The Latent Organizational Functions of the Academic Senate [microform] : Why Senates Don't Work but Won't Go Away. ASHE 1987 Annual Meeting Paper / Robert Birnbaum
- Bib ID:
- 5478635
- Format:
- Book and Microform
- Author:
- Birnbaum, Robert
- Online Version:
- https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED281480
Broken link? let us search Trove , the Wayback Machine , or Google for you.
- Description:
-
- [Washington, D.C.] : Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse, 1987
- 45 p.
- Summary:
-
The roles of academic senates in university organization are discussed. Three symbolic purposes that academic senates may fill are considered first: they may symbolize institutional membership in the higher education system, collective and individual faculty commitment to professional values, and joint faculty-administration acceptance of existing authority relationships. Serving on the academic senate can confer status that protects the institution from two disruptive elements, informal leaders and organizational deviants. Since academic senates typically take a long time to make decisions, complicated problems that administrators prefer not to tackle can be directed to the senate, where the problem goes into an organizational "deep freeze." Since most items that someone wants discussed by the senate are never acted upon, the use of the senate as an attention cue is a good way to allocate attention. The senate, by inhibiting the propensity to change that increasingly characterizes the administration, serves as a major element in the homeostatic process of organizational conservation. Other roles of the senate include: a personnel screening device, a ritual and pastime, and scapegoat. These functions of the senate are considered in the context of the model of organized anarchy. (SW)
- Notes:
-
- Sponsoring Agency: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.
- ERIC Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (San Diego, CA, February 14-17, 1987).
- Educational level discussed: Higher Education.
- May also be available online. Address as at 14/8/18: https://eric.ed.gov/
- Reproduction:
- Microfiche. [Washington D.C.]: ERIC Clearinghouse microfiches : positive.
- Subject:
- Available From:
- ERIC
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
You may copy under some circumstances, for example you may copy a portion for research or study. Order a copy through Copies Direct to the extent allowed under fair dealing. Contact us for further information about copying.
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 1987
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
Request this item
Request this item to view in the Library’s reading room.
Feedback
Similar items
- Strength of Coupling in the Organization and Operation of Colleges and Universities [microform] / David Clark and Others
- The change agent
- The sociology of organizational change / E.A. Johns
- Transforming the organization : a socio-technical approach / Howard W. Oden
- Exploring learning organizations : enacting mental models - the power of the Rosenthal Stage / Michael Morrison and Annie Rosenthal