Author: Michael Shattock
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335227848
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
"Michael Shattock, former registrar of Warwick, can lay claim to having invented the serious study of university governance in Britain." Public How has university governance changed and developed over the last quarter of a century? How can people actively engaged in university governance manage the increasingly complex issues that confront them? This book addresses university governance as extending throughout an institution from the governing body to senates/academic boards and the organs of governance at faculty and departmental levels. It considers the legal structure of higher education institutions; the impact of developments in corporate governance in the private sector; the reforms in modern university governance, including in academic governance; the practicalities of managing governance, drawing on selected case studies; and the role of governance in relation to institutional performance. Whilst the primary market for the book is the United Kingdom, many of the themes addressed are of international applicability. The book provides both a practical guide for those actively involved in governing universities – lay governors, senior managers and academics – and a key scholarly text for students of higher education, managers in universities and colleges, and policy makers.
EBOOK: Managing Good Governance in Higher Education
Author: Michael Shattock
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335227848
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
"Michael Shattock, former registrar of Warwick, can lay claim to having invented the serious study of university governance in Britain." Public How has university governance changed and developed over the last quarter of a century? How can people actively engaged in university governance manage the increasingly complex issues that confront them? This book addresses university governance as extending throughout an institution from the governing body to senates/academic boards and the organs of governance at faculty and departmental levels. It considers the legal structure of higher education institutions; the impact of developments in corporate governance in the private sector; the reforms in modern university governance, including in academic governance; the practicalities of managing governance, drawing on selected case studies; and the role of governance in relation to institutional performance. Whilst the primary market for the book is the United Kingdom, many of the themes addressed are of international applicability. The book provides both a practical guide for those actively involved in governing universities – lay governors, senior managers and academics – and a key scholarly text for students of higher education, managers in universities and colleges, and policy makers.
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335227848
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
"Michael Shattock, former registrar of Warwick, can lay claim to having invented the serious study of university governance in Britain." Public How has university governance changed and developed over the last quarter of a century? How can people actively engaged in university governance manage the increasingly complex issues that confront them? This book addresses university governance as extending throughout an institution from the governing body to senates/academic boards and the organs of governance at faculty and departmental levels. It considers the legal structure of higher education institutions; the impact of developments in corporate governance in the private sector; the reforms in modern university governance, including in academic governance; the practicalities of managing governance, drawing on selected case studies; and the role of governance in relation to institutional performance. Whilst the primary market for the book is the United Kingdom, many of the themes addressed are of international applicability. The book provides both a practical guide for those actively involved in governing universities – lay governors, senior managers and academics – and a key scholarly text for students of higher education, managers in universities and colleges, and policy makers.
Changing Governance and Management in Higher Education
Author: William Locke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400711409
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
External drivers are pressing for a more privatized approach to higher education and research, a greater reliance on technology and the more efficient use of resources. This book analyzes recent changes in institutional governance and management in higher education and their impact on the academy and academic work. It draws on findings from an international study based on a survey of academics in eighteen countries. It opens with a chapter outlining the key issues, drivers and challenges that inform contemporary discourse around academic work and the profession in general. It then focuses on national case studies, comparing changes in the top tier with the lower tiers of national systems, public and private institutions, and other differentiating factors appropriate in each country, which include mature and emerging higher education systems. It concludes by proposing a series of generalizations about the contemporary status of governance and management of institutions of higher education.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400711409
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
External drivers are pressing for a more privatized approach to higher education and research, a greater reliance on technology and the more efficient use of resources. This book analyzes recent changes in institutional governance and management in higher education and their impact on the academy and academic work. It draws on findings from an international study based on a survey of academics in eighteen countries. It opens with a chapter outlining the key issues, drivers and challenges that inform contemporary discourse around academic work and the profession in general. It then focuses on national case studies, comparing changes in the top tier with the lower tiers of national systems, public and private institutions, and other differentiating factors appropriate in each country, which include mature and emerging higher education systems. It concludes by proposing a series of generalizations about the contemporary status of governance and management of institutions of higher education.
Governing Higher Education: National Perspectives on Institutional Governance
Author: Alberto Amaral
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401599467
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
This is the most comprehensive international discussion of higher education governance ever published. It presents a critical analysis of governance issues and reforms in: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and the USA. The book explores different theoretical perspectives and presents new empirical evidence on system and institutional governance issues.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401599467
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
This is the most comprehensive international discussion of higher education governance ever published. It presents a critical analysis of governance issues and reforms in: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and the USA. The book explores different theoretical perspectives and presents new empirical evidence on system and institutional governance issues.
