Manifestations of Collegiality Within Universities: Delocalisation and Structural Hybridity as Governance Forms and Practices
Revitalizing Collegiality: Restoring Faculty Authority in Universities
ISBN: 978-1-80455-821-8, eISBN: 978-1-80455-818-8
ISSN: 0733-558X
Publication date: 12 December 2023
Abstract
The theme of collegiality and more broadly of changes in the governance of universities has attracted growing interest within the sociology of higher education. As institutions, contemporary universities are inhabited by competing logics often defined in terms of market pressures and are shaped by the higher education policies of governments. Collegiality is an ideal-type form of university governance based on expertise and scientific excellence. Our study looks at manifestations of collegiality in two publicly funded universities in Canada. Collegiality is explored through the structural attributes of governance arrangements and academic culture in action as a form of self-governance. Case studies rely on two data sources: (1) policy documents and secondary data on various aspects of university development, and (2) semi-structured interviews with key players in the governance of these organisations, including unions. Two main findings with implications for the enactment of collegiality as a governance mode in universities are discussed. The first is that governance structures are slowly transitioning into more hybrid and corporate forms, where academics remain influential but share and negotiate influence with a broader set of stakeholders. The second is the appearance of forces that promote a delocalisation of collegiality, where academics invest in external scientific networks to assert collegiality and self-governance and may disinvest in their own institution, thus contributing to the redefinition of academic citizenship. Status differentiation among academic colleagues is associated with the externalisation of collegiality. Mechanisms to associate collegiality with changes in universities and their environment need to be further explored.
Keywords
Citation
Denis, J.-L., Côté, N. and Hébert, M. (2023), "Manifestations of Collegiality Within Universities: Delocalisation and Structural Hybridity as Governance Forms and Practices", Sahlin, K. and Eriksson-Zetterquist, U. (Ed.) Revitalizing Collegiality: Restoring Faculty Authority in Universities (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 87), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 137-156. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20230000087006
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2024 Jean-Louis Denis, Nancy Côté and Maggie Hébert
License
These works are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these works (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode.
Introduction
The theme of collegiality and more broadly of the governance of universities has attracted growing interest within the sociology of higher education (Musselin, 2021). Collegiality is expressed in structure, behaviours, and culture and, as a mode of governance, co-exists and co-acts with other governance ideals (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2016). The notion of collegiality involves discipline or domain-based communities of scholars that are self-regulated and autonomous from outside pressure or interference (Rowlands, 2017) and is associated with the notion of academic citizenship where service to students, colleagues, their institution, their discipline or profession, and the public are an inherent component of faculty roles and duties. Collegiality is associated with expertise and scientific or disciplinary excellence and is considered distinct from governance based solely on representative democracy (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2016).
In this paper, we explore manifestations of collegiality as a mode of governance in two universities in Canada. We focus on how a combination of internal and external changes impact on the work of faculty, and on how universities’ response to external demands and policies provides an enabling or limiting context for collegial governance. The conceptual background of the paper identifies recent transformations and challenges faced by institutions of higher education and identifies potential implications for the understanding of vertical and horizontal collegiality, academic citizenship, and more broadly for the institutionalisation of self-governance in universities (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2023a). We then briefly expose our research methodology. Research findings from our two empirical case studies are presented at the level of the university as an organisation. The discussion and conclusion focus on the evolution, risks, and accommodations related to the manifestation of collegiality as a mode of governance within contemporary universities.
Conceptual Background: Transformative Forces in Higher Education and Collegial Governance
Universities are perceived as an enduring and specific organisational form that has spread worldwide in the context of a massification of education (Rowlands, 2017). However, universities in most jurisdictions are under pressure to respond to multiple contingencies and expectations. Various broad policy trends such as managerialism, NPM (Christopherson et al., 2014) and economic and labour market policies (Klofsten et al., 2019) call for an intensification of the civic role of universities (MacFarlane, 2019), and EDI norms (Tamtik & Guenter, 2019) exert new demands and impact universities’ development and governance. For some authors, pressure to incorporate concerned groups within governance has transformed the university from a republic of scholars to a stakeholder organisation (Bleiklie & Kogan, 2007) with negative implications for collegiality and collegial governance. Other work has focussed on the emergence of the enterprise university, and its impact on internal functioning (Harroche & Musselin, 2023, this volume; Marginson & Considine, 2000), including the rise of professional managers (Deem, 2010) and of a new academic elite and ruling class in universities (Capano & Regini, 2014; Musselin, 2013). These changes lead Christopherson et al. (2014) to predict a decline in the ability of these organisations to sustain a model that values all disciplines and domains equally, and Musselin (2013) to conclude that the power of academics is diminished in this context. A new professional and managerial elite emerges, sets standards, and applies them in the evaluation of academic or research performance, with significant implications for academic careers and relations among colleagues (Bleiklie et al., 2017; Engwall, 2020).
