FORCES FOR CHANGE IN THE GOVERNANCE OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

Government control of colleges and universities has been increasing in recent years. The challenge for higher education is how to make institutions properly accountable but less controlled by government. The experience in this regard in the United Kingdom and the United States is compared. The danger in both nations is that left unchecked, control will leave universities resembling regulated public utilities. American and British academics can learn from each other on how to avoid such a fate.     

BRINGING THE INDEPENDENT SECTOR INTO STATEWIDE HIGHER EDUCATION PLANNING

The ideal of a comprehensive higher education planning agency was only partially fulfilled in the 1970's. It was especially limited in its ability to bring independent colleges and universities into statewide planning. The unfulfilled comprehensive statewide planning model makes an attractive case for decentralised decision–making. State planning, usually characterized by the so–called “bureaucratic model,” might be balanced by increased use of an “incentive model.” The work of the state agency would be to encourage and reward fair market competition among the institutions and segments of higher education. Such an approach is based on the conviction that “…intelligent planning can diminish the role of government in the academic and administrative affairs of all sectors, while improving accountability to the public and to the diverse constituencies our institutions serve.”     

FEDERAL HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY: A VIEW FROM THE CAMPUS

During the last generation, the federal government became a major source of financial asssistance to colleges and universities. At the same time, in pursuit of its goals in areas such as affirmative action, collective bargaining, and expenditures control, it became a regulator of campus action to the point where many educators feel it is threatening the autonomy and integrity of institutions of higher education. There is a fear on many campuses that the increased scope and nature of federal activity is causing a fundamental change in the governance of American higher education. We need a major effort to find ways of ameliorating societal problems impacting on the campus within a framework of overall respect for the autonomy of institutions of higher education if the integrity of America's colleges and universities is to be preserved.     

The Influence of the Dartmouth College Case on the American Law of Educational Charities

One of the important features of American history has been the availability of higher education. Religious toleration, low capitalization costs, few educational impediments, public interest and commitment, and ready corporate status made the foundation of colleges and universities a common event in early nineteenth-century America. ¹ By the time of the Revolution Americans had founded ten colleges; by 1800, twenty-four; by 1820, thirty-eight; and by the Civil War, 232, of which 104 have survived. ² Although the earliest colleges had religious affiliations, with the founding of the University of Georgia in 1785, states also began providing directly for higher education. But the creation of these institutions led to disputes within them over curricula and governance. How the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a seemingly minor political dispute involving the governance of a small New Hampshire college would determine not only that college's relationship to state and federal government, but also that of all other corporations. ³     

THE HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY RESEARCH AGENDA

Substantial opportunities exist for social scientists, humanists practitioners, and other scholars to contribute to research on higher education policy. Not only is the university or college an interesting study objective itself but also with higher education in the United States and worldwide so immersed in public policy considerations, the relations between academe and government raise many political, economic and other Questions. Some issues currently on the research agenda are listed here. The consequences of higher education policy research are also considered.     

THE EFFECTS OF TAXES,EXPENDITURES, AND PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE ON METROPOLITAN AREA EMPLOYMENT*

ABSTRACT. Data for 28 metropolitan areas over a 15-year period are used to determine the impacts of government spending, taxes, and public infrastructure on total employment and disaggregated employment. After carefully controlling for the government budget constraint we find that taxes are negatively related to total employment and education spending is positively related to total employment. Nevertheless, we find that it is difficult for metropolitan areas to influence the composition of their employment with government tax and expenditure policies. Moreover, at current levels of public infrastructure, marginal changes in infrastructure have no strong effect on employment.     

广州城市公共服务设施供给空间分异研究

转型期以来,政府治理制度的变革及公私部门关系的重构使我国城市公共服务设施供给主体、供给机制逐步多元化,其分布形态也由空间均衡趋向分异。本文以广州为案例,研究结果表明:广州城市公共服务设施分布总体上呈核心-边缘空间格局,区域供给规模差异大且与人口分布不相协调,区际及不同类型设施的空间聚集水平差异显著;传统计划经济条件下城市公共服务设施空间均衡分布模式被市场经济条件下高收入地区指向的集中布局模式所取代,表现出类似西方国家城市公共资源配置的"反比例服务法则"。     

邓小平对恢复高考的特殊贡献

恢复高考是教育战线拨乱反正的一个重要突破,是中国高等教育发展史上的一个里程碑,对国家、社会和个人的发展都产生了深远的影响。在恢复高考这一决策过程中邓小平起了关键作用。他吸取了"文化大革命"时期高等教育的教训,号召要完整准确地理解毛泽东思想的科学体系,领导指导思想和教育战线上的拨乱反正,为恢复高考扫清了思想障碍;推动党和政府做出恢复高考的战略决策,实现了中国高等教育史上的一次重要转折;领导整顿教学秩序,为创造良好的高等教育环境做出了重要贡献。     