University Governance
Author: Catherine Paradeise
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402095155
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
Higher education reforms have been on the agenda of Western European countries for 25 years, trying to deal with self governed professional bureaucracies politically weakened by massification when an emerging common understanding enhanced their role as major actors in knowledge based economies. While university systems are deeply embedded in national settings, the ex post rationale of still on-going reforms is surprisingly uniform and “de-nationalized”. They promote (1) the “organizational turn” of universities, to varying extent substituting collegial loosely coupled entities by “integrated, goal-oriented entities deliberately choosing their own actions (and therefore open to differentiation), that can thus be held responsible for what they do” (2) the diversification of stakeholders, supposedly offering solutions to problems as various as the democratisation of universities, the shrinking of State budget resources and the diversification of university missions offering answers to changes in the making and in the use of science. When it comes to accounting for these reforms, two grand narratives of public management share the floor. NPM implies a strengthening of the capacity of the core State to direct public services organizations through management by objectives and results or contractualization, assessment, evaluation and. “Governance” focuses on “network-based” governance systems, where coordinating power and control are collectively shared between the major ‘social actors or partners’ at all levels of the decision-making system. Our results suggest that all higher education systems under study were more or less transformed according to both these narratives. It is therefore needed to understand how they combine or create contradictions. This leads us to test a third neo-weberian model. This model reaffirms the role of the State, of representative democracy, (central, regional and local), of public law (suitably modernized), preserves the idea of a public service with a distinctive status, culture and terms and conditions. It shifts from an internal orientation to bureaucratic rules towards an external orientation in meeting citizens’ needs and wishes by means of standardization of work processes and their products, based on a distinctive public service and a particular legal order survived as the foundations beneath the various packages of modernizing reforms. This book traces the national dynamics of public policies, organizational design and steering tools in seven European higher education and research systems, using these narratives to interpret and test the actual changes and the degree of national specificities and European convergence. This book is not a sum of national chapters like other presumably comparative. It does not intend to tell once again the story of the transformation of the relationships between the state and universities. It tries to use Higher education system to discuss issues on state intervention and steering and more generally the NPM, governance and neo-weberian models in a specific field. Furthermore, this book intends breaking the walls between specialists in higher education and specialist in public management and research policy. This well rooted division of labour is less that ever justified as the university mission in research (fundamental, applied, strategic) is underscored by commentors and reformers themselves. For that reason, we have chosen to observe the consequences of the dynamics of public policies, organizational design and steering tools on two specific issues related to the development of research training and organizing within universities: the transformation of research funding on the one hand and the expansion of graduate studies and doctoral schools on the other.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402095155
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
Higher education reforms have been on the agenda of Western European countries for 25 years, trying to deal with self governed professional bureaucracies politically weakened by massification when an emerging common understanding enhanced their role as major actors in knowledge based economies. While university systems are deeply embedded in national settings, the ex post rationale of still on-going reforms is surprisingly uniform and “de-nationalized”. They promote (1) the “organizational turn” of universities, to varying extent substituting collegial loosely coupled entities by “integrated, goal-oriented entities deliberately choosing their own actions (and therefore open to differentiation), that can thus be held responsible for what they do” (2) the diversification of stakeholders, supposedly offering solutions to problems as various as the democratisation of universities, the shrinking of State budget resources and the diversification of university missions offering answers to changes in the making and in the use of science. When it comes to accounting for these reforms, two grand narratives of public management share the floor. NPM implies a strengthening of the capacity of the core State to direct public services organizations through management by objectives and results or contractualization, assessment, evaluation and. “Governance” focuses on “network-based” governance systems, where coordinating power and control are collectively shared between the major ‘social actors or partners’ at all levels of the decision-making system. Our results suggest that all higher education systems under study were more or less transformed according to both these narratives. It is therefore needed to understand how they combine or create contradictions. This leads us to test a third neo-weberian model. This model reaffirms the role of the State, of representative democracy, (central, regional and local), of public law (suitably modernized), preserves the idea of a public service with a distinctive status, culture and terms and conditions. It shifts from an internal orientation to bureaucratic rules towards an external orientation in meeting citizens’ needs and wishes by means of standardization of work processes and their products, based on a distinctive public service and a particular legal order survived as the foundations beneath the various packages of modernizing reforms. This book traces the national dynamics of public policies, organizational design and steering tools in seven European higher education and research systems, using these narratives to interpret and test the actual changes and the degree of national specificities and European convergence. This book is not a sum of national chapters like other presumably comparative. It does not intend to tell once again the story of the transformation of the relationships between the state and universities. It tries to use Higher education system to discuss issues on state intervention and steering and more generally the NPM, governance and neo-weberian models in a specific field. Furthermore, this book intends breaking the walls between specialists in higher education and specialist in public management and research policy. This well rooted division of labour is less that ever justified as the university mission in research (fundamental, applied, strategic) is underscored by commentors and reformers themselves. For that reason, we have chosen to observe the consequences of the dynamics of public policies, organizational design and steering tools on two specific issues related to the development of research training and organizing within universities: the transformation of research funding on the one hand and the expansion of graduate studies and doctoral schools on the other.