In Canada, research policies reflect these changes. Higher education and research policy is a responsibility shared between two levels of government in Canada: federal and provincial. Federal intervention has been a determinant in expanding research capacities within universities through major programmes like the Canada Research Chairs (CRC), the Network of Centres of Excellence of Canada, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) (Eastman et al., 2019). These programmes provide universities a strong incentive to become more research-intensive and competitive, and their reputational and financial benefits are strong motivators for individual professors. These programmes also affect the way research is practised, through the introduction of merit review panels that assess research according to its expected socio-economic impact as well as its scientific excellence, and through policies promoting knowledge transfer and research partnerships. These changes may impact on faculty’s capacity to self-govern knowledge production: a report by the Advisory Panel for the Review of Federal Support for Fundamental Science (2017) underlines the importance of establishing a better balance between investigator-driven research and priority-driven research in Canada. Research-intensification policies also promote a culture of teaching relief in universities, which encourages external over internal activities and increases stratification among faculty, with an impact on academic citizenship (Stephenson et al., 2017). These changes are associated in Canada with the growth of a corporate type of governance within universities (Hurtubise, 2019; Pennock et al., 2016). Tension is also observed between provincial governments’ increased involvement in the internal governance of universities and universities’ autonomy (Eastman et al., 2018; Hurtubise, 2019). In addition, the growing role of faculty unions as a representative body in charge of negotiating their labour conditions may also have a negative impact on faculty participation in university governance (Stephenson et al., 2017). Overall, it appears that a combination of factors, from small-state political ideology to pressure for increased accountability, to the importance placed on universities in Canadian socioeconomic development, has increased the constraints imposed on universities (Bégin-Caouette et al., 2018) and impacts on the way they manage their internal affairs.
How these changes impact on universities as organisations and on the centrality of collegial governance within them is debateable. A recent survey conducted in French universities reveals a mixed effect, where the intensification of research activities has little effect on the participation of academics in decision-making, even as it increases the status and influence of the most prestigious institutions and researchers (Mignot-Gérard, Sponem, et al., 2022b). Looking at the evolution of UK universities, Raaper and Olssen (2015) find a sharp decrease in the autonomy and influence of faculty in the governance of university affairs. Works on the transformation of governance in contemporary organisations and organisational fields emphasise the notion of hybridity to capture the nature and complexity of these changes (Denis et al., 2015). Hybridity refers to a situation involving various elements that are not at first sight compatible or logically aligned. It also emphasises that changes in governance will not be structurally radical and uniform but will rather be based on a mix of approaches and models, such as the coexistence of NPM with structures that favour collegiality.
Collegiality is based on vertical and horizontal governance structures (see Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2023a). Vertical collegiality relates to the formal distribution of authority and to the rules of governance embodied in university structures. Horizontal collegiality refers to the relational substrate of collegiality enacted in the day-to-day life of academia within universities and across networks. The influence of situations of hybridity in governance on these two dimensions of collegiality remains uncertain. While structural hybridity has been the focus of many works, it does not fully capture the nature of changes involved in the transformation of governance. Collegiality as the institution of self-governance relates to subjectivities and how faculty enact academic citizenship through their identity, actions, and interactions (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2023a). The notion of horizontal governance refers to these aspects but would benefit from integrating a more refined representation of the constellation of factors and influences that enable this enactment to develop (Denis et al., 2019). Informed by a governmentality perspective (Ferlie & McGivern, 2014), the governance of universities can be seen not only as a complex set of structures, instruments, and management practices used to shape and achieve the university’s objectives but also as a subjective form of self-governance where individuals both internalise and contest goals and behaviours that appear institutionally desirable.Attention to faculty enactment of collegiality in day-to-day university life opens the possibility of a more nuanced problematisation of collegiality where resistance, compliance, and co-production combine to impact on governance. How faculty conceive their main aims and act to achieve them will shape the contour of horizontal collegiality and its intersection with vertical collegiality.
Our review of works on transformative forces, and more specifically on research policies, underlines how contemporary modes of knowledge production and the internationalisation of science may impact on both vertical and horizontal collegiality. The boundaries that define various categories of faculty, such as research-intensive or more teaching-intensive groups, are thus redefined with implications for the manifestation of collegial governance within universities and within external scientific or disciplinary networks (Lamont & Molnár, 2002). Collegiality as an institution of self-governance appears as a political act that requires constant investment by faculty to assure its protection and adaptation (Denis et al., 2019). How current changes impact on this investment is an empirical question that we propose to explore in this paper.
Research Methodology
In this paper, we focus on manifestations of collegiality within two universities that are chartered and publicly funded, like most universities in Canada. Both cases have autonomy of governance despite that their main source of funding is public money and are managed by a senior executive team composed of a university president and a group of vice presidents. They are located in the same provincial jurisdiction but in cities with distinct characteristics that may influence institutional dynamics. We focus on the organisational or meso level of analysis where we consider universities as organisations embedded within a broader social and political context and organisational field characterised by complex patterns of competition and collaboration that distinguish one university from another (Musselin, 2021). A case is defined as a single university. Both universities have faculty unions (labour unions) with a mission of protecting and negotiating faculty labour conditions. Over time, and with changes in the environment and the growing corporatisation of governance, faculty unions have expanded their role and advocated for a greater role for faculty and collegiality in governance.
