University Charters As The Power Regulation: Its Historical Evolution And Contemporary Form

With the implementation of China's Education Law and Higher Education Law, especially the Outline of China's National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020), the problem regarding what type of charter to be shaped has puzzled the organizers, operators and managers of Chinese universities. In order to solve the fundamental problem, the Chinese Universities are in the urgent need of a basic theory on university regulations, which would not only be consistent with the "international customs", but also reflect "Chinese characteristics". Based on this starting point, the study aims to providing the Chinese universities with a basis upon which to draw while they develop their own charters.The flow chart of the research process includes the following steps in sequence: issues, literature review/ document analysis, hypothesis, framework, empirical research, basic conclusion and policy recommendations. Based on the critical problems encountered in improving the governance structure of the university and constructing a modern university system, the study focuses on the core question what kind of charter the Chinese universities need to assure their governance power, especially to enlarge and improve their autonomy. Adopting ideal-type method and judging from the relations between the government and the university as well as the sharing authorities within universities, the author divides university charters into four types:the medieval University charters, the Anglo-Saxon traditional ones, the Roman ones and the socialist ones.Taking the modern universities as public organizations and attempting to analyze their public power, the various modern theories of civil society, multi-center governance theory, and procedural justice theory are applied to this study, which contribute to construct the analytical framework. And then through a historical study on the University charters, the study explores the historical evolution of the university charters with Medieval university tradition, the Anglo-Saxon tradition, the Roman tradition and the socialist one. The method of content analysis is also adopted. 81 university charters are selected among three of the types of universities mentioned above-the Anglo-Saxon tradition universities, Roman tradition ones and the socialist ones. They are analyzed thru a structural encoding process, which confirms that the proposed research hypothesis. And then the common features and respective characteristics of the three types of university charters are summarized.The characteristics of Anglo-Saxon traditional university charters are as follows: first, to give stakeholders the right to participate in university governance; second, to provide the highest authority of the University with operational procedures; third, emphasizing the separation and balance among the authorities of the decision-making, implementation and supervision within the university; fourth, attention to the process of general affairs in the university; fifth, to make clear the relations of the university and government; sixth, to make clear the subject and procedures of the charter amending. The characteristics of Roman traditional university charters are: first, the emphasis on the priority of government involvement in university governance; second, the highest authority of operating procedures belongs to the senate of the university; third, the boundary of the bodies of decision-making, implementing and supervising is not clear; fourth, emphasize autonomy of basic academic units within the university; fifth, make clear the relations of the university and government; sixth, make clear the subject and procedures of the charter amending. The features of socialist traditional university charters are:first, the emphasis on the universities'direct leadership of the party; second, the units of decision-making, implementation and supervision are set up, but the distinction between decision-making and implementation is low, the powers of governance and management confused; Third, the provisions of the faculty's authorities in participating in institutional management; fourth, sets up units of decision-making and implementation within the basic academic units; fifth, make clear the relations of the university and government; sixth, make clear the subject and procedures of the charter amending. The characteristics of all the three types of charters in common include:first, the mission of universities is the pursuit of public interest and truth; second, the subjects of authorities are the university stakeholders;third, the core of university regulations is the governance of university, the basic charters of the university structure consists of the two dimensions-the relationship between universities and the government and internal relations within universities; fourth, the main function of the charters is to define the regulation of universities'operation, which can be incorporated into administrative law, requiring power of running the university "minimum fair".The major problems of Chinese university charters are:first, the recognition of the charter is superficial; second, the subject and process of the charters are not standard; third, lack of the definition of the structure of the highest authority; fourth, fail to provide the highest authority unit with operational procedures; Fifth, fail to empower students to participate in institutional decision-making; Sixth, the Academic Committee does not work; seventh, fail to define the relationship between basic academic units and institute etc. It shows that there is a non-linearity relationship existing between the governance of Chinese university and the charters:first, the conflict between the university autonomy and the government interference; second, the conflicts between the students power of participation in institutional management and university party committee's single membership; third, the party members'discussion procedure standing a mere formality and the absence of the relevant provisions of university charters; fourth, the requirement of the president responsibility system under the leadership of party committees and the fact of a "two-headed" system; fifth, the conflicts between self-regulation of the basic academic units and strict hierarchy of the whole system.Therefore, based on the principle that Chinese universities'developing and improving charter rely on both "international customs" and "Chinese characteristics", the Chinese universities should:first, to unify the subject and procedures of charter developing and amending; second, improve the leadership of party committee thru expanding the sources of party members and developing clear operational procedures; third, improve president responsibility system thru a better system of selecting and appointing presidents and a more efficient president's office (the Council) system; Fourth, give full play to the role of Committee for Discipline Inspection, strengthen financial auditing, the open institutional affairs system, and strengthen the quality of basic academic units thru classification assessment system; fifth, reform of the membership of the Academic Council, define clear responsibilities of the Academic Committee and operational procedures to improve the academic committee system; sixth, activate the basic academic organizations by the revocation of the Branch Party Committees in colleges and departments and locating party offices instead, empower the professoriate/ faculty meeting to select deans and department chairs.