International Trends in University Governance
Author: Michael Shattock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317668200
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
Governance is becoming increasingly important in universities just as it is in the wider world of commerce and banking. Historically, universities were run by their academic communities but as mass higher education has taken root, as university research has become a critical element in national economies and as the demand for more accountability both financial and in academic performance has grown, pressure has mounted for a ‘modernisation’ of governance structures. One aspect of ‘modernisation’, particularly important in many European systems, and in Japan, has been the decision by governments to give institutions greater autonomy, more control over their budgets and legal responsibility for the employment of their staff. International trends to introduce greater competition between institutions, to encourage greater institutional differentiation and give greater play to market forces has led to an emphasis on leadership, a more systematic involvement of external stakeholders and a more ‘corporate style of governance. At the same time this has often led to a sense of loss of collegiality, a redistribution of authority and a growing gap between the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’ within universities. This book analyses governance change in nine major higher education systems, Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, the UK and the USA, each account being the result of independent research by a leading authority in the field and describes how a convergence of governance structures has been mediated by the historical, cultural, political and social characteristics of the different systems. Michael Shattock is a leading authority on university governance; this study offers the most up to date account of governance reform in a range of higher education systems, an analysis of the common trends and an assessment of their impact on the idea of a university. It will be essential reading for academics, postgraduates and practitioners in higher education.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317668200
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
Governance is becoming increasingly important in universities just as it is in the wider world of commerce and banking. Historically, universities were run by their academic communities but as mass higher education has taken root, as university research has become a critical element in national economies and as the demand for more accountability both financial and in academic performance has grown, pressure has mounted for a ‘modernisation’ of governance structures. One aspect of ‘modernisation’, particularly important in many European systems, and in Japan, has been the decision by governments to give institutions greater autonomy, more control over their budgets and legal responsibility for the employment of their staff. International trends to introduce greater competition between institutions, to encourage greater institutional differentiation and give greater play to market forces has led to an emphasis on leadership, a more systematic involvement of external stakeholders and a more ‘corporate style of governance. At the same time this has often led to a sense of loss of collegiality, a redistribution of authority and a growing gap between the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’ within universities. This book analyses governance change in nine major higher education systems, Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, the UK and the USA, each account being the result of independent research by a leading authority in the field and describes how a convergence of governance structures has been mediated by the historical, cultural, political and social characteristics of the different systems. Michael Shattock is a leading authority on university governance; this study offers the most up to date account of governance reform in a range of higher education systems, an analysis of the common trends and an assessment of their impact on the idea of a university. It will be essential reading for academics, postgraduates and practitioners in higher education.