We rely on two main sources of data to study manifestations of collegiality: (1) policy and institutional documents and secondary data on the characteristics of each university. Policy and institutional documents and sources consist of annual reports, annual budget statements, institutional data provided by the information office, by-laws, charters, and labour agreements; and (2) interviews with key informants. 12 semi-structured interviews, 6 at each university, are conducted with faculty (only one respondent has an administrative profile and career) involved in leadership or administrative roles between August and November 2022. For reasons of confidentiality, given the small number of interviews, the two cases are aggregated when presenting these data. The sample is composed of two deans, eight people from the president’s offices, and representatives of faculty unions in each university. Interviews explore the evolution of collegiality, including the expression of academic citizenship and its challenges, with faculty who play formal leadership roles in the governance of their university. The sample is somewhat biased towards an over-representation of senior management or leadership participants in both institutions but provides key information on the representation, experience, and evolution of collegiality as a mode of governance. Thematic analysis is conducted (Miles et al., 2019). Interviews, each lasting an average of 1 hour, are transcribed and coded according to the following dimensions: the definition of collegiality, the experience of collegiality, the evolution of collegiality in governance, the tension between collegiality and other forms of governance, the impact of institutional transformations on collegiality and threats to collegiality.
We first present our research findings around empirical markers of the place of collegiality and its co-action with other governance ideals, based on a set of structural proxies associated with vertical collegiality and situations of growing hybridity. Structural markers used to characterise collegiality are based on the representation of professors (and researchers) within the different governance entities in a university and the participation of professors in core strategic university decisions, namely programme changes, faculty recruitment and promotion, workload and work incentives, the creation and allocation of research chairs and the development of large research initiatives. We then present the results of the individual interviews on how actors see the evolution of collegiality as a mode of governance within their university and outside the boundaries of their organisations.
Research Findings: Challenges and Prospects of Collegiality Within Two Universities
These cases are used to reveal aspects and mutations in collegiality conceived as an institution of self-governance based on vertical and horizontal manifestations of collegiality. Attention is paid to both the formal structuration and to the enactment of collegiality within these two cases. The cases have much in common and the attention here is more on what, together, they reveal about predominant trends in collegiality than an in-depth look at the specificities of each organisation to support a comparative analysis. We thus consider these cases as exploratory and use empirical situations to refine our understanding of collegiality.
Case I is a publicly funded university located in a large metropolitan area. The university has close to 70,000 students, of which 73% are undergraduate and 27% are graduate students. Case II is a publicly funded university in a smaller city with over 45,000 students and a ratio of undergraduate to graduate students similar to Case I. In both universities, faculties and departments cover all domains and disciplines and have since the late 1980s adopted a strategic orientation to increase competitiveness and research intensity. Public funding accounts for 69% and 67.2% of the total operating budgets of Case I and Case II, respectively, with between 17% and 19.3% coming from student fees. This implies that government policies could have a significant impact on the development of these universities and their governance. We will now look at changes in the structuration of vertical collegiality seen in both institutions.
Hybridity in Governance: Stability and Change in Organising Vertical Collegiality
High-level Governing Entities
Both cases have contemplated changes in high-level governance entities. Case I implemented major changes to its governing bodies in 2018. The university’s charter was considered outdated by the presidency of the institution, notably as it predated the creation of the faculty union in 1975. The presidency felt that the university board should make more space for other members of the university community (graduates, employees, and sessional lecturers) and for members of civil society (13 internal, including 4 professors, and 11 externals). The new charter also strengthens dean accountability to the board. Membership in the other two main governing entities (university senate and studies committee) also favours a more diverse representation of members of the wider university community. The university senate in Case I has an advisory role to the board and, following the reform, has a lesser role in the nomination of the university president. The board in Case II has also more external and non-faculty members from the university community (13 internal, including 3 professors and 12 externals). It also recently embarked on a process of reforming its charter but resistance from faculty and the union forced the administration to put the project on hold.
Governing Academic Careers and Education
Both cases demonstrate high stability in structures and formal rules for decision-making around career management and education. The involvement of professors in providing expert and evidence-based advice in committees that make core strategic decisions (recruitment, promotion) appears relatively stable over time (see Gerhardt et al., 2023, Vol. 86). In both our cases, decisions around recruitment and promotion are framed first at the departmental level, where primary academic units affiliated with a faculty follow strict rules defined in a collective agreement between the university and the faculty union, as well as rules set by the university senate. In Case II, the evaluation of faculty files for promotion is performed by the department head with no input from the faculty. University responsibility for approving departmental recommendations for recruitment and promotion is generally limited to assessing general parameters of excellence and integrity. In both cases, elements of corporatisation (the role of the department head and their removal as a member of the faculty union) are in place but co-exist with faculty participation.
Regarding workload, in both cases, labour agreements between the faculty union and the university include rules concerning the definition of individual faculty workloads and the role of the department head in this process. Information on the workload of each faculty member is shared with colleagues in departmental assemblies. The definition of workload is in both cases a more managerial process decided between the department head and the individual faculty member. A faculty member can discuss the distribution of workload at departmental assemblies and voice their support or concerns. There is a mix of collegiality, with the possibility of discussing workload in departmental assemblies, and managerialism, with the department head given a greater role in this process.
