| The history of human civilization shows that social stability is not only the basic value and objective of the ruling party, but also the universal expectation and vision of common people. In modern times, China suffered a lot from the invasion of foreign powers, warlords and political turmoil, which was engraved into people’s memory. Safeguarding national unity and social stability, and achieving national prosperity and the people’s welfare have always been a "Chinese Dream" that we assiduously seek. As an important part of the society, colleges are extremely sensitive to political thoughts and social ideological thoughts. Colleges gather both knowledge and resources, experts and scholars, and they are the cradle of talent cultivation the intersection of the knowledge and incubator of ideas. Therefore, colleges are often referred to as "barometer","wind vane" and "thermometer" of social stability, and university stability has became an important parameter to analyze and evaluate the social stability. In a sense, stable colleges lead to a stable society, and unstable colleges lead to unstable society.To maintain the university stability has always been an important strategic objective of the party and government, and it is also one of the major tasks for colleges. However, the current related research has made a lot of achievements, but also has many shortcomings, which are mainly reflected in the following aspects. We have more researches about the social stability, and less about university stability; studies are more concerned about college safety instead of university stability; experience summary is bigger than theoretical research; we often discuss more about university stability in our own country and ignore the relevant research abroad. Therefore, it is an urgent task for us to carry out and strengthen the study on university stability in China. Launching and strengthening research on university stability from a multidimensional angle is of great theoretical and practical significance. The study absorbs the idea of the Marxist philosophy, Beck’s social risk theory and Noce’s system innovation theory, and refers to rational patriotism and mechanism optimization theory of multidimensional angle. On the basis of grasping the current situation of university stability in China, the study reviews the background factors, philosophy and system mechanisms that affect university stability. The study intends to provide preventive measures to deal with college reform, development and stability, and seeks to find new inspirations and theoretical framework. The whole paper consists of five chapters, including introduction, body and conclusion.Philosophical guidance is needed to better understand university stability. Based on the law of unity of opposites, Chapter 1 deals with six relationships.1. Static stability and dynamic stability. The static stability concept is the conceptual obstacle when the social crisis is handled. It focuses on maintaining the stability of the present state which can’t meet the requirement of the changes of society. The concept of dynamic stability is of great significance to maintain social interaction and achieve social stability. The concept of the university stability should change from "static stability" to "dynamic stability".2. Maintaining stability and safeguarding legal rights. To safeguard legal rights is the foundation to maintain stability, and to maintain the stability is the objective to safeguard legal rights. They are complementary to each other, university stability should shift from "maintaining power stability" to "safeguarding legal rights stability" 3. Confrontation and dialogue. Looking back on the history of human development, most of system changes were peaceful. Only in some extreme cases, there were revolutions and wars. Colleges should treat the dissatisfaction from both teachers and students correctly, and a safe mechanism of colleges should be emphasized in order to resolve the conflicts on campus.4. Fairness and efficiency. Fairness and efficiency conform to the law of the unity of opposites. Fairness can improve efficiency and efficiency can help accomplish fairness. It’s indispensable for colleges to keep the balance between them.5. Isolation and association. Things are generally interlinked. The butterfly effect is the proof. Society, colleges, and families are closely connected. Colleges are no longer ivory towers. It is necessary for students to care about what is happening in society. We must adhere to the law of universal connection to stabilize colleges.6. Prevention and rehabilitation. The key to keep our university stable is to unify prevention and rehabilitation. If we do well in preventing, then it is easy for us to maintain stability and there will be fewer incidents for us to handle. On the contrary, if we are always busy with dealing with accidents, we will not have time to prevent the potential accidents. Next, from the mutual change law of quality and quantity, we must handle four relationships. Firstly, progressivity and emergency. Crises are the product of progressivity and accompanied by emergency. They may break out suddenly, but the process takes time. Progressive social reform is a gradual one, and it confronts less with groups with vested interest. Thus it will lead to less social turmoil and face less obstruction. It can also be easy to adjust when there are some setbacks. Mass emergency normally goes from complaints in the form of letters and visits, from grass-root level to higher levels, and from individual visits to group visits. The incidents in colleges are also progressive. Secondly, contingency