21stCentury in Higher Education - Satisfaction for Customers and Administration

Abstract

During the last decade, universities have been facing far-reaching changes affecting the areas of teaching, research and administration. More emphasis on student services, increasing financial autonomy, implementation of political and legal requirements i.e. regulations which govern teaching obligations, establishing new guidelines for examination regulations, increasing student mobility and drastic cuts in the areas of human resources and financial resources are examples of the changes universities have been dealing with. These far-reaching changes, have increasingly shaken the very foundations, established by the universities for centuries. It is not only an enormous effort for the university leadership, but also for the entire staff to meet challenges of that kind while at the same time trying to revise organisational processes, re-orienting employees and introducing new control-models. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. According to the author, it is indispensable to establish integral information and service resources for the various university departments like administration (centralised and decentralised), library, computer centre, various institutes, staff and students, to ensure the long-term transition into the new orientation structure required of the universities. This is the only way to ensure that available resources can be utilised efficiently, which will free the capacities needed to take on new activities in the future. Many universities, unfortunately, are still trying to solve their problems with the help of isolated solutions. Isolated solutions can fix problems in the short-term, however, it is often the pre-occupation with the subject matter itself, which provides a false sense of relief to the decision makers, and most often the new-found solutions go up in smoke within a short period of time. In the medium- and long-term, these solutions drastically limit the scope of action available to the university leadership, and create new, even more insurmountable hurdles, which are more difficult to overcome than the existing ones. This lecture explains how to effectively avoid such problems and how to establish an entire university architecture, which will benefit the leadership of the university and all other staff members in the short-, medium-, and long-term. For further information please visit us at our booth or contact us.