This book takes the same four-frame schema as Boleman and Deal's well know Reframing Organizations, but specifically in the context of higher education. The first few chapters do seemed like a rehash of the other: structural, political, and so on ... but then the examples became infused with something that is very unique to academia. That is the rift that often develops between faculty and administration. "Faculty can see staff as unduly constrained and bureaucratic," they explain. "Staff often wonder why they have to track their hours and vacation days when faculty seem to come and go as they please."
Working within a discipline or - more often - sub-discipline is not very amenable to hierarchical control. The focus for faculty is within their specific areas - a "silo" mentality. It's not easy for faculty members to see or appreciate the complex institutional machinery required to assemble groups of inquisitive youth in rooms, on schedule, like clockwork, year after year, in a fluid and unstable environment. Meanwhile, academic administrators (unlike those running a factory or grocery store), cannot understand what actually happens at the other end of the hierarchy. They simply do not have the expertise. There's a built-in volatility which is difficult to control.
The popular Boleman/Deal book, now it its fourth edition and widely used as a text in management and leadership classes, only went so far as to compare universities to hospitals. That's an interesting thought - doctors there are the counterpart to faculty members here.
But they go much farther in this book. Faculty members' reference group, for example, may not include the administration or staff, colleagues in other departments, or even colleagues in their own area. They may, instead, be aligned intellectually with likeminded specialists in other institutions, institutions which are (from the business model) competitors. The culture, goals, outlook, perspective, motivation, and knowledge base of Professor Jones may be worlds apart from that of Dean Simon or Provost Peters. And although they may distrust one another, and even fight, they also pull in the same direction. Such is life in academia.
The audience for this book is probably small not only because this is specific to academia but because it will be of more value to administrators than to faculty. Faculty can often all but ignore the broad institutional view of the administration. But they shouldn't, of course. Faculty will find the book interesting, and will like to read that they are of primary importance. The first law of higher education leadership, the authors write, is "If you lose the faculty, you lose." And yet, they also discuss the "pervasive faculty scorn for bureaucracy, administrators, and hierarchy."
The same three threads are wound again through academia: political, structural, human resources ... to great effect. As before (in Boleman/Deal) an effort is made on account of symbolism too, which fell short again, I thought. Yes there is no denying the symbolic power of Arizona State University President Michael Crow's 2002 inaugural address, reprinted in part, in which he describes "A new gold standard" of higher education. The speech was moving, inspirational, and effective because it presented a vision; yes, a vision which involved people, politics, and structure. It wasn't the symbols that were so valuable in themselves, it was that they were an effective mode of communication. If symbology is an entire frame of academic leadership, so is shouting. If there was anything symbolic that needs a little explaining, it may be the stark difference in dress code between faculty and administration. If communication and interaction is so important between these groups, I understand the jeans and and sneakers on faculty -- they're comfortable, and that's also what students wear. Not that I think they're so bad in themselves, what's with the suits and ties. Probably, administrators must communicate with politicians, businessmen, legislators, donors, and others who will appreciate the formality. But it does affect the faculty-administration dynamic and it's an issue that may be worth taking up in the next edition.
Despite that shortcoming, and a couple of chapters at the end that refer vaguely to "feeding the soul" and the "sacred nature of academic leadership," the insights keep coming, chapter by chapter: Transparency and secrecy, reward structures, recruiting and hiring, managing budgets and personnel, review, accountability, motivation, cross-disciplinary cooperation, communication, self-control, autonomy, accountability, conflict resolution, assessment, regulations and guidelines - these are all addressed. Anyone involved in higher education will be thankful for this illuminating book.