In the two universities, programme changes are stimulated by both university policies and faculty initiatives. The university may provide special funding to encourage, for example, the development of new interdisciplinary programmes. Departments or faculties may initiate changes through their programme committees, which are mainly composed of professors and student representatives and, when relevant, representatives of the concerned professional community or external stakeholders. At the university’s corporate level, a formal governing entity (studies committee) oversees and approves programme changes. Overall, decisions concerning programme development, change, and termination are influenced by professors and researchers through their departmental or faculty relations and by university corporate strategies. There is a mix of collegiality and managerialism or corporate strategy with the possibility of extending participation to external stakeholders and giving voice to external demands. In addition, in accordance with rules around the allocation of public funds, the ability to attract students will influence the viability of a programme and its legitimacy within the internal ecosystem of the university, and these decisions are not solely in the hands of faculty.
The system of rules that govern academic careers and education appears relatively stable over time in these two universities but shows signs of hybridisation, with the growing influence of corporate strategies through the allocation of internal funding and priority-setting exercises in response to external pressures and expectations.
Organising the Academic Workforce
A principle behind collegiality is equality, in the sense that no field of expertise or competence will be subordinated to others. Self-governance of knowledge by the corps of faculty is the mechanism used to protect the equality of domains (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2023a). In Cases I and II, some structural changes to the grouping of academic units have been achieved, with modifications in the number and rank of faculty positions. Table 1 shows the evolution over time of faculty positions across domains as a proxy for the ability to maintain the relative importance or significance of domains of knowledge within these universities. Most of these positions are tenure track. In both cases there is, at first sight, a general trend towards increasing numbers of faculty positions, with a slight decrease for literature and the humanities, suggesting the maintenance of institutional capacity to cover all domains of knowledge and value scholarship in domains that are not necessarily aligned with labour market priorities. However, a more granular analysis of these data reveal that sectors of literature, humanities, sociology, law, and history have experienced more fluctuation over time. Applied domains like administration and medical and health sciences have grown significantly. Data on student recruitment show a more favourable situation for Case I, where faculty numbers in domains like history, philosophy, literature, and sociology have increased over time. Case II also saw a decrease in student recruitment in non-vocational domains such as the humanities. These statistics on the evolution of faculty positions and student recruitment reveal a complex pattern of transformation, where the preservation of all fields of knowledge, and presumably their equal value within the organisation, is accompanied by a possible erosion of the position of some specific domains that appear less aligned with usable knowledge and labour market demands. Finally, in both cases, the increase in faculty positions over time is much less important than the increase in student enrolment, suggesting a significant increase in faculty workload (FQPPU, 2022).
Evolution of Faculty Positions.
| Faculty | Case I | Case II | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 2020 | 2009 | 2022 | |
| Literature and Humanities | 164 | 158 | 128 | 106 |
| Social Sciences and Psychology | 242 | 295 | 174 | 185 |
| Applied Sciences (Math and Operational Research) | 181 | 193 | 248 | 248 |
| Medicine | 370 | 483 | 388 | 449 |
Source: Internal data issued by Cases I and II.
Funding as a Shaper of University Governance
As discussed previously, the evolution of research policies at the federal level has the potential to influence the configuration and evolution of universities. Both cases have adopted policies and strategic orientations that promote research intensification. Faculty play a definitive role as critical resources to support research performance in line with corporate university strategies. Growing pressure for research intensification is a locus of status differentiation among faculty and sectors. The Canada Research Chairs (CRC) programme is a good example of the forces of differentiation between sectors. Table 2 shows the distribution of CRCs in various domains for Cases I and II. In both organisations, there is a concentration of CRCs in health sciences and research, with a much lower proportion in social sciences and humanities, and natural sciences and engineering. There is an undeniable favouring of health research, with vast research centres covering the whole spectrum of contemporary health research areas. The evaluation of applications for these CRCs involves a hybrid decision-making process that integrates peer review and university-level policy guidance.
Research Chairs.
| CRC | Case 1 (110 CRC) | Case 2 (78 CRC) |
|---|---|---|
| Social sciences and humanities | 20% | 27% |
| Health research | 56% | 45% |
| Natural sciences and engineering | 24% | 28% |
| Philanthropic research chairs | N=85 | N=94 |
Source: Internal data issued by Cases I and II.
Similarly, philanthropic or partnership research chairs (n=85 in Case I and n=94 in Case II) are supported financially by external donors with a concentration in health research and natural sciences, agriculture, and engineering. While these chairs provide guarantees of academic freedom for professors and researchers, they are often jointly governed by donors, adding a layer of influence within the governance of research. External donations also influence the configuration of universities by stimulating innovation and investment in particular teaching and research programmes, which can affect the relative position of domains and disciplines within the organisation.
In addition, large research grants also have a strong impact on the development of universities. For example, Case I received a Can$93M, and Case II received a Can$98M grant in one of their domains of excellence. These programmes are based on interdisciplinary and partnership platforms that are critical for scientific performance.