EBOOK: Managing Successful Universities
Author: Michael Shattock
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335240453
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
"There is no truer text to the topic than Managing Successful Universities ... The second edition is a full revision in which globalisation, managing financial disjuncture and the enhancement of research performance all loom larger than before. Like its predecessor this book will be used throughout the English speaking world and beyond." Professor Simon Marginson, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne "[This] is the manual par excellence for modern university leadership and management. In my role as a business school dean, it is by far the most useful single book I have ever read - and continue to read." Professor Mark Taylor, Dean, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick "When I began my career in university management, there was just one book on managing UK universities. Now there must be twenty or thirty but none is as comprehensive, authoritative, readable, and important as Shattock's Managing Successful Universities ... Read this valuable book and learn much from it!" David Palfreyman, Director of OXCHEPS and Bursar, New College, University of Oxford This bestselling book defines good management in a university context and how it can contribute to university success. Extensively updated to reflect political, financial and social developments since the first edition, it includes a new chapter on the management of teaching and research and gives in-depth coverage to managing retrenchment and the importance of human resource management. Drawing on the literature of management in the private sector as well as from higher education and on the experience of the author it emphasizes: The holistic characteristics of university management The need to be outward looking and entrepreneurial in management style, and The ways successful universities utilize the market to reinforce academic excellence
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335240453
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
"There is no truer text to the topic than Managing Successful Universities ... The second edition is a full revision in which globalisation, managing financial disjuncture and the enhancement of research performance all loom larger than before. Like its predecessor this book will be used throughout the English speaking world and beyond." Professor Simon Marginson, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne "[This] is the manual par excellence for modern university leadership and management. In my role as a business school dean, it is by far the most useful single book I have ever read - and continue to read." Professor Mark Taylor, Dean, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick "When I began my career in university management, there was just one book on managing UK universities. Now there must be twenty or thirty but none is as comprehensive, authoritative, readable, and important as Shattock's Managing Successful Universities ... Read this valuable book and learn much from it!" David Palfreyman, Director of OXCHEPS and Bursar, New College, University of Oxford This bestselling book defines good management in a university context and how it can contribute to university success. Extensively updated to reflect political, financial and social developments since the first edition, it includes a new chapter on the management of teaching and research and gives in-depth coverage to managing retrenchment and the importance of human resource management. Drawing on the literature of management in the private sector as well as from higher education and on the experience of the author it emphasizes: The holistic characteristics of university management The need to be outward looking and entrepreneurial in management style, and The ways successful universities utilize the market to reinforce academic excellence
Managing Technology in Higher Education
Author: A. W. (Tony) Bates
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470584726
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Universities continue to struggle in their efforts to fully integrate information and communications technology within their activities. Based on examination of current practices in technology integration at 25 universities worldwide, this book argues for a radical approach to the management of technology in higher education. It offers recommendations for improving governance, strategic planning, integration of administrative and teaching services, management of digital resources, and training of technology managers and administrators. The book is written for anyone wanting to ensure technology is integrated as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470584726
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Universities continue to struggle in their efforts to fully integrate information and communications technology within their activities. Based on examination of current practices in technology integration at 25 universities worldwide, this book argues for a radical approach to the management of technology in higher education. It offers recommendations for improving governance, strategic planning, integration of administrative and teaching services, management of digital resources, and training of technology managers and administrators. The book is written for anyone wanting to ensure technology is integrated as effectively and efficiently as possible.
European Integration and the Governance of Higher Education and Research
Author: Alberto Amaral
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402095058
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
The high level Douro seminars are now a well-established tradition in the annual activities promoted by Hedda, a European consortium of nine centres and ins- tutes devoted to research on higher education, and CIPES, its Portuguese associated centre. At the seminars, each member of a small group of invited researchers presents and discusses an original research-based paper that is revised afterwards taking into account the comments of the participating colleagues. The revised papers form the basis for the annual thematic book published by Springer in the book series called Higher Education Dynamics (HEDY). Paying tribute to the regularity of the seminars, it was decided that the volumes originating from the initiative would be collected in a ‘series in the series’ called the Douro Series. Previous seminars were dedicated to in-depth analyses of different aspects of higher education systems and institutions, including institutional governance, the emergence of managerialism, markets as instruments of public policy, cost-sharing and accessibility of students to higher education and developments in quality assurance. The present volume aims at analysing the change process which the European university is undergoing as a consequence of European integration efforts. In the case of higher education, these have materialised, amongst other things, in the - plementation of the Bologna process, while the Lisbon summit also has important consequences for the university. In March 2000, the Lisbon European Council set the goal for the EU to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society in the world by 2010.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402095058
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
The high level Douro seminars are now a well-established tradition in the annual activities promoted by Hedda, a European consortium of nine centres and ins- tutes devoted to research on higher education, and CIPES, its Portuguese associated centre. At the seminars, each member of a small group of invited researchers presents and discusses an original research-based paper that is revised afterwards taking into account the comments of the participating colleagues. The revised papers form the basis for the annual thematic book published by Springer in the book series called Higher Education Dynamics (HEDY). Paying tribute to the regularity of the seminars, it was decided that the volumes originating from the initiative would be collected in a ‘series in the series’ called the Douro Series. Previous seminars were dedicated to in-depth analyses of different aspects of higher education systems and institutions, including institutional governance, the emergence of managerialism, markets as instruments of public policy, cost-sharing and accessibility of students to higher education and developments in quality assurance. The present volume aims at analysing the change process which the European university is undergoing as a consequence of European integration efforts. In the case of higher education, these have materialised, amongst other things, in the - plementation of the Bologna process, while the Lisbon summit also has important consequences for the university. In March 2000, the Lisbon European Council set the goal for the EU to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society in the world by 2010.
