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Higher Education Research & Development
ISSN: 0729-4360 (Print) 1469-8366 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cher20
Leading and managing learning and teaching inhigher education
Stephen J. Marshall , Janice Orrell , Alison Cameron , Agnes Bosanquet & SueThomas
To cite this article: Stephen J. Marshall , Janice Orrell , Alison Cameron , Agnes Bosanquet & SueThomas (2011) Leading and managing learning and teaching in higher education, Higher EducationResearch & Development, 30:2, 87-103, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2010.512631
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.512631
Published online: 16 Mar 2011.
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Higher Education Research & DevelopmentVol. 30, No. 2, April 2011, 87–103
ISSN 0729-4360 print/ISSN 1469-8366 online© 2011 HERDSADOI: 10.1080/07294360.2010.512631http://www.informaworld.com
Leading and managing learning and teaching in higher education
Stephen J. Marshalla, Janice Orrellb*, Alison Cameronc, Agnes Bosanquetc and Sue Thomasd
aLearning and Teaching Unit, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; bSchool of Education, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia; cLearning and Teaching Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; dResearch, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, AustraliaTaylor and Francis LtdCHER_A_512631.sgm(Received 23 March 2010; final version received 28 July 2010)10.1080/07294360.2010.512631Higher Education Research & Development0729-4360 (print)/1469-8366 (online)Original Article2011Taylor & Francis3020000002011Professor [email protected]
This paper outlines the findings of a study that examined the conceptions ofacademics regarding the nature of ‘leading’ and ‘managing’ learning and teachingin six Australian universities. These data were considered in the light ofinstitutional systems and documentation regarding the leadership and managementof learning and teaching and the contemporary literature on leadership andmanagement, particularly in higher education. The research found that there wascongruence between academic conceptions of the roles of leaders and managers inHE and those found in other contexts. In contrast, there was considerable varianceand significant gaps between these conceptions and HR and professionaldevelopment practices. The paper reports findings that have significantimplications for more systematic and explicit professional development forUniversity leaders and managers of teaching and learning. In addition, it arguesthat changes are required to the prevailing approaches in the current HR systemsand policies in order to effectively develop, support and recognize effectiveleadership and management practices as they relate to learning and teaching.
Keywords: educational development; leadership and management; professionaldevelopment
Introduction
Nationally and internationally there are increasing demands from government and thegeneral community for improved quality and accountability from our higher educa-tion institutions. These demands create expectations for improvements in leadershipand management practice and for more systematic processes in the identification,selection, development, succession planning and performance management of thosewho assume leadership and/or management roles in higher education institutions.Discussion of these issues has been common in government and audit reports: see,for example, Department of Education, Science and Training (2003), Harvey (2006),Hoare, Stanley, Kirkby and Coaldrake (1995) and research by Anderson (2006),Knight and Trowler (2001), Marshall (2001), Ramsden (2003) and Taylor (1999).
Despite the increasing interest in institutional leadership and management, thenotions of ‘leader’, ‘leading’, ‘leadership’, ‘manager’, ‘managing’ and ‘management’are problematic in higher education because they are confounded by conceptual
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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ambiguity. In practice, as in the literature on higher education, these terms are oftenused interchangeably, as if ‘leader’ is synonymous with ‘manager’.
Problems arising from conceptual ambiguity
As a result of this conceptual ambiguity, several problems arise for individuals withleadership and management responsibilities. Position descriptions and workloadformulae are often unclear and non-specific regarding these responsibilities and oftenfail to recognize or include the work of leadership and management. Furthermore,criteria used to evaluate performance of those with leadership or management respon-sibilities are often ambiguous. This means that academics often struggle to articulatehow they contribute to ‘leadership’ as opposed to ‘management’ within their disciplin-ary/professional context when applying for promotion or career enhancement.Furthermore, it has also been noted that professional development opportunities forthose with leadership responsibilities often focus on the development of the moreconcrete and practical management capacities and capabilities as distinct from thoseof leadership, to the detriment of the latter (Marshall, Adams, Cameron, & Sullivan,2000).
