The Changing Nature of Governance in the Public Research University: Untangling the Web of Faculty Roles

This dissertation focuses on the study of faculty roles and governance in public research universities. It considers the impact of both fiscal pressures and stress and the influence of internal and external stakeholders on how the public research university is adapting institutionally—from a governance perspective, and individually—from a role perspective. It considers the structures, processes, and role demands that impact academic governance utilizing organizational theory, higher education governance theory, and role theory. It considers the critical importance of the organizational context of the public research university vis-à-vis society focusing on key aspects of the university as an organization and the importance of dimensionality of role. Two sets of data were utilized in this study: the Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the National Center for Education Statistics for the period between 1987 and 2007; and the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) triennial Faculty Survey at UCLA’s Cooperative Institutional Research Program for the period between 1989 and 2004. Six hypotheses were developed to identify trends regarding faculty hiring (tenure system, non-tenure system, and part-time), faculty roles, stress and satisfaction. While these data provided overall support for the changing nature of faculty in the public research university, specifically the growth of non-tenure system faculty, future research would focus on how faculty are spending their time in the governance process. This could include: the administrative roles of faculty; how the roles of tenure-system and non-tenure system faculty have continued to diverge or converge; as well as exploring how to balance institutional mission foci to build on complementarities and reduce conflicts. From an organizational perspective, future research would consider a more granular exploration of the interplay between the role of the institution in society and the role of the individual within the public research university.