Innovation Of Selection And Appointment System For University Presidents In China

With the deepening of China's reform on higher education, the implementation of reform on selection and appointment system for university presidents has become an inevitable trend. This reform is an important part of building a modern university system with Chinese characteristics. "Administrative color" of university presidents has been overwhelmingly questioned and criticized for its strong drawbacks. Thus, what methodology should be adopted in the process of selecting and appointing university presidents? So far, there is still no significant theoretical breakthrough on it. Therefore, it is urgent and necessary to interpret the operating mechanism and plight of the existing system of selection and appointment, and reveal the underlying causes for defects of the selection and appointment system.The author believes that the reform of selection and appointment system for university presidents can be approached from the perspective of Principal-agent Theory, which also provides an important theoretical basis for this study. On this theoretical basis, the author analyzes the agency relationship in selection and appointment of university presidents, discovers the objective function and motivation of the principal and agency, and dissects deep roots for opportunism behavior including moral hazard, adverse selection and yesman phenomenon.Based on Principal-agent Theory, the author believes that the nature of selection and appointment of university presidents is how the principal selects his optimal agent in a scientific way. Examining the selection and appointment system of university presidents in contemporary China, it can be found that the agency relationship of selecting and appointing university presidents is a complex, multi-level, recycling agency chain. Its characteristics are as follows:the complication of principal levels and positioning, short-term behavior of the agency, non-market contractual relationship, and difficulty to quantify agency costs.Agency relationship for selection and appointment in the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan and Taiwan shows that the structure of university governance is closely related with the agency, which is described as follows:the higher the degree of university autonomy is, the less the agency levels will be, and the shorter the chain of the principal-agent will be; the more the autonomy of the university is emphasized, the greater the initial principal's authority will be, and the deeper the initial principal will be involved. Experience of selection and appointment system of university presidents in western countries and Taiwan area offers essential instruction and reference for the selection and appointment reform of Chinese university presidents. In addition, investigating duties performance of presidents in ordinary public colleges and universities in China, the author initially establishes Chinese university presidents' database, which helps to point out the direction and realistic path for establishing agents market of university presidents.The core issue of selection and appointment of university presidents is how to eliminate principal-agent problems and implement effective monitoring and evaluation. Employing international experience, based on Chinese reality, understanding the characteristics of university organization, a "multi-subject and double-level" principal-agent relationship has been put forward, and preliminary design for selection and appointment system of Chinese university presidents has been worked out including the following 6 steps:open recruitment, nomination of Academic Committee, selection of related committee, democratic recommendation and election of the teachers and staff, approval and appointment of the government. What's more, this issue also depends on new institution supply of government and the substantial changes of university governance. Predictably,this change will encounter difficulties such as lack of reform motivation,incompletion of coordinated reform,weak consciousness in democratic participation and the delay in legislation.. Therefore, the relationship between government, society, and universities should be reconstructed as follows:the roles of the government shall be transformed from the sponsor and administrator to the supervisor and servant; the direct and microscopic administration to indirect and macroscopic management; and the "omnipotent government" into "limited government." In one word, other external stakeholders shall return to their appropriate role of real stakeholders.