Review of literature
Literature on the leadership or management of learning and teaching, although scant,generally asserts that the overall purpose of leading and managing learning and teach-ing is to enhance student learning (Eison, 2002; Knight & Trowler, 2001; Martin,Trigwell, Prosser, & Ramsden, 2003). In order to achieve this outcome there are threekey responsibilities of leaders and managers of learning and teaching. One is todevelop institutional, faculty and departmental cultures where learning and teachingare valued, rewarded, prioritised and developed (Bargh, Bocock, Scott, & Smith,2000; Knight & Trowler, 2000; Martin et al., 2003; Pearson & Trevitt, 2004;Ramsden, 2003). A second responsibility is to develop both teachers and teachingpractice itself (Knight & Trowler, 2001; Ramsden, 2003; Martin et al., 2003; Pearson& Trevitt, 2004). A third critical element is the responsibility to develop and maintaincollaborative and collegial (in the sense of mutually supportive) cultures (Eison, 2002)in which teamwork becomes a key leadership and management strategy (Ramsden,2003). Explicit attention to these responsibilities by leaders and managers has thepotential to engage staff and to maintain their interest and commitment to theprocesses of enhancing learning and teaching.
Constraints to effective leadership and management of learning and teaching
Various studies identify and focus on Heads of School or Department as key leadersand managers of learning and teaching (Diamond, 2002; Knight & Trowler, 2001;Martin et al., 2003; Ramsden, 2003) as they are understood to occupy the point inhigher education institutions at which top-down directives and local planning or activ-ities converge. It is at the department level that many policies and plans for theenhancement of learning and teaching must be operationalised and enacted (Pearson& Trevitt, 2004) and thus the commitment and effort of Heads of Department isconsidered essential.
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Lack of a coherent institutional and faculty approach
A number of factors that might interfere with the effectiveness of leadership andmanagement at the department level have been identified (Knight & Trowler, 2001).These include heavy workloads, poor appraisal practices, lack of resources and inap-propriate structures. Thus, while Heads of Department might be critical in leading andmanaging learning and teaching, a coherent and supportive faculty and institutionalapproach to learning and teaching and its development is required for departmentalleadership to be effective.
The impact of increased accountability
It also must be recognised that the current higher education environment is driven byexternally imposed quality assurance and measurement (e.g. AUQA audits, Learningand Teaching Performance Audits associated with Learning and Teaching Perfor-mance Funding processes). Despite the ideal for leadership and management to bestudent learning focused, leadership and management practices are largely beingdriven by the need for public accountability and thus are management centric.
Failure to address the transient and distributed nature of teaching and learning leadership and management
A concept of distributed and transient leadership is liberally described in the highereducation literature on leadership and management (Knight & Trowler, 2001; Middle-hurst, 1993) but very little of this literature focuses on the roles or responsibilities ofleaders and managers of learning and teaching at levels other than that of Head ofDepartment. In a major study on the role of the chief executive (Bargh et al., 2000),the vice-chancellor’s role in strategic planning and in the clarification of issues suchas the kind of learning and teaching in which an institution should be involved hasbeen discussed. However, here, as in other studies, little consideration is given to howmembers of an organisation’s executive might, or should be, involved in the develop-ment of an organisational environment to support the systematic enhancement oflearning and teaching. Similarly, there is a failure to acknowledge or provide guidanceon the role of the transient or opportunistic informal leader, such as the leader of ashort-term working party or committee.
Effective leadership and management at all levels of higher education institutionsare integral to institutional quality and enhanced innovation. Envisioning futures, andcreating the circumstances by which they can be realised, are defining features ofeffective leadership and management (Kotter, 1990; Leithwood, Chapman, Corson,Hallinger, & Hart, 1996; Stace & Dunphy, 2001). But what does this mean in relationto academic work and to learning and teaching in particular?
Academic leadership project
Recognizing these problematic dimensions for leadership and management in univer-sities, particularly as they pertain to learning and teaching, a small team of research-ers from three Australian universities conceptualized a project that would provide agrounded understanding of common understandings of leadership and management.The research was interested in identifying how higher education institutions canbetter organise their infrastructure and systems to identify, support and develop
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individuals who are capable of envisioning a future for learning and teaching in theirinstitution, faculty, department or discipline and then create the circumstances bywhich the vision can be realised. First, however, the project undertook to ascertainacademics’ perceptions of leadership and management as they relate to learning andteaching, as well as the nature and qualities of organisational environments thatsupport such activities.
