Abstract
Like many of their overseas counterparts Australia’s public universities have a grand vision. This is typically stated as shaping students’ lives and making a global contribution to research. This vision is then transformed into the missions of education, research and engagement with the community and industry. All of Australia’s universities have these multiple missions. The problem is to integrate them into a single overarching telos, or fundamental purpose. To see how well this is achieved, we examine the overlap of these multiple missions. Many statements of strategy do a poor job explaining how these missions combine to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The value chain framework is a good illustration of how many university missions reside in their own silo of activity.
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Notes
- 1.
Available at http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/Vice-Chancellor-speech-to-the-World-Academic-Summit.
- 2.
See, for example, S. Oertel and M. Söll, “Universities between Traditional Forces and Modern Demands: The Role of Imprinting on the Missions of German Universities”, Higher Education, Vol. 73 (2017), 1–18.
- 3.
J. Haidt, “Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice”. Downloaded from http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/10/21/one-telos-truth-or-social-justice/
- 4.
F. Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth (London: Routledge, 1977).
- 5.
J. Fischetti, “The three things universities must do to survive disruption”, The Conversation (19 June, 2019).
- 6.
G. Lloyd, “Free to Defy Orthodoxy”, The Australian, (18 April, 2019), 11.
- 7.
N. Robinson, “Students with lowest ATAR scores being offered places in teaching degrees: secret report”, ABC News (18 September, 2018).
- 8.
R. Stokes, “How universities lower teacher standards by focusing on profit”, Sydney Morning Herald (20 September, 2018), p. 25.
- 9.
Interestingly, people who are against a social justice issue seldom lobby for it not to be recognised.
- 10.
See for example, J. Chen, D. Patten and R. Roberts, “Corporate Charitable Contributions: A Corporate Social Performance or Legitimacy Strategy?” Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 82, No. 1 (2008), 131–144; D. Prior, J. Surroca and J. Tribo, “Are Socially Responsible Managers Really Ethical? Exploring the Relationship between Earnings Manipulation and Corporate Social Responsibility”, Corporate Governance, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2008), 160-177. Also, it is from the corporate sector that universities now recruit some senior executives.
- 11.
The Spanish Jesuit universities are good examples of this type of university. Their social justice orientation is grounded in their spirituality, and they try to embed this in campus life.
- 12.
U. Pidun, A. Richter, M. Schommer and A. Karna, “A New Playbook for Diversified Companies”, MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 60, No. 2 (2018).
- 13.
B. T. Ferrari and P. H. Phan, “Universities and the Conglomerate Challenge” McKinsey Quarterly (September, 2018).
- 14.
U. Pidun, A. Richter, M. Schommer and A. Karna, “A New Playbook for Diversified Companies”, MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 60, No. 2 (2018).
- 15.
For example, in 2015 some endowments were—Harvard $36.9 billion, Yale $23.6 billion, Stanford $17.2 billion, Princeton $16.4 billion and MIT 10.1 billion. The Harvard Management Company manages its endowment.
- 16.
Even though research-active academics might design curriculum and do much of the teaching, this does not automatically mean that research informs teaching. For example, most of an undergraduate curriculum is based on ‘old news’ (the basics of a discipline), not ‘new news’ (latest research findings). The postgraduates will get more new news.
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Devinney, T., Dowling, G. (2020). What Are the Strategies of Australia’s Universities? Mission, Vision and Values. In: The Strategies of Australia’s Universities. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3397-6_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3397-6_7
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