旅游规划管治问题及其对策研究

在对管治、旅游规划管治、管治理念应用和旅游规划管治主体确立等一系列问题进行界定和讨论的基础上,对旅游管治主体如政府、开发商、规划单位、旅游规划评审、社区及管治对策存在的主要问题进行了分析。指出旅游开发商应公开参与项目的招投标管理、注意充分保障社区利益、切实按旅游规划方案建设。对旅游规划单位,应建立注册旅游规划师职业认证制度和旅游规划单位跟踪负责制度。对旅游规划评审机构,应完善评审组织结构、加强评审过程中的管治。对于社区,应完善社区教育体系、加强社区参与、实现社区利益公平分配。     

Examining the Impact of Charter Schools on Performance in Traditional Public Schools

Charter schools have grown in popularity, as both citizens and government officials search for ways to improve public education in America. Much of the research on charter schools focuses on academic performance comparisons between charter schools and traditional public schools. Far less attention has been devoted to whether the presence of charter schools creates marketlike environments that bring about systemic improvements in public education. This study examines the extent to which charter schools stimulate performance gains in traditional public schools. The results show that charter schools contribute to modest overall performance improvements for students enrolled in traditional public schools. Charter schools help bring about stronger performance gains for low-income students enrolled in traditional public schools. The presence of charter schools also affects how financial and programmatic resources are allocated in traditional public schools.     

ACADEMIA AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

In recent years a revolutionary shift has occurred in the federal goovernment—-higher education relationship. Why didn't higher education resist more vigorously federal encroachment in its autonomy? First, academia focused its attention on the wrong kind of threat. Second, federal involvement was useful for solving problems on campus and often was in keeping with objectives and values supported in academia institutions. Third, the rise of public institutions altered the receptivity of higher education to accepting federal funds and pursuing direct solutions to society's problems, i.e. to being “involved” at the expense of autonomy. Finally, higher education's traditional strategy of being aloof from partisan politics kept it from vigorously defending its interests. Alternatives for the future appear to be: 1) a reorganisation of higher education to make it a clear, systematic agent of national policy, or 2) a successful effort by higher education to convert itself into an effective national interest group.     

THE MEDIAN VOTER,VOTING, AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT*

ABSTRACT This paper provides an explanation for the level of local government employment by developing a median voter model that allows for migration into and out of the city, a local government balanced-budget constraint, and voting behavior by public employees that reflects their role as both demanders and suppliers of local government goods. Unlike previous research, the model developed here explicitly considers voting (for the incumbent) probability density functions which furthermore need not be stationary. The main conclusions of the model are that, ceteris paribus, it is plausible that the level of local government employment varies inversely with the public employee wage demand and with the elasticity of the privately employed voting population with respect to the local tax rate but directly with the voter participation rate of public employees. Contrary to previous theoretical research, there is no determinate relationship between the level of local government employment and the voter participation rate of privately employed citizens. Inferences concerning the structure of local government are also discussed.     

内蒙古自治区农村人口多维贫困特征测算与分析

针对国家精准扶贫需求,构建基于A-F双临界值法的多维贫困度量模型,进行内蒙古自治区农村人口多维贫困特征的总体测算与分析,并分别分析多维贫困的空间集聚效应及不同分类体系下的贫困分异特征。结果显示:①研究区西部存在大面积高度贫困县单元,中部存在呈东西条带状分布的中度贫困县单元,东部地区贫困程度呈现"南高北低"状态;②研究区主要致贫因素为:人均纯收入、家庭健康、平均教育年限,一般致贫因素为燃料类型、资产、房屋结构,次要致贫因素为:饮水情况、通电情况、儿童入学率;且大部分贫困指标呈显著空间集聚效应;③研究区西部县际贫困特征差异较小,东部存在显著的南北分布差异;④不同类型县各贫困指标差异不同。     

Politically Engaged Geographical Research with the Community Sector: Is It Encouraged by Australia's Higher Education and Research Institutions?

With the application of neoliberal thinking to the higher education sector, measures of research quality and utility have proliferated in efforts to increase academic accountability, innovation, and contributions to public policy. We intend to reignite discussion about community activism and the role of the academic in response to trends in higher education policy and recent debate in Australia about research quality assessment and policy relevance. We challenge the common portrayal of the public sector as the sole locus of policy‐making and argue the case for greater recognition of the role of the community sector and its research partners in policy development and implementation – one that is not given due attention in the discourse on or in measures of research value and impact. Informed by recent literature on governance and interpretative approaches to policy analysis, we draw on our combined experience conducting research with two Australian movements at the forefront of reforms to property rights institutions, legal standards, and norms relating to social and economic equity to outline the institutional tensions and structural impediments facing researchers working with the non‐government sector. The paper documents the progressive roles the academic can play in such work, arguing that institutional change is required within the tertiary sector to support researchers to build closer, more trusting research partnerships in which due attention is given to social impact and relevance.     