The research team included academic developers and a faculty-based academicleader. The research began in 2005 and was funded by the Australian Government’sHigher Education Innovation Programme. The research explored the followingquestions to generate the data:
● What do the terms ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ mean to practitioners inhigher education institutions in Australia?
● How are they used and understood in relation to learning and teaching inpractice?
The purpose of the project was to develop a contextually relevant, evidence-basedframework for leadership and management of learning and teaching, grounded in theunderstandings of higher education practitioners in Australia. The framework wouldidentify more precisely aspects of leadership and management as they relate to learn-ing and teaching and provide indicators to direct the attention of those who developuniversity infrastructure and provide professional development.
The research was conducted in eight Australian universities. The universities wereselected to represent the diverse range of higher education affiliations acrossAustralia. As such they included universities that represented the Group of Eight, theInnovative Research Universities of Australia group, the group of New GenerationUniversities and the Australian Technology Network group of universities as well asunaligned institutions.
Research methods
Data were generated through semi-structured interviews and through institutionaldocument analysis. The interviews were conducted with 36 academic staff fromamongst the participating institutions. Academics were selected from volunteers onthe basis that, collectively, they were representative of academic staff from the differ-ent disciplines, different levels of appointment (Associate Lecturer to Professor) andwith different positions of responsibility in relation to learning and teaching (e.g.members of the university executive, heads of faculties and departments, program andcourse coordinators).
Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed with the permission of participantsand transcripts were returned to participants for checking and correction where neces-sary. Documents, where they were available, were collected from institutions andincluded:
● Position Classification Descriptors (for Levels A to E)● Position Descriptions (for any position with formal responsibilities in relation to
learning and teaching)● Promotion policies, processes and criteria● Performance management policies, processes and criteria.
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Interview transcripts and documents were subjected to multiple readings by each ofthe five members of the research team using key words to identify themes and differ-ences in participants’ understandings and use of the terms ‘leader’, ‘manager’, ‘lead-ing’, ‘managing’, ‘leadership’ and ‘management’. The themes and differencesidentified by each researcher were discussed and synthesised by the research team asa whole into a series of propositional statements about leading and managing learningand teaching (LMLT).
The propositional statements regarding LMLT were compared to existingnotions of ‘leader’, ‘manager’, ‘leading’, ‘managing’, ‘leadership’ and ‘manage-ment’ as found in the research literature and a model to describe ‘leadership’ and‘management’ of learning and teaching was developed through a synthesis of these.To check the transferability of the model it was shared and tested with a number ofdifferent groups of academic staff from across the Australian higher educationsector. This was conducted as part of a range of professional development programsfor academic leaders and managers facilitated by members of the research team andenabled a determination of the extent to which the model was embraced and foundto be useful.
Findings
The preceding analysis found that the participants’ understandings of the nature of,and relationships between, ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ of learning and teaching inhigher education are diverse. The terms were often used synonymously, reflectingparticipants’ understanding of the two as complementary and interdependent elementsof the academic role. Despite these diverse understandings, a number of key conceptsemerged.