and inevitability. Nature has always posed threats to humans and human’s predatory activities lead to nature’s revenge. The complexity of people’s living environment and the limitation of its management and the abilities of responses to make the crisis happen inevitably. At the same time, crisis is caused by accidental factors. In term of university stability, we should have a correct view to the inevitable risks in schools, and establish rational and realistic goals. Thirdly, sensibility and slowness. The existence of risks makes "safety margin" become a rational pursuit of humans, and the "acceptable risk" a realistic choice. We should not be too sensitive or be too slow when we deal with stability. As for university stability, we can’t prevent excessively in order to pursuit the "absolute safety". Fourthly, long-term mechanism and contingency. The long-term mechanism should be based on prevention in order to pursue long-term stability of the society. While the contingency mechanism should aim at solving problems in order to dispose regional and temporal instability. We should establish and improve the crisis prevention and disposal mechanism to prevent crisis before it happens. We should defuse a crisis when there is a sign and resolve it properly and promptly after it happens. As for the university stability, we should emphasize the college students’ safety education, and establish a series of long-term and emergency mechanism to maintain stability.University stability incidents are often triggered by various risks. Therefore, it’s necessary to study the stability in the social risk dimension. Chapter 2 first outlines "risk", "risk society", characteristics of risk society, "the risk society theory" and what the theory has brought as enlightenments. It then analyzes the risks that the Chinese tertiary institutions are faced with and the characteristics of the risks. Generally, there are two types of risks, namely organizational and individual. The organizational risks include the risks in the aspects of strategic decision making at the administrative level, the cutting down of student enrolment, over-development, the marketization of education, investment in family education, corruption, logistics, and educational quality. The individual risks include moral risk, academic risk, physical safety risk, mental health risk, employment risk, emotion risk, trust crisis risk, network information risk and so on. The tertiary institution risks have extensive impact, may happen abruptly, are socially sensitive, and would make the focus of the media. In addition, it deals with the significant role that risk education plays on the stability of the tertiary institutions, clarifying that the risk awareness and the ability to respond to risks are the required makings of both those that teach and the students; that strengthening risk awareness education is a requirement for building up a harmonious campus; that risk education is important in political education; and that strengthening students’risk education is an urgent endeavor. Finally, the chapter puts forward some ways to help college students avoid risks. From the perspective of the organizational risks, it is necessary to enhance the scientific decision making level in administration, bring forward measures against the reducing of student source, restrict the overdevelopment desire, set up an appropriate marketization system of tertiary education, strengthen the guide in family education investment, attach importance to the students who cannot afford failure, strengthen the care for special group students, carry out the campaign of building "peaceful campus", and build a trusted "expert system" and put risk control in "acceptable" range. Students are supposed to be aware of five things:suffering, reflecting, being responsible, subjectivity, and competition and cooperation.Patriotism is not only the primary virtue of civil virtue in the core socialist value, but also a glorious tradition of college students. Loving our country needs passion and rationalism. Whether students can be rationally patriotic is linked to both achieving the purpose of patriotism and college and social stability. Consequently, there is need for us to view the university stability from the perspective of rational patriotism. Chapter 3 first analyzes the irrational patriotic behaviors of college students by taking marches against Japan in the new century as examples. It is assumed that irrational behaviors of such students included irregularity and disorder. Lack of organization was the main reason for irregularity and disorder of the patriotic marches. It is noted that purposefulness and regularity are essential to college students’rational patriotism, while standardization and organization are key to college students’rational patriotism. Finally, the chapter proposes a basic route of realizing college students’rational patriotism. It is believed that college students’patriotic behavior should be included into organization tracks through the restoration. The inherent ideological foundation of college students’ rational patriotism can be consolidated through education and guidance and the external constraints of college students’rational patriotism can be strengthened through effective management and control.System is a unique and important social phenomenon to human beings. It will conflict with the requirements of social development at a certain period of social development. To solve this conflict, system innovation is a necessary component of social development and reform. The education system is the same case. If it becomes less conducive to talent cultivation