Robert McNamara and the limits of ‘bean counting’ (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The recent death of Robert McNamara provides an opportunity to reflect on the shortcomings of the strategy of numerical rationality in management that defined his career. In both of the major projects in which he took a leading role, as President of the Ford Motor Company and US Defense Secretary during the Vietnam War, his strategy has retrospectively been held up as a model of development to avoid. In particular, management studies now champions the importance of ‘culture’ in running complex organizations. Ironically, the UK government increasingly seeks to run public services, including higher education, according to a McNamarite model in a bid to be more business‐friendly, despite the evidence that many involved in private sector management have been moving away from this model for a quarter of a century.     

America's 'intellectual' diplomacy

Historians and journalists such as Richard Hofstadter and Susan Jacoby have decried the reality 'of anti-intellectualism' in American society, culture, and politics. Yet intellectuals have played a vital role in shaping US diplomacy—from Alfred Thayer Mahan to Paul Wolfowitz. This article explores the varied reasons why the US government has proved so amenable to input from academia, think-tanks and freelance intellectuals. It first discusses the varying ways in which 'the intellectual' has been defined, and proposes criteria that allow us to identify the foreign policy intellectual. Second, the article examines the historical circumstances that have allowed intellectuals—broadly conceived—to influence US diplomacy from 1890 to the present; focusing on the proliferation of US colleges through the nineteenth century, pioneering attempts to utilize the academy such as Robert La Follette's 'Wisconsin Idea', the professionalization of US higher education inspired by the achievements of Germany's research universities and the strong links forged between academia, think-tanks and government through the progressive era, two world wars, and into the Cold War and beyond. Third, the article compares the US experience of welcoming intellectuals into policy-making with that of the United Kingdom and France, the two democracies that have displayed a global ambition comparable to the United States in recent history. The article concludes with a discussion of the intellectual types—historian or IR scholar, generalist or specialist, fox or hedgehog—that are best suited to dispensing foreign policy advice. It warns that those intellectuals with theories to prove often lack the cognitive flexibility required when making diplomacy.     

Public Consultation for Sustainable Development Policy Initiatives

Involving the public in government decision making regarding sustainable development is a complex and difficult problem. This article suggests that weak public consultation, occurring at the operational planning level, is in part responsible for the lack of policy innovation in this realm. A case study technique considers approaches to public consultation in the development of sustainable development policy in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Using document reviews and qualitative interviews, two specific periods of policy development are traced with the outcomes of each being measured against creative consultative approaches established in the literature. It is revealed that using more complex consultative approaches at the normative policy planning level results in a number of positive implications, including mutual education and learning, participant satisfaction, policy innovation that has broad-based support, and results that have lasting implications on consultative proceshes.     

中国博物馆大型原创性特展之展览策划——以南京博物院为例专访龚良院长

21世纪以来,中国博物馆的大型原创性特展工作呈现良好的发展态势。南京博物院龚良院长指出,大型原创性特展作为博物馆为公众提供更好的文化服务的文化产品,既能衡量博物馆的发展活力,也有利于博物馆的可持续发展。博物馆应根据自身的定位和特色完善藏品体系,从而确定展览主题,制订展览规划。高校应该围绕研究公众、服务公众调整博物馆学的课程设置。试行中的理事会制度将有助于推动博物馆为公众提供高品质的文化服务、满足公众更高的精神文化需求。南京博物院近年大力推行策展人制度,鼓励策划大型原创性特展,重视并强调展示文物之间的相互关系。2016年度举办的"法老·王"展是一次用低票价、非营利的方法,举办了一个不用财政资金、为公众提供优质服务的高品质展览,并将展览作为文化创意产品的有益尝试,将为中国博物馆界提供一个可复制的成功案例。     

爱尔兰的国际旅游硕士教育

国际旅游硕士是近年来国外的热门专业。本文介绍了爱尔兰国际旅游硕士的课程设置和教育特色,通过分析其教育方法,汲取相关的经验,为我国旅游高等教育提供借鉴和参考。     

Government Protection of Domestic Communications as National Defense: Assessing Canadian Government Policies

In the nominal interest of promoting a national identity and a stronger federation, a range of public policies have been implemented by the Canadian government to encourage and facilitate cross-subsidization in the Canadian telecommunications and broadcasting industries. The main policy instruments involve government regulations and foreign ownership restrictions that contribute to higher revenues for domestic producers of communication services than would otherwise be realized. The quid pro quo is that domestic telecommunications carriers and broadcasters must undertake costly and unprofitable actions that involve subsidizing activities such as rural telephone services and “Canadian entertainment content.” Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the relevant policies promote the goal of strengthening Canada’s national identity. Furthermore, they are inefficient, as well as nontransparent. The fact that several other countries, particularly France, have lauded Canadian content regulations as a “model” for smaller, open economies, they are more appropriately viewed as the socially undesirable outcome of a muddled public choice dynamic.