Conceptions of leadership for learning and teaching
Participants’ conceptions of leadership for learning and teaching were future orientedand concerned with:
● Establishing a direction or a vision for learning and teaching (including a senseof purpose, values, principles, strategies, outcomes to be associated with learn-ing and teaching programs and processes):
It’s about vision, innovation, doing something differently, picking up on new devel-opments whether they are new developments in a discipline, or new developments inpedagogy or curriculum design, or whatever they are, and creating a vision for whatyou think the university should be doing within a … unit or … course. (HEIP 07)
● Communicating that vision and aligning stakeholders (staff, students andothers), strategy (curriculum) and resources with that vision:
It’s about … creating a vision … communicating it, getting people onside, thenfollowing through with it. (HEIP 07)
It’s about … ensuring that what is being [planned] conforms with the objectives ofour institution, fulfils our … obligations under our Act, and [to] the communities andthe regions that we serve, and meets the requirements of the university with respectto bodies like AUQA. (HEIP 13)
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● Enabling, motivating and inspiring staff, students and other key stakeholders toparticipate in and contribute to the realisation of that vision:
Establishing an environment where there’s … a sense that good teaching is valued,that people will be recognized for good teaching … encouraging people to put in for[teaching] awards. (HEIP 35)
Expecting staff to be actually reading widely, to be aware of current developments,to be evaluating critically … [to be adopting] a scholarly approach to teaching.(HEIP 21)
Conceptions of management of learning and teaching
Participants described management of learning as involving detailed planning, settingshort to medium-term targets and goals for the development of curricula and curricularesources, staff, students and organisational enablers to support learning and teaching.They also conceived that management involved articulating (in terms of policy, guide-lines and timetables) specific actions to achieve these goals, as well as securing andallocating the financial resources necessary to ensure that these actions and goals canbe accomplished:
[Management involves] moving from … things like vision and direction-setting …[to]… policy development, to ensuring that all of those things are relevant to the organi-zation. (HEIP 13)
To ensure that learning and teaching plans and strategies can be implemented, partic-ipants indicated that a critical role of managers of learning and teaching was to assumecontrol over budgets:
If someone else is controlling [budgets], it just decreases your ability to react to situa-tions and move things around. You can’t respond well to innovations that you think arenecessary. It limits your capacity to manage your [learning and teaching] operations.(HEIP 22)
Further, participants believed that the management of learning and teaching involvedorganizing and staffing, which they reported were evidenced in: establishingprograms, curricula and organisational structures; articulating roles and responsibil-ities within these structures; recruiting, selecting, appointing and inducting qualifiedindividuals; and establishing performance management processes to monitor theimplementation of learning and teaching plans and to assess achievement in relationsto the goals contained therein:
[Management involves ensuring] that there are people in place who can implement poli-cies, that there is appropriate resource allocation to do so, and … aspects such as HRmanagement, financial management, and appropriate integration of divisions and facul-ties and services within the organization as a whole. (HEIP 13)
Participants reported that managers of learning and teaching are responsible for:
analysing the structural, systematic kind of elements in teaching and learning in theuniversity and trying to see how they can be improved to create the environment inwhich things can flourish. (HEIP 14)
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overseeing resourcing. … They are the people deciding which staff get taken on, whatthe new positions will be – so they’re having to think strategically about student demand,about learning priorities … about the relevance of what the school is doing, and how effi-ciently they are doing that in relation to resources. So it’s really the pointy end of teach-ing and learning leadership. (HEIP 09)
Managers of learning and teaching were also considered to have responsibility for:
[ensuring] subjects are staffed by the best people to staff them. Subject outlines are allin, staff know what to put in subject outlines, policies are available to people, you keepan eye on policies to make sure they’re being followed. (HEIP 16)
[aligning] promotion policy, performance development policy and our workload policyand make them all congruent in supporting [learning and teaching]. (HEIP 13)
Participants’ conceptions of management of learning and teaching included theresponsibility for monitoring learning and teaching performance and problem solvingwhen necessary to improve student learning outcomes and experiences. This involvedmonitoring, formally and informally, the appropriateness and effectiveness of: learn-ing and teaching plans; program and organizational structures; academic policy andprocedures; curricula and curricula resources; and organizational infrastructure tosupport learning and teaching, teaching staff and learning support staff:
I think much of the management of teaching is actually delivering what you promised youwould deliver; making sure that the units that you deliver actually match the unit outlines,and that the objectives are met, and that the assessment relates to those objectives; that themarkers of quality in a unit are there, and they can be as simple as up-to-date reading lists,diverse assessment practices, and evidence of student-centred learning. (HEIP 05)
The management of learning and teaching also involves:
all the quality assurance processes of course approval, course review, satisfaction ofindustry and professional requirements. (HEIP 13)
Thus, six key responsibilities were described by the participants as lying at the heartof leadership and management of learning and teaching:
Leadership of learning and teaching encompasses:
(1) establishing a vision and a direction for learning and teaching,(2) communicating the vision and direction to stakeholders in a manner that
encourages them to align themselves and their resources with the vision and(3) motivating and inspiring the stakeholders to engage with the vision.
Management of learning and teaching encompasses:
(4) planning and budgeting to ensure the desired change in learning and teachingcan be realised,
(5) organising and staffing to ensure that individuals with the knowledge, skillsand dispositions to realise the desired change are available and appropriatelydeployed and
(6) monitoring and problem solving to ensure that efforts to change learning andteaching remain ‘on track’.
