Clark Cole once said, "American college and university governance is the accumulation of tradition and institutions, not so much a conscious thought as a gift of history."[1]We can also say that the formation of any university governance structure is the product of a certain culture, is a gift of history and tradition.Chinese university governance pattern is also the result of the combination of history and culture and has the characteristics of Chinese culture.In this sense, perfecting China's university governance model must also be based on Chinese reality and culture, taking the road of Chinese characteristic university governance.
First, change government control to government confirmation, establish university legal person system and guarantee mechanism
Universities have long been an extension of government departments, an institution of government rather than an independent functioning public institution.Although the law on higher education clearly stipulates the status of a university as an independent corporation, a university is not an independent corporation within the meaning of civil law because it does not have its own financial and human rights.University leaders are appointed by higher Party committees; the government pays for the university's finances.Since the government controls the human and financial rights of universities, universities are in fact only one branch of government.This has two consequences.On the one hand, the Government has too much business to take into account the development of universities, and on the other hand, because universities are not independent, the scope for their own development is severely limited.To change this situation, we must improve the external governance structure of the university, change the government control into the government confirmation, and establish the university legal person system and guarantee mechanism.First, improve the system of open selection of university presidents.In recent years, the government has also drawn limited experience in selecting presidents of British and American universities.For example, in 2009, the Southern University of Science and Technology appointed Zhu Qing as its first president, and in 2012, the Ministry of Education publicly selected the presidents of Northeast Normal University and Southwest University of Finance and Economics.Of course, as a result of these selections, they are still conducted under the leadership of higher Party committees and organizational departments and are limited in their open selection.The next step in reform should be full open selection, while leaving the selection task to the universities themselves.In other words, the government and party committees supervise the selection of university presidents and appoint their own presidents.The government and party committees will be able to control the final appointment of presidents.Secondly, it gives the university independent property rights and supervises the university's running process.Through professional intermediaries, the Government can set goals that universities need to achieve within a certain period of time, and the intermediaries will monitor and evaluate the process.(Refer to Japan's corporate reform)
Second, improve the internal governance structure of the university and establish the decentralized check and balance mechanism and system of internal governance of the university
In 2004, Robert Burnbaum, an American scholar and author of The Model of University Operations, defined university governance as a "structure and process designed to exert organizational control and influence and strike an effective balance between two different but equally legitimate systems."Among them, one system is based on legal authority, which is the legitimacy of the duties of directors and administrators, and the other on professional authority, which is the legitimacy of teachers' authority.[2] Although Bernbaum failed to demonstrate the merits and demerits of the five governance models he hypothesized, he put forward the most essential kernel of university governance: decentralized checks and balances and co-governance.
To perfect the internal governance structure of Chinese universities, the most important and important task is to set up internal boundaries scientifically and rationally.Among them, the most critical internal boundary of universities is the boundary between administrative power and academic power of universities."Setting boundaries is the foundation of organizational construction that involves group behavior, people, processes, resources, and goals.There are many boundaries around people in an organization, and our task is to explain different organizational problems with different boundaries.In this process, we look for boundaries related to the phenomenon we are trying to explain, and then use an optimal angle to explain the phenomenon."[3]The establishment of internal boundaries of universities can be determined by actors, activities, institutions, etc.According to the university boundary theory, setting the boundary between administrative power and academic power can be clarified from the following aspects.(1) clarify the role of administrative and academic power actors, that is, determine the role of administrative and academic positions in universities.行政2岗位Determine administrative post responsibilities and academic post.(3) Establish a system to clarify the boundaries between the above administrators and activities, and minimize border instability between the two.
To improve the governance structure of Chinese universities, the second thing to do is to improve the mechanism and platform of teachers' common governance.From the perspective of university governance, there are two main things that Chinese universities can do at present: (1) Information disclosure.The current development of information technology, especially the emergence of the Internet and its new media, has made it possible to express public opinions.Universities should make full use of these technological tools and platforms for information disclosure and communication.Among them, the most important information is the disclosure of university financial accounting items and the quality report system of university talent development.(2) Improve the system of faculty and staff congresses.Universities are an academic community, and the most important thing to do in universities is to make it possible for all faculty and staff to express their interests.Universities should establish effective mechanisms for expressing the interests of individual and group faculty members.The faculty and staff congress system is an effective platform.The key to the platform's effectiveness is strict implementation of the provisions of the School Staff Congress, which began in 2012.(b) Strictly enforce the provisions that "teacher representatives shall not be less than 60 per cent of the total number of deputies" and that "teacher representatives shall not be less than 60 per cent of the total number of deputies".
The third thing we should do to improve the internal governance structure of Chinese universities is to establish a scientific academic committee system.The scientific academic committee should define the authority, personnel composition, term of office and mode of operation of the scientific committee.It is necessary to clarify the right of academic committee to evaluate academic affairs of university, allocate academic resources of university, and decide on academic affairs of university.In the operation mechanism, we should adopt the operation mode of community, that is to remove the official spirit and administrative atmosphere of academic committee.Academic committees should have an absolute majority of academic staff; school-level leaders should all withdraw from academic committees; academic committees should be chaired by scientific leaders of universities in turn.
Third, the establishment of university council, the establishment of university social platform and mechanism
China's current university governance structure lacks the involvement of external stakeholders.Although there are countless Chinese university councils or boards of directors, most of these institutions are virtual, and they do not make much sense.Since the internal governance structure of Chinese universities has been modelled into the "principal responsibility system under the leadership of Party committees", decision-making functions should no longer be established for the board of directors.In order to improve the governance structure of universities, the university council should be established and its function should be limited to the intermediary and platform connecting external society, enterprise and market.This is not only the theoretical requirement of resource dependence theory, but also the practical requirement of modern university combining politics, industry and research.This is conducive to linking universities with society, enterprises and markets, and to reflecting social needs in talent development, scientific research, social services and cultural heritage innovation.The Council shall have its own statute, its own independent content of responsibilities and modalities of work.