How a Century-Old Family-Like University Responds to the Neoliberal Agenda: The Case of National University of Tainan

Abstract

The globalization talks form the neoliberal agenda in higher education. When the changing governance for responding to the neoliberal agenda is put into a context for examination, critical space is created for rethinking the role and meaning of higher education beyond being economized, marketized, and privatized, especially views from institutional practices in those unconventional cases. This belief supports this study by examining the National University of Tainan (NUTN), Taiwan, that experienced a transformation from a century-old family-like teacher education status to a comprehensive university, to show how the neoliberal agenda affects its institutional practices. The study adopted a documentary analysis for data collection. The main findings reveal that the neoliberal agenda had mixed impacts on the NUTN, surely more rhetoric than practices, due to its family-like organization culture favoring the collegiality. But the governance in the NUTN case reflects the collegiality-bound bureaucracy with greater accountability over the corporate practices. Thus, being forced to move out of the government monopoly, it is high time for NUTN to use the external neoliberal agenda wisely and strategically to make collegiality-bound bureaucracy governance model responsive to increasing external demands and changes.

Appendix 11.1 Key Description of the Selected Documents

Document name	Date	Code number	Key description
Stage 1: teacher education (TE) (1994–2004)
Briefing for MOE Inspection	April 1996	TEDoc1	Under the MOE regular review
Minute of the Council Meeting	1998	TEDoc2	Decided to upgrade to “Tainan Normal University”
Minute of the Council Meeting	2000	TEDoc3	Raised staff awareness about external changes
Minute of the Council Meeting	Jan. 2003	TEDoc4	Decided to change its name to “University of Tainan”
Minute of the Council Meeting	June 2004	TEDoc5	MOE failed the application for raising the tuition fee level
Transformation Proposal for Tainan Normal University	Sep. 1998	TEDoc6	Submitted to the MOE after acquiring council approval
Transformation Proposal for University of Tainan	May 2004	TEDoc7	Re-submitted to the MOE after acquiring council approval
Proposal for Moving Whole Institution to New Campus	Sep. 2000	TEDoc8	Found solution to the limited space for a comprehensive university
Year Report	2002	TEDoc9	NUTN’s first annual report
Stage 2: university (U) (2004–present)
2005 Mid-term and long-term university development plan	April 2005	UDoc1	Required by the MOE: first time NUTN had such a detailed plan
2008 Mid-term and long-term university development plan	June 2008	UDoc2	Different from UDoc1, this was initiated from within
2011 Mid-term and long-term university development plan	March 2011	UDoc3	Initiated from within
2016 Mid-term and long-term university development plan	June 2016	UDoc4	Initiated from within
MOE’s Review on Transforming to a University	May 2005	UDoc5	Conducted in the first year after upgrading
2011 External Evaluation Report	2011	UDoc6	Received its first accreditation certificate
Minutes of Annual Consultation Meeting	2008–2015	UDoc7–UDoc14	Sought external views and suggestions on NUTN development
2016 Financial Planning Report	2015	UDoc15	First time NUTN should submit such a report for MOE’s approval.
Regulation on Awarding Departments with Good Research Performance	2005	UDoc16	The first explicit and competitive rule among departments for research performance
Regulation on Evaluation of Faculty Member	2006	UDoc17	Faculty members should be evaluated
Regulation on Awarding Departments with Good Teaching Practices	2007	UDoc18	The first explicit and competitive rule among departments for teaching excellence
Regulation on Encouraging Faculty Using English as Medium of Instruction	2007	UDoc19	Under the external pressure to internationalize
Regulation on Awarding Faculty with Good Performance in Research and Education Quality	2005	UDoc20	Award based mainly on individual academics’ publication efforts
Regulation on Organizing Student Recruitment Committee	2016	UDoc21	The first clear rule for such a committee
Regulation on Student Place Adjustment	Dec. 2016	UDoc22	Internal adjustment before the MOE cut student places
Regulation on Financial Incentive for Recruitment Full-paying Foreign Students	2016	UDoc23	Made incentive explicit to raise the number of foreign students