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Conceptual elusiveness of leadership
The notions of ‘leadership’ and of ‘management’ construed by the participants of thisstudy are consistent in character with those of Kotter (1990), who explores and eluci-dates the differences between leadership and management generally. However, it wasclearly evident when participants were asked to discuss these notions in relation tolearning and teaching that they found it much easier to describe and find examples ofthe ‘management’ of learning and teaching than they did to describe ‘leadership’ inrelation to learning and teaching. As one participant, a senior member of an institu-tion’s staff, observed, the question of leadership in relation to learning and teaching‘is so rarely asked’ (HEIP 13).
Distinguishing features of leading and managing learning and teaching
These findings raise two obvious questions:
(1) How different are the ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ of learning and teachingfrom leadership and management in other contexts?
(2) What, if anything, makes them distinctive?
The collective experiences, responsibilities and perceptions of the participants in thisstudy show that ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ of learning and teaching are focusedon developing and assuring the quality of education through focusing on fourdomains: curricula; staff and teaching; students and learning; and organisationalenablers for learning and teaching.
Curriculum
Participants perceived that it was the role of leaders and managers of learning andteaching to guide, facilitate and oversee the definition, development, implementation,evaluation and revision of: educational goals (for programs, courses, units andmodules); expected learning outcomes (including graduate capabilities); content;instructional strategies and processes; learning and teaching resources; learning andteaching environments; assessment and feedback processes; and evaluation andreview strategies:
I’d see the leadership [as] more to do with things like our course profile, and looking foropportunities for new areas to move into, and at the other end, looking at where thingsare becoming obsolete or practice in the industry or the profession has moved on and youdo need to make a significant shift in focus for the course content or nomenclature orwhole areas. (HEIP 13)
For an industry-based program, the ‘leadership role’ is to try to be the link between theindustry and the students, to make sure that the curriculum is relevant. (HEIP 10)
Then we have the Associate Deans of Teaching and Learning in each faculty and they’reresponsible for, once again, quality assurance of curriculum, of processes and policiesrelating to teaching, assessment, evaluation. (HEIP 10)
Staff
Leaders and managers of learning and teaching guide, facilitate and oversee the defi-nition, development, implementation, evaluation and revision of: job descriptions,
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recruitment and selection processes; induction and orientation processes; professionaland career development processes; and recognition and reward processes for staffinvolved in teaching and supporting student learning:
I think it’s a responsibility to actually know what your staff are capable of … for me it’sknowing the teaching staff. (HEIP 16)
You’re in the front line of performance management of academics. (HEIP 09)
Each of our faculties has got a responsibility to mentor people into our business. (HEIP22)
I have a teaching and learning academic who works with me, and her job is to helppeople develop [their teaching], help people prepare their course reviews, help submittheir applications for teaching awards. She provides support … for the teaching awardsat the faculty, university and national level. … She manages a teaching and learningshowcase that we have annually, where people who’ve won teaching awards are giventhe opportunity to showcase their work. (HEIP 06)
If the topic convener is actually constructing the topic, recruiting the tutors and giving alot of the lectures, then that person becomes pivotal in a student’s learning experience …you would hope that a topic convener would manage those tutors and recruit the righttutors. (HEIP 33)
Student
Leaders and managers of learning and teaching guide, facilitate and oversee the defi-nition, development, implementation, evaluation and revision of processes and strate-gies to recruit, admit, enrol, orient and induct students. They attend to the academic(learning) and pastoral care (welfare) needs of students in order to retain students andensure their continued engagement with the university, faculty or department. In addi-tion, they assist students to negotiate the various transitions associated with highereducation including the transitions between levels in their programs, to the workforceand to higher study:
[Managing teaching] would involve everything from recruiting students, enrollingstudents, graduating students at the end, indeed I would say keeping in touch with grad-uates and alumni. (HEIP 21)
The course coordinators are actually a key contact point for students in ensuring that theydo the right program and that things work well during their enrolment. (HEIP 13)
Organisational enablers
Leaders and managers of learning and teaching guide, facilitate and oversee the defi-nition, development, implementation, evaluation and revision of: organisationalcultures that value and prioritise learning and teaching; organisational structures togovern and manage learning and teaching; budgetary and policy frameworks (tosupport and enable continuous quality improvement of learning and teaching); physi-cal and virtual learning environments that facilitate learning and teaching); learningand teaching support services (e.g. support for the development of numeracy and liter-acy skills); and the IT infrastructure and resources for use in learning and teaching:
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A role of the DVC(Academic) is to ‘make sure that … the committees are in place todevelop, to develop the policies and procedures for the administration and delivery ofinstruction. … So the management structures include the Directors of Studies in eachfaculty, the Teaching and Learning Committee which is the central committee … thatlooks at all things teaching and learning and, and … also rewards quality by running theExcellence in Teaching Award program. Then the Teaching and Learning Committee …will look into all matters to do with the delivery of teaching and learning. So they willfind funding for the development of things like the [XX Building], the [YY Building] orthe development of … other sort of teaching rooms and so forth. (HEIP 25)
These four domains of leadership and management are represented in Figure 1.Figure 1. Aspects of leadership and management and the domains of practice in learning and teaching.
