The SRHE Seminar, LondonFebruary 3rd 2012

Steve RaynerSchool of EducationOxford Brookes University

Leading Professors?Academic leadership as perceived by ‘the led’

A RESEARCHER’S PERSPECTIVE:What is a Professor? What is educational leadership? Who are Professors?What does a Professor do and/or should do?

INSITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE:What is the current / future role of the professoriate?How can or does a Professor lead? Is effective?

AN ACADEMIC’S PERSPECTIVE:Why be a Professor? How do I become a Professor?AND THE SUB-TEXT: what makes a good Professor?

Do/Would I want to be a Professor?

STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES: THE PROFESSOR IN THE UK UNIVERSITY?

MYSTERY OR CONSPIRACY?PROFESSORS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

“What it means to be a professor - and more importantly what others think it means - is magnificently opaque. There’s plenty of advice on how to get there, but little once you’ve reached your destination. There’s no global job description, no template, no handbook, only the example of those who have gone before. There is no consensus: definitions vary by country, institution and mission, and it is unclear whether professors are there to improve research or teaching.”Leader, Times Higher Education, 17th Nov. 2011

IMPACT: RE-AFFIRMING THE ROLE OF A WORKING PROFESSOR IN THE UK UNIVERSITY; TWO A PENNY? MANAGER? HYBRID LEADER? MAGICIAN?

Contemporary Job Description

Through your research and professional activity you will play a key role in realising the University's learning and teaching and research strategy through contributions to national and international initiatives and developments in the field of [XXX]. You will be expected to make a significant contribution to the School's research profile, and to its management and development by providing strategic academic leadership. You will be expected to contribute to research student supervision and to our teaching programmes. AND ?????

ANALYTIC REVIEW (RAYNER et al., 2009-10)SOME LEADING INSIGHTS

Interpretive Enquiry (interviews)Bolden, Petrov, & Gosling (2008) …. a refined model that teases apart the multilayered nature of higher education leadership at individual, group and organisational levels. In particular, it is argued that ‘social capital’ and ‘social identity’ act as important bridges between individual agency and organisational structure and that although widely distributed, higher education leadership may be best regarded as ‘hybrid’.

Critical Commentary

Whitchurch (2007)…. Despite more recent acknowledgement of changes in the workforce, there remain deep-rooted perceptions of ‘administration’ and ‘management’ as being activities disconnected from, and even antithetical to, academic agendas.  Discourses are beginning to emerge suggesting that professional managers are creating new space in the university, crossing management and academic territories, and involving new forms of management.

ANALYTIC REVIEW (RAYNER et al., 2009-10): SOME LEADING INSIGHTS E-Survey / Interviews of ProfessorsMcFarlane, B. (2011). … new managerialism and performative expectations are re-shaping the role of the professoriate and institutions need to do more to develop their leadership capacity. … Respondents and interviewees articulated six main qualities [professorial leadership] which were role model, mentor, advocate, guardian, acquisitor, and ambassador.

Analytic ReviewRayner, S., Fuller, M., McEwen, L. & Roberts, H. (2010) …. The first and most important conclusion in this review is, therefore, that there is little empirical research and a limited literature in the area of leadership and management of higher education. There is less still on the professor in the UK university. There is a great need for more research.

THE KNOWLEDGE BASE: MISSING ASPECTS OF LEADING MANAGEMENT IN RELATION TO HE & THE PROFESSORIAL ROLE Theorizing fit for purpose institutional / academic leadership

Organizational / Differential Psychology – LMX Theory, Learning Theory, Systems Theory, Sociocultural Theory

Modelling effective educational leadership Collegiate; distributed; collective; transformative; hybrid; new governance; transformational leadership; managerial leaders

Developing meaningful evidence-informed approachesAdministrative bureaucracy; evidence-led practice; practice-based evidence; practitioner enquiry, performativity, and data management (audit, flow, control analysis)