Another marker of differentiation, this one at the individual level, is the bonuses offered to professors who excel in research. Bonuses related to research performance are a growing phenomenon and an indication of growing managerialism in universities and status differentiation among faculty (FQPPU, 2018). This managerialism combines with the trend towards a meritocratic collegial system where peer-review mechanisms play a key if indirect, role in determining eligibility for bonuses.
Overall CRCs and philanthropic or partnership research chairs and large research grants are mostly allocated in domains of applicable or usable knowledge and increasingly respond to criteria beyond scientific merit. Research intensification confirms or stimulates a trend towards a corporatisation and social responsibility approach to the allocation of research resources and bonuses along with a trend towards status differentiation among faculty.
Enacting Collegiality within Universities: Vertical and Horizontal
This section focusses on the experience and practice of collegiality within the structural context that we previously described. More precisely, we present data on how collegiality as an institution of self-governance is enacted in both institutions.
Spaces for Collegiality
Interviewees refer to and distinguish between the two manifestations of collegiality. Vertical collegiality appears to be increasingly restricted to teaching and research at the departmental level and involves a specific field of knowledge where professors are recognised as experts. These academic units are an important locus for the enactment of horizontal collegiality where relations and deliberation among colleagues support decisions around teaching and the management of academic careers (recruitment, promotion). Such decisions are rooted in a collegial governance process and respondents in our two cases do not question the active role of faculty in this regard. However, horizontal collegiality appears much less visible or explicit with regard to the strategic orientations of universities, partly due to the greater hybridity seen in governance.
The first thing that comes to my mind when we talk about collegiality is the fact that it’s about teachers essentially getting along with each other and agreeing on rules, but not just rules, disciplinary content also. Collegiality to me is primarily in a discipline or in a disciplinary field where professors have authority. They are deemed to be the best experts, the greatest specialists in their field. They have the authority to develop the programmes that will train students and then guide research in that field. This is the level of collegiality that I think we are most familiar with. It is the first level of collegiality. (President’s office)
However, in both cases, leaders of faculty unions appear more critical, suggesting that collegiality, even in these areas where it is protected by structure and formal rules, is at risk of being eroded by managerial discretion and decisions. They point out that the mechanism for distributing resources among faculties and departments excludes faculty participation and see this as a threat to their ability to protect the equality of domains of knowledge. The identification of institutional priorities in terms of staffing is not subject to collegial governance despite its determining impact on the development of universities, which may in the long run limit the ability to maintain the model of a comprehensive university.
In the hiring of faculty, specifically in the determination of the resources that are allocated by the university to ensure that the priorities [for each department] can be preserved. It’s in those instances, the assemblies, the university forums that I think this collegiality in decision-making needs to be protected, and that’s where we see it disappearing little by little, piece by piece. (Leader of faculty union)
In both cases, the revision of by-laws is a contested terrain where two views of the domains in which collegiality (vertical and horizontal) should be enacted confront one another. The revision of the university charter and statutes illustrates these tensions.
The purpose of revising the bylaws is really to see if we can simplify things, processes, without making them less transparent or less collegial. So are there processes, are there elements that are too cumbersome, do we need to consult for so long? (President’s office)
Teachers are not the only members of the community who have a say. But their opinion, their views, their intentions, their will, is paramount, and must take precedence, but it must not overwhelm the will of others. (President’s Office)
For unions, charter revision inevitably leads to a significant weakening of collegial governance by reducing the weight of faculty in core decision-making processes.
Decision-making powers are taken out of the hands of the very bodies where professors and other members of the university community are represented, and so decisions are now made by management, who are appointed without any real consultation of the university’s members. And collegiality is reduced to a trickle. […] (Leader of faculty union)
Somewhat paradoxically, the growing importance of the executive team in the determination of priorities and orientations leads some respondents to perceive senior leadership (presidency office) as a key determinant in the protection and revitalisation of collegiality. They are conceived in some cases as actors of collegiality for the protection of the diversity of domains of knowledge and inquiry. The two cases are not identical on this point; in one, university leadership is perceived less as a protector of a comprehensive model of the university. Moreover, universities are not equally equipped to face such challenges and smaller institutions appear more at risk of losing ground in relation to the self-governance of knowledge and collegiality.
When you have a leading sector, a strong area, you must make sure you don’t siphon off funding or resources from another sector and put them into this strong sector. And this is extremely delicate. It’s very tempting to add jobs in the strong sector and neglect the others. […] This is always a delicate matter. A large institution with depth can resist the temptation to put all its eggs in one basket. Smaller institutions will find it much more difficult to do so, as pressure will come from everywhere to put all resources in the same place, i.e., what is most profitable in terms of academic development and the university’s reputation. (President’s office)
Two opposing views are expressed on the so-called modernisation of universities within our two cases. At first, the modernisation of the university is seen as a desire to carve out a place for itself among the great universities.
I would say that we prefer to see ourselves as a great university that wants to take its place among the great universities, and we do not want to cling to the definition of a complete university. The desire to remain a top university, to become an even more renowned leading university, implies that we are in a dynamic system, a dynamic system that evolves, that responds to new social constraints and that does not remain rigidly attached to all areas, things may evolve in life and we must remain aware of that. (President’s Office)
A second view sees this modernisation as an attempt to reconcile pressure for change with the valuation of all fields and domains:
If the disciplines are in decline, well, faculty recruitment will eventually suffer. It is, I think, more or less inevitable. So that’s a concern for me because I can’t imagine a university where there isn’t this balance between the humanities and the social sciences; it’s part of the university’s DNA to maintain that. (President’s office)
Interviews reveal competing views on the role of university leadership in nurturing or supporting collegiality. Some consider that senior leadership should intensify its strategic role and arbitrate on the significance of different domains of knowledge or disciplines. For others, senior leadership should act as a guardian of the diversity of knowledge domains and disciplines with a positive impact on collegiality as the self-governance of knowledge.
Barriers To and Forms of Collegial Participation
Many respondents in both cases emphasise that the centralisation of decisions or managerialisation of universities is far from being the main threat to the maintenance of collegiality. Several elements are raised. First, the increasingly targeted nature of funding limits the power zone of professors, and in this sense, collegiality is also affected. External policies and pressures are important factors that limit the activation of collegiality in governance.
The decision is no longer up to the institution. Let’s say we have $100 to share in the free research model, the $100 we decide how to share among ourselves, internally. From the moment we are told that we now have $50 to share and are told where the other $50 goes, that’s when collegiality is diminished, because it has a decision-making input on a smaller part of the pie but it’s not an intra-institutional decision, it’s from external pressure. (President’s Office)
Second, in both cases, there is a sense that the participation of faculty in debates and decisions around the broad orientations of universities is less tangible than before or tends to be eroding. This may be due partly to changes in high-level governance that we discussed previously. This level of governance seems to attract much less interest from faculty and many note difficulties in recruiting faculty to participate in formal governance entities. While structures and rules associated with vertical collegiality still leave a place for a faculty role, research intensification pushes towards self-achievement with a risk of retrenchment from the collective life of the institution:
[…] We have higher levels of expectation in terms of publishing and teaching. The workload is heavier. And the trend towards individualisation […] is the result of several pressures and can indeed undermine collegiality. (President’s Office)
Faculty are perceived to be changing in the context of external pressures and research intensification. On the one hand, increased expectations with regard to research and publication are seen in both cases as leaving less space for faculty involvement in the governance of their institution. On the other hand, the growing internationalisation of science and the organisation of research in broad networks are perceived as displacing or delocalising collegiality. Increasingly, collegiality appears to be enacted within scientific or disciplinary communities that transcend university boundaries. This can be observed in the increasing differentiation between professors, often based on their research performance and intensity. University and research funding policies tend to create a certain hierarchy that values some profiles more than others within departments and universities. In both our cases, this differentiation affects faculty participation in collegial bodies while at the same time creating a category of more influential faculty that might have a greater say in the university’s orientation.
Yes, it creates different profiles where research is indeed put forward a lot. […] The problem, we know very well, is that there is a kind of symbolism associated with it, we value research, the great researchers. It’s true that there is a kind of prestige that comes with the grants. (Dean)
That is, with the acceleration of digitisation brought about by the pandemic, but which was already there and has accelerated over the last two years, and the forms of delocalisation and extension of networks which are no longer formed by physical anchorage in a place, this ought to have an impact on the ways of getting involved, of conceiving of one’s presence in one’s own university …. (Dean)
Professors and researchers are above all individualists. We all have our own workload, we all have our own goals, we all have our own areas of research, we all have our own grants to go after. For me, the premise is that these are individuals, and consider their needs first. And that’s not a pejorative thing I’m saying. […] We work more and more in a network now, because the way the granting agencies are structured now. (President’s Office)
Faced with this situation of relative demobilisation, faculty unions have come to assume a role as guardians of collegiality that members recognise as important while not being part of its formal mandate. The union advocates for a more predominant place for collegial governance in a variety of decision-making areas in both cases.
The union should not have to play the role that we are currently playing, that is, of collegiality watchdog. But where we are now, we have the impression that we are not acting as bellwethers but are trying to be a catalyst for mobilisation to ensure that these various bodies [of collegiality] are reinvested. (Union)
In both cases, there is a recognition that collegiality should play a role in the governance of universities. However, the transformation of universities’ social role and external pressures, mainly from government and labour market demands, raise concerns among many respondents about the ability to self-govern knowledge and maintain active and impactful faculty participation in governance. Research intensification is perceived to foster growing individualisation of academic careers within the university while also encouraging a delocalisation of collegiality; many faculties find their sense of belonging split between external networks and scientific communities and their own university. As well, the movement by high-level governance entities to instil greater hybridity with an increasing place for social demands and managerialism is seen by faculty unions as eroding collegial governance.
In summary, in both cases, respondents perceive that collegiality as a mode of governance is in flux. The challenge is to regenerate collegiality within a new institutional context where social demands, government intervention, and the internationalisation and intensification of research impact on faculty investment in their own institution and on the definition of areas where collegiality is considered legitimate.
