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Key Issues and Challenges Facing Academic Governance

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Academic Governance in the Contemporary University

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Abstract

This chapter draws from literature and empirical data within the foregoing 10 chapters to present a synthesis of the primary issues and challenges facing academic governance within contemporary Anglophone nations. The chapter commences with a summary of the key changes that have affected academic governance within the past three decades. It then highlights the implications of these changes for the ways in which institutional level academic governance is currently practiced with a particular focus on the potentially problematic intersections between academic board and senior executive responsibilities, the apparent diminution of academic and student voice within academic governance processes, a growing disconnection between academic strategy and academic practice , the potentially symbolic roles of academic governance bodies in academic quality assurance processes and practices and the corporatisation of academic governance . This chapter concludes with the observation that the combined effect of some of these and other challenges for academic governance is the potential for loss of academic control over key areas of academic work such as curriculum and research. In turn, this has implications not only for the integrity and effectiveness of academic governance processes but also for university performance in the most significant areas of its operations.

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  1. School of Education, Deakin University, Warrnambool, Australia

    Julie Rowlands

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  1. Julie Rowlands
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Rowlands, J. (2017). Key Issues and Challenges Facing Academic Governance. In: Academic Governance in the Contemporary University. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2688-1_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2688-1_11

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