Contributing to equity in the organizational culture & community Inclusive education; access; student experience; learner engagement / voice; ethics; social justice; flexible learning and assessment

WAYS FORWARD: ISSUES, IMPLICATIONS, IMPACT

Focus upon the theory (knowledge) gap between educational leadership/management theory, and the nature/experience of academic leadership in the UK University

Develop and re-affirm the status, role and contribution of the professoriate in the work of the academy and the individual University

Explore and improve the structures, agency and process by which academic career pathways serve the institution and link to learning and governance of the organization

Research the understandings and experiences of professors as intellectual and academic leaders for the advancement of core work i.e., scholarship, research, pedagogy and learning within the academy

Continue to explore the stakeholder accounts of professorial leadership as it impinges upon issues of policy, excellence, equity, and satisfaction in the higher educational experience.

LfHE Research Project 2011-12 Research Design 1

research intention – to examine the nature and quality of academic leadership provided by the UK HE sector’s professoriate, as perceived by ‘the led’, for the purpose of highlighting and disseminating models of good practice, identifying weaknesses and lacunae, and making recommendations for improved policy and practice.

research GOAL [1] - examine the concept of academic leadership and how it is interpreted, with a view to better defining it and delineating its features; interrogate the nature and bases of: a) what is perceived as effective academic leadership, and b) what is perceived as ineffective or inadequate academic leadership; synthesise data and formulate models of good practice (identify features of ineffective or inadequate practice);

research GOAL [2] raise awareness of the impact on academics and academic communities of professorial academic leadership and, in particular, of the benefits (potential) of good leadership practice.

LfHE Research Project 2011-12 Research Design 2

The Research Plan

[a] Online survey designed to be completed in around 10 minutes, circulated to academic staff representing the ‘led’ in an academic setting, and employed in pre / post 1992 universities in the UK, using the Bristol Online Surveys software.

[b] Interviews and/or focus groups to provide opportunities to gather rich (thick) data that illuminate (portray) the relationships between leaders and the led and identify examples of effective or successful professorial leadership.

[c] Knowledge production, mobilization and impact activities informed by the data in the form of workshops for the project; to include sessions at SHRE; BELMAS; Universities at Reading; Cambridge; Bath; Queens Belfast; Strathclyde; Oxford; Leeds.

[d] Research Report to include: way forward with KT proposal via networking PD with staff development units at HEIs across the country.

LfHE Research Project 2011-12 Research Design 23

The Researched Population – academics representing ‘the led’ in the UK University

The on-line survey sample / respondents

Non-professorial academic staff across campus Broad representation of the disciplines / types of university All UK included Content framed utilizing previous literature reviews; higher education

management; professors as leaders; educational leadership. E-mail invitations (n.b., enabled ‘purposive’ selection of cases and usually

found to generate high (but wildly varying) response rates (15%-80%) More than 1200 responses in a 4 month period (including one or two ‘covert’

profs) Respondents asked to indicate readiness to participate in interviews or

participation in organising a focus group at their institution

LfHE Research Project 2011-12 Research Design 4

The Researched Population – academics representing ‘the led’

The interview sample / participants

More than 50 semi-structured interviews recorded (average length 45 minutes) Mode of interview: mix of telephone and face to face interviews Interview content: key areas covered included academic career experience,

progression and aspirations; current job satisfaction; experience of working with professors; perceptions of departmental structures, systems and culture; understandings of the professorial role / function, performance; ideal model of a professor / professorial role; nature of professorial leadership / contributions including in the areas of research, teaching, mentoring; personal / professional / institutional futures for policy, practice.

Interviewee sample: participants from universities in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales; working in University Administration; Education, Business & Management; Social Sciences (e.g., sociology, geography, environmental studies); Arts (Languages, Music, English); Sciences (biology, medicine); Law; and, research fellows in several inter-disciplinary projects (typically located in Psychology).

LfHE Research Project 2011-12 Research Design 5

FINDINGS?

THE STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE?