is set to continue until the end of this year, although identified groups of students will be allowed to return to the campus in stages.

The Growth of Administration

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ginsberg
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Spare Time ◽  
Part Time ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The University

During My Nearly five decades in the academic world, the character of the university has changed, and not entirely for the better. As recently as the 1960s and 1970s, America’s universities were heavily influenced, if not completely driven, by faculty ideas and concerns. Today, institutions of higher education are mainly controlled by administrators and staffers who make the rules and set more and more of the priorities of academic life. Of course, universities have always employed administrators. When I was a graduate student in the 1960s and a young professor in the 1970s, though, top administrators were generally drawn from the faculty, and even midlevel managerial tasks were directed by faculty members. These moonlighting academics typically occupied administrative slots on a part-time or temporary basis and planned in due course to return to full-time teaching and research. Because so much of the management of the university was in the hands of professors, presidents and provosts could do little without faculty support and could seldom afford to ignore the faculty’s views. Many faculty members proved to be excellent managers. Through their intelligence, energy and entrepreneurship, faculty administrators, essentially working in their spare time, helped to build a number of the world’s premier institutions of higher education. One important reason for their success was that faculty administrators never forgot that the purpose of the university was the promotion of education and research. Their own short-term managerial endeavors did not distract them from their long-term academic commitments. Alas, today’s full-time professional administrators tend to view management as an end in and of itself. Most have no faculty experience, and even those who spent time in a classroom or laboratory hope to make administration their life’s work and have no plan to return to the faculty. For many of these career managers, promoting teaching and research is less important than expanding their own administrative domains. Under their supervision, the means have become the end.

Building on the Backs: Basil Spence, Queens’ College Cambridge and University Architecture at Mid-Century

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 383-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Second World War ◽  
University Education ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Robbins Report ◽  
Queens College ◽  
The University ◽  
Second World

Higher Education in Britain expanded dramatically during the 1950s and 1960s. The trigger for growth was the Barlow Report of 1946, which recommended an immediate doubling of the number of science students and an increase in the total number of student places, of which there had been c. 50,000 in 1939, to 70,000 by 1950 and 90,000 by 1955. The 1963 Robbins Report continued and accelerated this expansionist policy, proposing that half a million student places be created by 1980. In the event, although funding was less generous than Barlow had recommended, the numbers achieved were far greater, and 85,000 students were in Higher Education by 1950. The impetus for this growth, which included the foundation of seven new universities (the so-called ‘Shakespearean Seven’) and the enlargement of existing institutions, stemmed from an ambitious vision of the role of universities after the Second World War. Higher Education, and particularly scientific training, was seen as one way to maintain Britain’s position on the world stage. Equally important was the principle of widening access, and a concern to broaden the social base of university education found expression in a range of new approaches to design. Within this context, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge also witnessed significant expansion, but in a very particular way and with distinctive results on account of these universities’ collegiate structure. As elsewhere, buildings at Oxbridge for teaching and research were dependent on finance from the University Grants Committee, but the semi-autonomous colleges could draw on their own (sometimes considerable) resources when it came to building. Furthermore, college dons could exercise significantly more influence over the choice of architect than was possible elsewhere. The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge therefore provided an important environment in which new architectural ideas could be explored. An early contribution to the debate was made by the Erasmus Building, a residential block at Queens’ College, Cambridge, designed by Basil Spence in 1958 (Fig. 1). Although the history of Spence’s design is inextricably bound up with its Cambridge context, as an attempt to reformulate the collegiate ideal it also offers a foretaste of the debates that shaped the new universities in the decade that followed.

Rethinking the university system: toward the entrepreneurial university (the case of Italy)

Kybernetes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Vesperi ◽  
Ineza Gagnidze
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Entrepreneurship ◽  
Entrepreneurial University ◽  
University System ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Modern Economic ◽  
The University

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate contemporary changes in the education system. In particular, an analysis of the mechanisms of coordination and communication involved in the process can show how different geographical factors with different relational mechanisms may contribute to the creation of a new academic entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose a methodology with two-step approach. In the first part of the paper, they use a theoretical approach to carry out a longitudinal study of academic literature on the topics of “entrepreneurial university,” “academic entrepreneurship” and “spin-off organizations.” In the second part, they use cross-database analysis to theorize the main aspects of recent developments in higher education in Italy. To this end, the authors use three public and open-access databases on spin-offs, universities and higher education institutions and incubators in Italy. Findings First, issues relating to the formation and best practices of entrepreneurial universities are discussed, based on the works of researchers from 25 countries. Second, a hypothesis is put forward to suggest that the organizational model of entrepreneurial university affects microeconomic competitiveness. Third, a case study of Italian spin-off organizations suggests that the number of incubators and spin-offs, and the type of academic knowledge, all directly affect the entrepreneurial university. Originality/value This paper aims to examine the role of the university in the modern economic system. The originality of this investigation lies in its ability to offer a picture and first analysis of the main actors and of the entrepreneurial university system.

Authority of Law: An Analysis of The Role of Police

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Keir
Keyword(s):  
Policy Development ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Further Education ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
The University

<div class="page" title="Page 3"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>Veronika is a recent graduate from the Honours Legal Studies program at the University of Waterloo. Her passions are socio-legal research, policy development, feminist legal theory, and crime control development. Veronika is currently working a full-time job at Oracle Canada, planning on pursuing further education in a Masters program. </span></p></div></div></div>

The Concept of Nontraditional Student

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-60
Author(s):  
Treinienė Daiva
Keyword(s):  
Nontraditional Students ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Nontraditional Student ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Older Students ◽  
Learning Differences ◽  
Status Characteristics ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The University

Abstract Nontraditional student is understood as one of the older students enrolled in formal or informal studies. In the literature, there is no detailed generalisation of nontraditional student. This article aims to reveal the concept of this particular group of students. Analysing the definition of nontraditional students, researchers identify the main criteria that allow to provide a more comprehensive concept of the nontraditional student. The main one is the age of these atypical students coming to study at the university, their selected form of studies, adult social roles status characteristics, such as family, parenting and financial independence as well as the nature of work. The described features of the nontraditional student demonstrate how the unconventional nontraditional student is different from the traditional one, which features are characteristic for them and how they reflect the nontraditional student’s maturity and experience in comparison with younger, traditional students. Key features - independence, internal motivation, experience, responsibility, determination. They allow nontraditional students to pursue their life goals, learn and move towards their set goals. University student identity is determined on the basis of the three positions: on the age suitability by social norms, the learning outcomes incorporated with age, on the creation of student’s ideal image. There are four students’ biographical profiles distinguished: wandering type, seeking a degree, intergrative and emancipatory type. They allow to see the biographical origin of nontraditional students, their social status as well as educational features. Biographical profiles presented allow to comprise the nontraditional student’s portrait of different countries. Traditional and nontraditional students’ learning differences are revealed by analysing their need for knowledge, independence, experience, skill to learn, orientation and motivation aspects. To sum up, the analysis of the scientific literature can formulate the concept of the nontraditional student. Nontraditional student refers to the category of 20-65 years of age who enrolls into higher education studies in a nontraditional way, is financially independent, with several social roles of life, studying full-time or part-time, and working full-time or part-time, or not working at all.

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