Analysis of the Two Cases: Collegiality and Academic Citizenship
Our two cases show that structures and formal rules are in place to enable the enactment of collegiality within these universities. Arrangements for vertical collegiality in line with teaching, recruitment, and promotion appear relatively stable over time, but changes made or contemplated in high-level governing entities may eventually impact on the configuration of universities as organisations. These changes reveal competing views of collegiality. One incorporates greater faculty participation in all university affairs while another clearly demarcates areas belonging to management alone from areas where faculty participation is legitimate. In both cases, executive or senior leadership teams are increasingly active in crafting the future of their university. This seems to remove some fundamental decisions from faculty regarding the internal allocation of resources and the setting of priorities. Changes are incomplete as competing views of collegiality still co-exist in both cases and influence the manifestation of this form of governance. The multiple views of what collegiality should be stimulate the involvement of faculty unions as stewards and promoters of collegiality. Unions in both universities seek to secure and expand the space in which collegiality as an institution of self-governance is considered legitimate and blur boundaries between collegiality, internal democracy, and co-management. Transformation of governance in line with greater hybridity induced a progressive polarisation of the internal university community.
While governance in both organisations takes a corporatist turn, external pressures and policies shape their evolution and create a set of dilemmas around reconciling pressure to change with the maintenance of self-governance as a predominant modus-operandi. The need to align with external social demands pushes both universities to be more agile and adaptive. Reconciling this responsiveness with the preservation of a comprehensive model of university is difficult and has implications for collegiality. Without active commitment by university leadership to preserve the equality of knowledge domains, the faculty’s ability to self-govern knowledge in all areas is at risk. This risk appears stronger in Case II, suggesting that a university’s strategy and leadership have an impact on this process.
Policies and incentives for research intensification appear in both cases to have a strong differentiation effect, segmenting faculty into research-intensive profiles and other profiles. This affects the notion of equality among colleagues and impacts on the investment faculty can realistically make to support collegiality within their own institutions. Significantly increased workloads further limit faculty participation in governance. These developments, coupled with the delocalisation of collegiality that may accompany research intensification, can seriously constrain the ability to inhabit governance structures and enact the collegial ethos. In both cases, we find a disjunction between the preservation of many of the structures and formal rules associated with vertical collegiality, and the capacity for faculty to participate in horizontal collegiality intensely enough to nurture and protect academic citizenship and the institution of self-governance in universities.
Discussion
Hybridisation of Mode of Governance: Collegiality, Social Pluralism, and Corporatism
Looking at our two cases, both publicly funded universities have evolved towards a similar configuration of the university as an organisation. They have implemented or contemplated changes within their core governance entities. These changes favour hybrid forms of governance where plural interests from within and outside universities have more say in the future of the institution (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2016). For faculty unions, these changes depart from the notion of the collegium as the fundamental governing entity of the university. The governance of universities tends to evolve towards a mix of social pluralism and corporatism where the organisation as an autonomous and accountable entity coexists with the organisation as the mirror of broad societal trends (MacFarlane, 2019). External demands and a more corporate form of governance raise the issue of how universities, as organisations, can adapt to change while maintaining and protecting a critical role for collegiality in shaping these responses. Hybridity in governance risks diluting collegiality as the institutionalisation of self-governance. Our empirical cases suggest that reconciliation between the university as socially responsive and accountable, and the university as a republic of scholars must be further developed. In both our cases, competing views of the domains in which collegial governance should be exercised and is considered legitimate co-exist and need to be better articulated.
One hypothesis on the recent evolution of universities sees increased managerialism in tension with the self-governance of academic work and the participation of faculty in the university’s strategic decisions (see Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2023b). Political forces within universities, such as unions, conceive collegiality as inseparable from co-management and internal democracy in the governance of universities. Political work as a collective effort to protect and develop collegiality in universities appears to be needed (Denis et al., 2019). Collegiality cannot be nurtured only by individual faculty investment in academic citizenship. Recognition of the political substrate of collegiality is coherent with the growing role of organised entities such as faculty unions in some universities.
University administrators, who often also identify as academics (professors, researchers) privilege a more confined role for collegiality, that is the traditional role related to knowledge production and the management of academic units (recruitment, promotion, etc.). Two views of collegiality are in tension, a more confined view where collegiality is perceived as legitimate in a limited set of domains and an extended view based on the co-management between faculty and senior leadership of strategic domains within the university. Current labour conflicts and tensions in many Canadian universities are symptomatic of a need to reinvigorate collegiality (see Crace et al., 2023, this volume) and find a productive response to these tensions. Collegiality as an ideal form of self-governance is in practice framed by a complex set of changes and representations that inhabit contemporary universities.
These changes, as we observed, go beyond managerialism and also relate to the growing demand from funders and governments to become more involved in universities’ efforts to face national and international societal challenges. The dynamic relationship between university and society puts pressure on certain dimensions of collegial governance by creating a strategic space that senior leadership tends to occupy (Raaper & Olssen, 2015). While empirical analysis suggests that members of the senior leadership of both universities attempt to reconcile the more immediate needs for applied or strategic knowledge production to address major societal issues with the maintenance of a comprehensive model of the university, some fields and faculty associated with less applied or vocational domains may nevertheless lose influence. This dynamic has implications for collegiality and university leaders have a vigilance role to protect all forms of knowledge, but may currently have fewer levers available, particularly given the role of government policies in shaping publicly funded universities (Marginson & Considine, 2000). Hybridity in governance will probably endure, underlining the importance of considering collegiality in the process of renewal and of aligning it with other governance ideals that are progressively taking root in universities.