and educational development, it will be out of date eventually. If the outdated education system can not be reformed, it will not only hinder the development of education, but also lead to conflict and endanger university stability. Chapter 4 first outlines the system innovation theory after interpreting innovation, system innovation and education system innovation. Secondly, starting from college drop-out system, it illustrates the necessity of innovation for current college drop-out system. It is argued that the existing drop-out system puts tremendous pressure on university stability, with a significant negative impact on college talent cultivation. Its elimination lap leads to drop-out with high costs, and the deprivation of the rights to education of the students leads to a large number of legal cases. Thirdly, it proposes innovation initiatives beyond the existing system--"depressurized transfer", and then analyses its theoretical foundation, the implications of "reverse transfer" in American universities as well as the features and benefits of "depressurized transfer". Finally, this chapter explores the supporting conditions if "depressurized transfer" system is to be implemented. It concludes that "depressurized transfer" system should be based on the current existence of college levels and categories, with close cooperation among inter-schools to help "depressurized transfer" students choose schools and majors, and it requires clear relevant laws and regulations, and comprehensive assistance.The essence of scientific stability outlook is sustainability and being governed by law. Chapter 5 discusses nine mechanisms that should be optimized to maintain university stability. First, appeal expression mechanism. Conflicts have the effect of "safety valve". Establishing an appropriate appeal expression mechanism is beneficial to maintain social stability. Colleges’ incidents involving stability are generally related to the fact that teachers’ and students’ appeals can not be expressed. To establish a multi-appeal expression mode is decided by the diversity of higher education’s interest entities and contents. Secondly, interest distribution mechanism. Establishing a fair distribution mechanism has economic significance and social stability value. A society lack of an interest-driven mechanism is less likely to have rapid development. Likewise, a society lack of an interest coordination mechanism is less likely to have sustainable development. At present, colleges are deepening comprehensive reforms. A fair interest distribution is positively associated with university stability. Thirdly, persuasion and buffering mechanism. There exist conflicts in any society. A low-level existence of conflicts does not influence the overall social stability. However, if those conflicts can not be resolved timely, they may endanger social stability. Therefore, colleges should establish a sound persuasion mechanism, timely responding to the appeals of the teachers and students. Fourthly, early risk warning mechanism. It gives warning about signs and potential risk factors that may affect social stability and campus order. Thus, timely and effective measures can be taken to resolve or mitigate the harm. The development of things always follows certain rules, which provides bases for early warning. Warning system on university stability mainly includes four aspects: information collection, risk assessment, risk resolve and monitoring feedback. Fifthly, the public opinion control mechanism. Public monitoring is the realization of the general public’s right to know, criticize and supervise the government. Besides, it is the social responsibility of the media. However, it should have pure motivations and the proper guide instead of malicious hype. Contemporary society is a dual society, which is a coexistence of reality and virtuality. The construction of virtual society and the administration of networks are both important fields and means of long-term maintenance of stability mechanism. Due to the faultiness of public opinion guide mechanism, the public are misunderstanding the reforms of higher education. Therefore, the strengthening of college information monitoring and public opinion guiding are of vital importance. Sixthly, crisis response mechanism. It is different from early warning mechanism, the former focusing on concrete operations, effectiveness and timely control, while the latter on macro identification, strategic judgment and prevention. Colleges need to develop an effective and operational crisis management contingency plan, well prepare for any emergencies. Seventhly, team-building mechanism. College counselors play an important role in maintaining university stability. First of all, their role in maintaining stability has "three relies". Second, their performing duty has "three difficulties". Thirdly, their better performing duty has "three clarifies". Eighthly, democratic participation mechanism. The theory of participatory democracy was proposed in the 1960s, and it was changed into the theory of consultative democracy. Applying the consultative democracy into the democratic management in colleges is a reality requirement of university management. College teachers and students are with high degrees of professional education and are full of democratic awareness of participation and the democratic participation capacity. College democratic participation ought to show the extensiveness of the subject, the publicity of affairs, the value of the issues, debatablity of process, the diversity of forms and moderation of progress. |
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