On Domination Of Faculty

The adjustment of governance structure is critical to higher education reform. Higher education reform in China has always been based on the adjustment of external governance structure, and internal governance restructuring is relatively slow, which to a large extent leads to the consequence that Chinese universities could not improve their own ability and level of autonomy essentially. Further promoting the reform of higher education, it is necessary to put the adjustment of internal governance structure in a more important position. However, it is a extremely grand task how to adjust the internal governance structure.The mechanism of "Faculty-dominant" which is universally implemented in the universities of western countries can provide a good reference.The mechanism of "Faculty-dominant" has a long history as the universities of western countries. From the date of its birth, medieval Teacher-made University had constructed the mechanism of co-management of faculty, which blazed a trail of "Faculty-dominant". In 19th century, German modern university built a new organizational model of "Professor governance" which pushed the professors'power to manage the university to its extreme. Later on, American universities created a new management mechanism of faculty participating in administration of universities, which added new contents to the mechanism of "Faculty-dominant". With the great changes of worldwide higher education environment, the mechanism of "Faculty-dominant" has also had some modernistic changes since the twentieth century. Its trend is that faculty as the most important subject has gradually shared the power in university management with other stakeholders. As the dominant internal management model in universities of western countries, "Faculty-dominant" is a key factor to promote them to be prosperous and excellent.The reason that the philosophy and system of "Faculty-dominant" can be universally endorsed and vibrant in western countries main lies in its rich reasonableness. The implementation of this mechanism prevent the universities deviating from the normal track of being academic organizations, provide the most solid protection for university autonomy and the demonstration of legality of university systems and motivate university academic productivity effectively Under the influence of historical evolution, cultural origin and political structures and other factors, the organizational mechanisms of "Faculty-dominant" show obviously morphological differences in different countries, among which, the implemented mechanisms in European universities and American universities are the most typical ones. Although there are many differences between them, they share many common features in the background, which constitute the core connotation of"Faculty-dominant".The form and implementation of "Faculty-dominant" mechanism is not spontaneous, but based on many internal and external conditions. The internal conditions is mainly reflected in two aspects:scholars'academic ability and morality standards, while the external conditions mainly focus on the impact of democratic culture of the society, the regulation of relevant laws and constitutions, university autonomy and occupational safety of faculty. These conditions have provided effective support and protection for the implementation of "Faculty-dominant".In the first half of last century the mechanism of "Faculty-dominant" was introduced to the management of Chinese modern universities, but after the founding of new China it was interrupted for long periods. With the change of social environment and the gradual return of university autonomy, some adjustments of internal governance structure occured in Chinese universities since the reform and opening-up, and some achievement has also been made, but so far, serious problems or crises have still existed in the internal governance of Chinese universities. One of the most prominent problems is that the power in university management is virtually centralized by the administrative force led by party committee and president, and faculty and other stakeholders are in a powerless position, which results the consequence that the academic logic is hindered and the universities can not continue to raise the level. To defuse the crises, it is necessary to learn from the experience of "Faculty-dominant", reinstate the right of the academic force to participate in university administration and establish authoritative status of faculty in university management.