Changing Times, Changing Universities

Abstract

Universities worldwide are being challenged to be more focused, efficient and effective to meet the demands of a globally situated, technologically enabled, higher education market place. Governments are increasingly applying the rhetoric of markets to higher education public policy as they seek to enhance research and higher education as essential platforms for a knowledge economy. For their part, universities are engaging a business enterprise focus to ensure survival in the context of resource scarcity and frequent change in their operating environment. The key challenge for universities is to retain their academic integrity and their institutional, other-regarding, nature, including their accountability to the community, while maintaining their financial sustainability. To do this, those charged with leadership, governance and management of universities must negotiate inherent tensions within universities while operating in a dynamic environment. This paper draws on the experience of James Cook University in Australia to explore these inherent tensions and identifies the value of institutional distinctiveness and clarity of institutional vision in meeting the demands of change.