Contexts for practice
Responsibility for the leadership and management of learning and teaching is under-stood to be shared across a range of individuals and groups at three distinct levels inhigher education institutions: Macro (institutional) level with external and internal
Figure 1. Aspects of leadership and management and the domains of practice in learning andteaching.
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foci, Meso (Faculty and Department) levels and Micro (program and unit of study)levels (see Figure 2).
Macro level
At the macro level there are formal groups established to lead and manage learningand teaching. These include bodies such as Academic Senates and Boards that haveassociated committees and working groups as well as the growing numbers of institu-tional Learning and Teaching Committees. Academic and professional staff are co-opted onto these committees for varying purposes and lengths of time, rarely withinduction or orientation to the responsibilities or the domains in which leadership andmanagement of learning and teaching are practised. These roles can be transient forthe individuals involved, even if the formal bodies are maintained over time (Middle-hurst, 1993).
Individuals understood to have formal institutional leadership and managementresponsibilities for learning and teaching include Vice-Chancellors, Deputy and
Figure 2. Contexts of practice of leadership and management in higher education.
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Pro-Vice-Chancellors (Academic and Learning and Teaching), Deans of Students,Directors or Heads of Academic and Curriculum Development units, Directors orHeads of Student Learning Support units, directors and heads of units responsiblefor the development and maintenance of an institution’s physical and virtual learn-ing environments, university librarians and directors/heads of units involved inacademic administration:
The role of the DVC is ‘bringing people together and identifying external resources bywhich they can actually then do things – can institute grants, for example, or gettingmoney out of the Learning and Teaching Fund, from DEST, and then trying to leadpeople through, university-wide, how that money might be spent to the advantage of theinstitution’s whole. (HEIP 23)
The Vice-Chancellor’s role is to identify how, in this incredibly complicated and chang-ing external world, this university will get better and better at teaching and research …his role is to define … our vision and our strategic plan. (HEIP08)
[Vice-chancellors] certainly need to have a clear conception of the clientele that we’retrying to serve, and the industries and the professions that we’re working with, and of …the broader national and international picture. I mean, if you’re thinking about things likeidentifying emerging areas that we should be considering incorporating in our profile,you need that sort of knowledge, [that is] knowledge about global trends and opportuni-ties in relation to teaching and, well, national policies. I mean, the way things change inChina, for example, or the emergence of that opportunity [for an overseas campus].That’s all based … on knowledge of provincial legislation and a change in the law to dowith the admission of foreign providers. So if you’re really going to be making decisionsat that level, it’s that sort of knowledge and awareness that’s critical. (HEIP 13)
At this level, participants believed that the issues addressed included ensuring appro-priateness of institutional infrastructure, equitable distribution of resources and thedevelopment and resourcing of institution-wide projects such as first year inductionand mentoring to support the student experience or policy structures and processes todeal with issues such as poor performance. Individuals and groups at the macro levelwere expected to act as an interface between government policies and demands, otherstakeholders (such as employers and professional bodies) and the rest of the institu-tion. They were also expected to know the national and international context forhigher education so that they could guide the institution towards emerging areas.Participants considered that a critical role of individuals and groups at the macro levelwas to demonstrate that teaching was valued in the institution by properly rewardingteaching and planning and resourcing teaching development strategies.
