Discussion On Board Systems Of Universities

Higher education takes an increasingly important role in the economy and society progresses, as the tide of economy globalization and the era of knowledge economy are impending. It is generally recognized that an efficient management system is essential for the success of universities. For this very reason, revolution of the management systems of universities and speeding up universities modernization progress has attracted growing interests.This paper systematically inspects the development of the management systems of universities. Higher education systems have well established in US, Britain, France and Germany. In these countries, the majority of universities exercise the board systems which are proved to be more suitable for the modern university. This work strives to extract and summarize the universal significances from the practices of board systems in these countries. Based on the above research, the paper further discusses the current status and the potential development directions of the board systems in the universities in China.This paper consists of the following three parts.Part I discusses the history of the management systems of universities. First, we will look back the development of various university management systems from the Middle Ages to the modern times in order to reveal the connection between the change of the management systems of universities and the development of economy, society and universities. Then, we will analyze the origination and development of some representative management systems, including the guild system, the board of regents system, and the board system. The analysis will focus on the historical background for each system and will also evaluate the significant innovation of each system.Part II compares and analyzes the board systems currently used in US, Britain, France and Germany. Examining from organizational angle, effort is invested to investigate the position and structure of board directors, and the personnel, the sharing of responsibilities, the distribution of managing power, and the operational mechanisms of these management systems. At the end of this part, we will summarize the common characteristics among the board systems of the universities in the fourcountries.Part III analyzes the current status of the board systems in China, a new management system emerging among universities. Using the experience of the board systems of those universities in the developed countries for reference, we will concentrate on the variety of board systems in China and the primary impacts of each type on the higher education. Based on the analysis, we foresee some of the potential development directions. We have also found some areas to be improved. The leading reasons of shortfalls and the suggestions for the new model and improvement will be provided.