Dynamics of the Contemporary University. Neil J. Smelser

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      Increasing the Size of Units

      Much population growth—that associated with increases in fertility—occurs through the increasing size of families, among other changes. While this may entail changes in intrafamily dynamics, it does not directly produce structures other than the family. In higher education we observe the same principle—for example, in campus policies of expanding enrollment of students and size of faculty in the face of increasing demand. Increases in size typically create some economies of scale but sooner or later reach a limit and generate pressures for other kinds of structural change.

      Segmentation of Units

      Segmentation is a form of change that is also relatively simple in that it involves the increase of identical or similar units. It is another structural concomitant of population change—namely, the multiplication of family units without significant structural changes in family structure. Another example is an automobile manufacturer’s decision to increase the number of retail outlets in response to augmented demand. The rapid increase in numbers of four-year and community colleges between 1950 and 1970 is an example from higher education, as is the increase in numbers of for-profit distance-learning institutions in recent decades.

      Differentiation

      Differentiation is one of the most widespread structural concomitants of growth and efficiency. It is the principle in Adam Smith’s formula of the division of labor (specialization) leading to greater productivity and wealth—a formula he associated explicitly with growth. Whole institutions can also become more specialized as well. Much of the story of the Western family during the history of industrialization, for example, was its loss of functions as a productive economic unit (wage labor outside the family accomplished that), as a welfare system (the growth of public welfare accomplished that), as an instrumental training ground (mass primary and secondary education accomplished that), and as a principal agency for sustaining the aged (social-security systems accomplished that) (Ogburn and Nimkoff 1955). In the process the family become more specialized, responsible mainly for regulating intimacy and caring for and socializing young children. Specialization has also been the name of the game in education as well, resulting not only in the differentiation of primary, secondary, and tertiary forms but also in the proliferation of many types of different-purpose institutions, such as community colleges, vocational schools, four-year colleges vocational schools, and research universities. Some European and other systems have separated higher learning into universities and research academies.

      Proliferation: Adding New Functions to Existing Structures

      Expanding business firms add new departments or divisions to handle new functions (sales divisions for new regional markets, human relations departments, research-and-development divisions) as their operations expand. So do government bureaucracies. In higher education, an example is the creation of multiple curricula in community colleges to accommodate academic programs necessary for transfer to four-year institutions, terminal vocational degrees, and “preparation for life” courses (Brint and Karabel 1989). We will also discover that proliferation has been a favored strategy for universities as well, adding one function after another, with a peculiar twist. The obverse of proliferation is the shedding of functions, either outright or through downsizing or outsourcing.

      Coordination: Dealing with the Consequences of Increased Scale and Structural Change

      The impact of all the above structural processes, considered together, is to produce not only larger but also more complex structures with many more moving parts. We owe it to Durkheim ([1893] 1997) who insisted that increases in social complexity (division of labor) inevitably occasion the need for new kinds of integration in society. That principle has been discovered and rediscovered in organizational studies, politics and administration, and in studies of whole societies (see Simon 2001), to say nothing of the administration of campuses and the coordination of multicampus systems. Coordination encompasses new demands for routine management, for ensuring that the many hands of complex organizations know what the others are doing, and for anticipating, containing, and handling conflicts among differentiated units and groups. This final principle constitutes an important modification of any simple theory of economies of scale, because increases in scale of all types demand new structures, mechanisms, knowledge, and accompanying financial resources to deal with size and complexity.

      I submit this classification of structural changes—increase in unit size, segmentation, differentiation, proliferation, and coordination—both as a set of tools for analyzing the kinds of changes experienced by higher education and as a key to understanding phenomena in those institutions that may be otherwise baffling. Two points will emerge: (a) the “choice” of directions of structural change is constrained by external restrictions and opportunities, and (b) the different kinds of social change ramify in different directions, and express themselves in distinctive anomalies and contradictions, status hierarchies, strategic adaptations, and patterns of competition and conflict. We simply cannot unravel these ramifications without understanding institutions’ structural situations.

      A PECULIAR CASE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: STRUCTURAL ACCRETION

      As the illustrations in the last section reveal, the history of higher education has revealed all the forms of structural change associated with growth. I would like to spend some time on a special form that involves growth, specialization, and proliferation, and applies mainly but not exclusively to universities. In search for a descriptive term, I have settled on the concept of “structural accretion,” a composite form of growth.* Its simple definition is incorporation of new functions over time without, however, shedding existing ones (deletion) or splitting into separate organizations. It is a complex process reflecting, in the main, the following driving forces:

      The ingredients of accretion have been noted by observers of higher education. The accumulation of functions was captured fifty years ago by Clark Kerr’s (1963) invention of the term “multiversity,” connoting that accumulation. He also identified the inertial side by noting cryptically that “[c]hange comes through spawning the new than reforming the old” (Kerr 1963: 102). More recently Altbach observed that “[w]hen faced with new situations, the traditional institutions either adjust by adding functions without changing their basic character or create new divisions or institutes” (2001: 30). Diffusion through competitive copycatting has also been noted as a principle; “[institutions] build prestige by mimicking institutions that already have prestige” (Brewer, Gates, and Goldman 2002: 66). And faculty conservatism has been frequently identified as one of the most powerful forces in the academy (Kerr 1963); СКАЧАТЬ