Managing in the comprehensive university: boundaries, identities and transitions

1. Managing in the comprehensive university: boundaries, identities and transitions Bruce Macfarlane, Ourania Filippakou, Liz Halford and Arti Saraswat SRHE Annual Conference 2007

2. Background • Merger between Thames Valley University and Reading College (2004) • HEFCE LGM project funding (2005-2008) • Dual sector/post-secondary comprehensive institutions in other national contexts

3. HEFCE LGM Project Stage 1: National and international comparison Stage 2: Interviews with manager-academics at TVU Stage 3: Management development programme

4. The middle ‘manager-academic’ • Someone with a primarily academic identity carrying a managerial role (Deem, Clegg, etc) • Challenges oversimplified collegiate/managerial dichotomy • Interviewees: Heads of subject, Directors of study, programme and curriculum leaders

5. Managing the comprehensive university BOUNDARIES IDENTITIES • TRANSITIONS

6. Managing the comprehensive university Systems-focused Lecturer-focused BOUNDARIES IDENTITIES • TRANSITIONS Student-focused

7. Managing the comprehensive university Teacher accreditation frameworks Systems-focused Lecturer-focused Faculty organisation BOUNDARIES IDENTITIES Governance issues Funding & Quality audit bodies • TRANSITIONS Student-focused

8. Boundaries • System focused ‘FE is a much more regulated environment, there is Ofsted inspection regime…..you are much more closely monitored ….its about targets, attainments, goals, those sorts of things whereas HE is a more relaxed environment and the presence of research culture makes it different as well’ (Head of Subject) • Systems and identities ‘We don’t need a pink version of red and white’ (Anon.)

9. Managing the comprehensive university Career progression Systems-focused Lecturer-focused Staff development BOUNDARIES IDENTITIES Role of research Contractual issues • TRANSITIONS Student-focused

10. Identities ‘a university is a post 18 institution, which has a focus on scholarship … an FE institution, by its very nature, is about skills’ ‘your university may not be a university for very long …. It’s an issue where you have more FE students than HE students then you run the risk of not being a university’ ‘a university is a community of scholars … Is an FE college, within that sense, a community of scholars?’

11. Managing the comprehensive university Systems-focused Lecturer-focused BOUNDARIES IDENTITIES • TRANSITIONS Curriculum design/innovation HE ‘Environment’ Progression ‘ladders’ Student-focused Buildings/Social facilities Programme ‘nesting’

12. Transitions ‘I think if you want progression to work and that seems to be one of the major, major issues we have is getting the students to aspire and the only way to get them to aspire is to give them something to aspire to….Where it works the most successfully, and again this is from talking to staff at other institutions, is where the FE and the HE is separated out on the campus so there’s an HE building that you aspire to go to…’ (Programme Leader)

13. Conclusion: key points • Boundaries are not regarded as easily permeable • Identities are firmly entrenched in cultural assumptions • Location and student aspiration are seen as more central to transitions than curriculum structures • Different views on ideal organisational form: ‘intersectionists’ and ‘integrationists’

14. Contact Bruce Macfarlane: bruce.macfarlane@tvu.ac.uk Ourania Fillipakou: ofilippakou@ioe.ac.uk Liz Halford: elizabeth.halford@tvu.ac.uk Arti Saraswat: arti.saraswat@tvu.ac.uk www.tvu.ac.uk/research/1centres/create.jsp