Meso level
At the Meso level, faculty groups include Faculty, School and Department ExecutiveCommittees and Learning and Teaching Committees as well as undergraduate andpostgraduate coursework committees and working groups. Chairing and participatingon these committees can also be highly transient responsibilities that require intensiveuptake of high stakes responsibilities for brief periods of time with little or no induc-tion and orientation.
The individuals at the meso level include Deans and Deputy or Associate Deans(Learning and Teaching), Heads of Departments, Faculty and Departmental AcademicSupport Managers.
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The issues that participants saw addressed at this level included: course review,subject evaluation and other quality assurance processes; dealing with student appeals,complaints and academic integrity matters; staffing issues, including performancemanagement and workload matters; and budgeting, particularly for Department andFaculty Heads. Individuals and groups in the meso level also need to interpret institu-tional priorities, translate them into faculty- or department-level actions and encour-age staff to support these. Participants also expected them to create a culture whereteaching is supported:
[The Dean] is very keen on [teaching] – he actually attends all of the course reviews oncea year so that makes people feel that it’s valued and worthwhile. (HEIP 06)
Another aspect of management too is to do all of the quality assurance processes ofcourse approval, course review, satisfaction of industry and professional requirements.And when you think of the levels at which people have responsibility for those, they are… multiple within the institution. You know, from divisional heads, IT and libraryservices and [the centre for teaching and learning] and so on, through the Deans, withrespect to our course profile and quality assurance processes, through the Heads ofSchool, with respect to learning materials development, supervision of staff workloadsand the sort of day-to-day dealing with the student enquiries to do with academicmatters. And I haven’t even mentioned student services either and admissions and thatside of it. All of that can be included under effective management of learning within theorganisation. (HEIP 13)
Micro level
At the micro level groups include program and unit of study teaching teams, whileindividuals include program or unit of study coordinators or conveners, teaching staff(lecturers, tutors, demonstrators, laboratory managers and work placement supervi-sors) as well as students.
At this level there is an expectation that staff will exercise leadership and manage-ment in respect of the unit or course – for instance, envisaging the future for a unit orcourse – and also in respect of the staff they work with. For instance, they are expectedto act as teaching mentors to colleagues and particularly to sessional or casual staff,where they were seen to have a responsibility to ensure that the staff understand whatis expected of them, ensuring that they know how to assess student work, mark examsand cope with administrative tasks required of them:
I suppose … thinking of the individual teacher, coming up with new ideas, sharing thoseideas with others, so becoming a teaching mentor, if you like. Because leadership to meis not only doing things well yourself, it’s passing it on, it’s training, it’s mentoring.(HEIP 29)
Staff at this level are a university’s interface with students and program coordinatorswere seen as needing to liaise with students, communicate with them on relevantmatters and deal with a range of issues such as extension requests, student appeals andsupplementary exams.Figure 2. Contexts of practice of leadership and management in higher education.
Discussion
The investigations in this project found that, in practice as in theory, ‘Leadership’ and‘management’ of learning and teaching are regarded as two distinct, but integrated,
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systems of activities that are aimed at defining and realising innovation, change andimprovement in learning and teaching. Each system is regarded as complex and multi-faceted and aimed at development in four possible domains, namely: curriculum, staff,students and organisational enablers of learning and teaching. Leadership andmanagement roles and responsibilities are diversely distributed and practised in multi-ple contexts and at all levels within our higher education institutions. Discrete, butlargely tacit, expectations of responsibilities for leadership and management are inher-ent in each of the roles of all staff regardless of the level or nature of their appointment.
Adequacy of institutional human resource management
Questions arise from these findings regarding how well current human resources (HR)practices account for these critical roles in the assurance and development of qualitylearning and teaching. For example, did academic position classification descriptionsappropriately recognise the multiple aspects, domains and contexts within which lead-ership and management of learning and teaching must be exercised? We found thatthey did not. This same question was asked of: recruitment processes, selection crite-ria, induction and orientation programs; probation requirements; workload formulae;performance review criteria; promotion, recognition and rewards processes; trainingand professional development; and, finally, career development pathways. Once againwe found that they did not.
The findings of this research also prompted questions regarding current indicators,measures and standards used to evaluate academic performance. Do they differentiateappropriately between teaching performance and performance of leadership andmanagement of learning and teaching? Similarly, do they distinguish between whathave been found to be the quite discrete role of leadership and of management and thedifferent organizational contexts and domains in which they are practised? Our anal-ysis of the institutional documentation found that the HR infrastructure relating toleadership and management of learning and teaching was largely invisible, unclearand non-specific. Professional development, furthermore, was experienced by theparticipants as focused predominantly on concrete management functions and verylittle attention directed at leadership functions.
