On The Ideas And Practices Of Internal Governance In British Universities

"Faculty Governance" is the earliest internal governance concept in British universities, which was rooted from University of Oxford800years ago, it referred to that professors had the highest right to handle University affairs. Before the middle of the nineteenth Century,"Faculty Governance" dominated the British universities, reasons for it includes the natural formation of the University as well as its initial development stage. Later in the late nineteenth Century,"Layman Governance" idea raised from the Civil University and New University, which referred to that the universities should be governed by lay members of the council. Reasons for it includes that the Civil University and New University were established by laymen, the government involved in the Higher Education, and social environment outside universities changed greatly. During late twentieth Century, with the massification and marketification of British Higher Education, the defects of both "Faculty Governance" and "Layman Governance" reveals, and university governance pressure increases, in this case, professor and layman’s "Shared Governance" emerges quietly.Influenced by "Faculty Governance" concept, the classical universities such as University of Oxford were run by professors, for more than800years, the model for "Faculty Governance" has been adjusted and reformed constantly, from the late twentieth Century,"Faculty Governance" suffers great challenges because of the change of governance foundation, mode of knowledge production and the roles of professors themselves. Influenced by "Layman Governance" concept, the Civil Universities such as University of Birmingham employs lay members to run the universities, for more than100years,"Layman Governance" model experienced several adjustment and reforms as well, during late twentieth Century, it faces the challenges of increasing risks in decision-making, the decline in academic quality, the inefficient in decision execution and the enhancement of homogeneous within universities. New University such as Nottingham Trent run the universities with the model of Company Board, in which lay members take majority of the seats. The model brings the problems of unreasonable appointment mechanism for governors, excessive power weakening of Academic Committee and lack of audit supervision and so on.With the continuous reform of ideas and practices of internal governance in British universities, the original connotation of "Faculty Governance" and "Layman Governance" has changed. The modern "Faculty Governance" tends to weaken the power of professors, professors’ right declines from handling university affairs to participate decision-making, while modern "Layman Governance" doesn’t exclude professors from university governance but offer seats for them to participate decision-making. From the historical evolution of the two, we can see the tendency of cooperation between professors and lay members, so the internal governance reform by British university is to seek the best balance point between "Faculty Governance" and "Layman Governance", and realizing "Shared Governance" in the future.Although there are many deficiencies in the internal governance practice of British university, its democratic decision-making mechanism, sound coordination mechanism and effective monitoring mechanism and other valuable experience is worth our learning and we can make them as references.