The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond the Crossroads

Reviewed by Gary Rhoades

In The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond the Crossroads, James Duderstadt and Farris Womack, respectively president emeritus and former chief financial officer of the University of Michigan, discuss what they believe must change in public universities. The first half of the book discusses the distinctive features of public universities and the forces that necessitate profound change in such institutions. The second half addresses impediments to change. Along the way, Duderstadt and Womack discuss strategies for transforming the public university. Of most interest to readers of Academe are the chapters on university leadership, equated with "strong, decisive, visionary" presidents, and governance, equated with a shared governance system that "is cumbersome and awkward at best and ineffective and indecisive at worst."

Reading the book, I was often reminded of the words of my own institution's president or of other university presidents. The book contains recurring references to the new knowledge-based economy, to dramatic changes driven by technology, to greater competition for declining public monies, to the needs of changing student populations, and to the need for universities to increase productivity and generate a greater share of their revenues through entrepreneurial activity. Chapters focus on universities in the new century, responses to the changing needs of society, technology, market forces, and finance of public universities.

Unfortunately, the book does not offer a concrete sense of the struggles that surround change in large, public universities. Duderstadt and Womack are well positioned to give insights about major initiatives at Michigan, and in a few spots they begin to do that. They briefly discuss the university's efforts to enhance the diversity of its students, faculty, and staff. They mention failed efforts at "experimentation," with regard to health care centers and athletics. But these brief passages lack useful detail as well as analytical bite. For the most part, the book's argument remains suspended at a general level.

In some respects, the authors' tendency to speak in generalities reveals something about the perspective of senior academic managers. For example, an interesting duality characterizes their definition of the public university. On the one hand, Duderstadt and Womack appropriate the legitimacy that public universities derive from their egalitarian and civic social functions—functions that largely characterize not elite public universities like Michigan or the University of California, Berkeley, but less prestigious state universities such as Central, Eastern, and Western Michigan, and the California State Universities. On the other hand, many of the points Duderstadt and Womack make about the increase in private funding sources for public universities largely characterize elite public and private institutions. Such duality reveals an inherent tension between a commitment to higher education's public-good mission and a commitment to becoming increasingly like large corporate enterprises.

The most concrete recommendation made by Duderstadt and Womack is that public universities should become "privately financed, public universities." Not surprising, perhaps, to read this from the former senior academic managers of a "public Ivy" like Michigan. But private financing is not equally available to all public institutions.

What they mean by, and recommend for, public universities becoming increasingly private is most telling in terms of leadership and governance. Duderstadt and Womack bemoan the fettering of university presidents by political boards and self-interested faculty. Because of the constraints of meddling boards and "dysfunctional" mechanisms of academic governance, they write, presidents are often unable to move nimbly to effect change. Shared governance is characterized as "ineffective," "shared anarchy," and "inhibit[ing] change." The remedies Duderstadt and Womack offer are self-serving: "presidents and other executive officers should have the same degree of authority to take actions, to select leadership, and to take risks and move with deliberate speed that their counterparts in business and government possess." In short, managers should be more directive and less concerned about building consensus: "the challenges and pace of change faced by the modern university no longer allow the luxury of 'consensus' leadership." As for boards, Duderstadt and Womack suggest that they take on the characteristics of corporate boards, serving the interests of the institution—no mention is made of the public's interests. Presidents should be influential in selecting board members (for example, by being given veto rights), and some board members should be retired presidents. Given the abuses of many corporate CEOs in recent years, which are not unrelated to the nature of corporate boards, the authors' suggestions are hardly compelling.

Interestingly, Duderstadt and Womack argue that faculty and boards—but not presidents—need to have greater accountability, increased productivity, a willingness to work toward a vision other than one's own, and greater responsiveness to external demands. Here again the book sheds light on the perspective of many senior academic managers. There is a sense that, in contrast to all others, senior managers have a corner on vision, that they, uniquely, have the broad interests of the university in mind. There is also a desire to emulate the corporate world, which is understandable as many presidents of elite universities sit on corporate boards. And although Duderstadt and Womack are committed to public missions of public universities, such as access and service, ultimately they are more focused on presidential autonomy in privatizing the public university.

This book reveals the choices and dilemmas that confront elite public research universities. On the one hand, as they express it, "in a sense, a knowledge-driven society must shift from elite education to universal education for its very survival. It is time to 'de-Harvardize' higher education in America." On the other hand, to ensure the vitality of these universities, they want public institutions to become more like private institutions in their economic and governance structures.

Gary Rhoades is director of the University of Arizona's Center for the Study of Higher Education. His research focuses on the restructuring of professional labor and of higher education institutions. He is the author of Managed Professionals: Unionized Faculty and Restructuring Academic Labor and coauthor of Academic Capitalism in the New Economy (forthcoming).

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