These questions raised in this project indicate there should be significant respon-sibilities for both HR units and academic and professional development units in univer-sities in this regard. Human Resource units need to scrutinise and change their policyinstruments regarding position descriptions, to provide a more authentic and compre-hensive basis for performance review and development. Similarly HR need to ensurethat they more effectively support the recruitment, selection, induction, reward andrecognition of individuals into leadership and management positions with responsibil-ities for learning and teaching. There is a growth of senior leadership and managementpositions in Australian universities that have teaching and learning as a formal respon-sibility, for example Pro-Vice-Chancellors Teaching and Learning and as AssociateDeans of Learning and Teaching. It would be very timely, therefore, for institutions toreview their HR practices, structures and policies in the light of these questions.
Cultural shift in values and structure
This all implies that a significant cultural shift is needed in this regard. Humanresource changes alone will not attend to the range of issues raised here that signal a
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need for change. In particular what is needed is cultural change that signals new valuesand new importance to be placed on leadership and management roles that attend toeducation and the quality of learning and teaching. If cultural values make the appro-priate and successful adjustment to redefining leadership and management of learningand teaching, it will be evident in structural, human deployment and political changeswithin our higher education institutions.
Intentional, comprehensive professional development for leadership
A significant agent for effecting these changes, alongside HR systems, is the revital-izing and provision of appropriate continuing professional development for academicand professional staff. There are significant implications for the provision of develop-ment for academic staff. Currently much of the focus of leadership and managementdevelopment is generic, failing to attend to the particular domains of learning andteaching, and leadership and management development has been treated as expertknowledge and skills reserved for those who have achieved or been recruited intoformal roles of responsibility. The format of development has also been problematicbecause it has often been delivered as independent workshops and seminars, exter-nally planned and developed by experts in leadership and management who may wellhave only a surface understanding of the domains and requirements of leading andmanaging learning and teaching. Finally, the programmes are additional and externalto the everyday work and concerns of the participants.
The participants in this study sought leadership and management developmentprogrammes that were future oriented, capacity enhancing, knowledge enhancing,professionally engaging, career-long and self-managed. Based on these findings wepropose that programmes for continuing professional development of leaders andmangers of learning and teaching should provide the opportunity for:
● action learning, being experiential, practice focused and project based,● personal mastery, promoting reflective, evaluative activities,● situated learning, focusing on practical application to personal role and respon-
sibilities,● critical analysis, involving scholarship that challenges the status quo and taken-
for-granted assumptions,● expert guidance, including elements of expert mentoring and● network building, including elements of collegial peer mentoring.
Conclusion
With the hindsight and foresight provided by the participants of this study, leadershipand management for learning and teaching would more effectively be developedthrough ongoing, work-based, critically reflective practice that is integrated intoeveryday work. At the same time the development of capability in this area of leader-ship and management should be supported by scholarly evidence based on systematicenquiry into one’s own and others’ practices. This will involve personally planned andexternally facilitated peer mentoring and targeting specific development activities thatare authentic to the contemporary needs and context of the participants. The focus ofsuch development programmes should be comprehensive, encompassing the six keyresponsibilities of leadership and management outlined in this paper, the four domains
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(curriculum, students, staff and organisational enablers) and the three contexts forlearning and teaching development, (macro, meso and micro) in the framework devel-oped through this research.
Professional development alone will not bring about the cultural and structuralshifts that have been advocated by the participants in this study. Human resourceshave largely developed policies and infrastructure without recourse to the research andtheoretical literature that is available. The tools and processes are often reactions to apressing need. Once developed, they are rarely reviewed to ensure that they continueto reflect the institution’s mission, values and intent. We argue that for leadership andmanagement to be effective in higher education the related HR systems need to beintentionally built and routinely reviewed. Above all the cultural shift requires publicand concrete valuing of the responsibilities for leadership and management of learningand teaching by the senior institutional leaders.
AcknowledgementsThis article is based on research funded by Commonwealth of Australia Higher EducationInvestigations Program.
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