Stratification of Faculty and Delocalisation of Collegiality
Our empirical cases suggest that through large research grants and competitive research chair, university’s professors become segmented into various categories differentiated by status. Research policies may act as important forces of differentiation and dilution of social cohesion among colleagues, with consequences for the enactment of collegiality (Mignot-Gérard, Sponem, et al., 2022b). Not all faculty appear equal in an environment where research and scientific performance become the predominant criteria to demonstrate excellence (Musselin, 2013). With the expansion of research networks and the internationalisation of science, the experience of academic work is changing (see also Kosmütsky & Krücken, 2023, Vol. 86). The individualisation of academic careers coupled with the collective structuration of research in networks and scientific communities contribute to what we have labelled the delocalisation of collegiality. The internalisation by faculty of competitive standards and metrics in science and research policies contributes to the expansion of an audit culture in universities that presents challenges to the development and affirmation of collegial governance understood as a community of equals (Power, 2000). In addition, the possibilities offered by technology for high-performance remote teaching may accelerate faculty retreat from their institution (Mignot-Gérard, Musselin, et al., 2022a). More research is needed to understand the linkages between the ideal of vibrant collegial governance within universities and the performance ideals of research-driven faculty. Universities may have to develop strategies to value a variety of academic profiles and contributions and create a more favourable climate within the institution for collegial governance. Again, this may imply the mobilisation by faculty of political entities such as unions to assert their own vision of universities (Denis et al., 2019).
These considerations emphasise the importance of a subjective enactment of collegiality beyond what is guaranteed by formal decision-making bodies. A better understanding of the relational work and investments involved in horizontal collegiality appears crucial. Academic citizenship relies on the subjective enactment of collegiality. Somewhat paradoxically, in a context where faculty unions and labour agreements resolve most of the issues related to individual career management, individual faculty may feel less compelled to invest in the governance of their institution. If faculty members feel that the organisation does not align with their ideals or views, they may choose to retreat (Bristow et al., 2017). While governing by and through scientific expertise is a fundamental ingredient of collegiality, its actualisation depends on demanding subjective investments. This is why we insist in our analysis on the importance of regarding collegiality as political work and as a subjective form of engagement for faculty based on both resistance to some external pressures and the formulation of counterpropositions to reinvigorate collegiality (Denis et al., 2019). Increased faculty workload, research intensification and externalisation, and growing hybridity in governance may represent disincentives for faculty to make the subjective investment essential to the enactment of collegiality as a governance mode in universities.
Conclusion
In summary, looking at the interface of collegiality and governance, we observe an evolution towards a more hybrid form of governance that is marked by two parallel trends. One is the relative conservatism and stability of the participation of professors in recruitment, promotion, and programme decisions and more broadly in the management of their own academic unit. This is significant because these decisions shape the future of a given institution. Such participation appears to be associated with the preservation of a collegial form of governance despite recent changes. A second trend is growing corporatisation and pluralism within high-level university governance entities. This evolution introduces a more hierarchical form of governance. This high-level governance orientation is much less stable and is often contested by faculty and unions. These changes in governance entities may have a negative impact on collegiality conceived as active participation by professors in determining the broad orientation of their institution. Reconciling these two divergent views on the evolution of university governance will require political investments by faculty and dialogue between university leaders and faculty. The pressure to achieve higher intensity in research tends to reformulate collegiality as an external practice in networks and communities that transcend a university’s boundaries. We label this emerging phenomenon as a delocalisation of collegiality. The long-term impact of this delocalisation on the enactment of collegiality within universities is an important question. Devotion to scientific achievement, a fundamental ingredient in governance by expertise, may be associated with disinvestments by individual faculty in the collegial governance of universities. More hybrid forms of governance, coupled with the expansion of research in networks, may create less engaging conditions for institutional life within the university and contribute to a redefinition of academic citizenship.
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ACknowledgements
We would like to thank the following funding agencies for their support: Canada Research Chair (Jean-Louis Denis) and Research Scholar FRQS (Nancy Côté). We would also like to thank Hubert Doyon, a research professional at the Centre Vitam, a sustainable health research centre, for his support at various stages of the project. We also like to thank participants from both organisations for their collaboration in this research.
- Prelims
- Introduction: Revitalizing Collegiality: Restoring Faculty Authority in Universities
- Section 1: Maintaining Collegiality
- How to Remain Collegial When Pressure for Change is High?
- Sustaining a Collegiate Environment: Colleagueship, Community and Choice at an Anonymous Business School
- Section 2: Revitalizing Collegiality
- An Unsettling Crisis of Collegial Governance: Reality Breakdowns as Antecedents of Institutional Awareness
- Who's A Colleague? Professionalizing Academic Leadership as a Platform for Redefining Collegiality
- Manifestations of Collegiality Within Universities: Delocalisation and Structural Hybridity as Governance Forms and Practices
- Collegiality Washing? New Translations of Collegial Practices
- “Outroduction”: A Research Agenda on Collegiality In university Settings