Governance of Higher Education in Bihar
Author: Sudhanshu Bhushan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000379833
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 156
Book Description
This book presents the state-specific dimensions of the governance of higher education in Bihar, India, based on a real-case perspective. It discusses the policies of the center and state governments, and their implications on the state's higher education system. It addresses the issues and challenges faced by the higher education sector from the point of view of multiple stakeholders at center, state, university and college levels, while examining influential power centers. The volume focuses on select universities in the state and looks at how they manage policies, schemes and regulations. It deals with key themes such as the role of state and regulatory bodies such as the University Grants Commission; the balance of power; resource scarcity; the inadequacy of top-down governance models; governance failure; and the autonomy of universities. It explores the conflict between the politics and economics of governance and efficiency; the promotion and recruitment of senior office-bearers and teachers; the privatization of colleges; and financing, admission and examination systems. Through an in-depth study using empirical unit-level data from the All-India Survey of Higher Education, examples and theoretical frameworks, the book analyzes the reasons for the underperformance of the governance system of higher education in Bihar. It also offers suggestions and policy recommendations to help improve its planning and management via participative and responsible governance and informed institutional leadership. This book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers of education, higher education, economics, governance and public administration, and development studies. It will also be useful to educationists and experts, education administrators, policymakers, bureaucrats and the governing bodies of higher education institutions.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000379833
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 156
Book Description
This book presents the state-specific dimensions of the governance of higher education in Bihar, India, based on a real-case perspective. It discusses the policies of the center and state governments, and their implications on the state's higher education system. It addresses the issues and challenges faced by the higher education sector from the point of view of multiple stakeholders at center, state, university and college levels, while examining influential power centers. The volume focuses on select universities in the state and looks at how they manage policies, schemes and regulations. It deals with key themes such as the role of state and regulatory bodies such as the University Grants Commission; the balance of power; resource scarcity; the inadequacy of top-down governance models; governance failure; and the autonomy of universities. It explores the conflict between the politics and economics of governance and efficiency; the promotion and recruitment of senior office-bearers and teachers; the privatization of colleges; and financing, admission and examination systems. Through an in-depth study using empirical unit-level data from the All-India Survey of Higher Education, examples and theoretical frameworks, the book analyzes the reasons for the underperformance of the governance system of higher education in Bihar. It also offers suggestions and policy recommendations to help improve its planning and management via participative and responsible governance and informed institutional leadership. This book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers of education, higher education, economics, governance and public administration, and development studies. It will also be useful to educationists and experts, education administrators, policymakers, bureaucrats and the governing bodies of higher education institutions.
EBOOK: The Question Of Morale: Managing Happiness And Unhappiness In University Life
Author: David Watson
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335240690
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 186
Book Description
There is a comforting tale that heads of higher education institutions (HEIs) like to tell each other. "Go around your university or college," they say, "and ask the first ten people who you meet how their morale is. The response will always be 'rock-bottom.' Then ask them what they are working on. The responses will be full of life, of optimism and of enthusiasm for the task in hand." The moral of the story is that the two sets of responses don't compute; that the first is somehow unthinking and ideological, and the second unguarded and sincere. The thesis of this book is that the contradictory answers may well compute more effectively than is acknowledged: that the culture of higher education and the mesh of psychological contracts, or "deals," that make it up make much of the current discourse about happiness and unhappiness in contemporary life look simplistic and banal. In particular, the much-vaunted "science of happiness" may not have much to say to us. There is also a potential link between the Manichean discourse about morale and our wider culture's approach to happiness. Both normally deal in extremes, and much more rarely in graduations. Why is so much discourse about contemporary higher education structured around (real and imagined) unhappiness? How does this connect with the realities of life within (and just outside) the institutions? Does it matter, and, if so, what should we be doing about it? Based on historical, sociological and philosophical analysis, this book offers some answers to these questions.
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
ISBN: 0335240690
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 186
Book Description
There is a comforting tale that heads of higher education institutions (HEIs) like to tell each other. "Go around your university or college," they say, "and ask the first ten people who you meet how their morale is. The response will always be 'rock-bottom.' Then ask them what they are working on. The responses will be full of life, of optimism and of enthusiasm for the task in hand." The moral of the story is that the two sets of responses don't compute; that the first is somehow unthinking and ideological, and the second unguarded and sincere. The thesis of this book is that the contradictory answers may well compute more effectively than is acknowledged: that the culture of higher education and the mesh of psychological contracts, or "deals," that make it up make much of the current discourse about happiness and unhappiness in contemporary life look simplistic and banal. In particular, the much-vaunted "science of happiness" may not have much to say to us. There is also a potential link between the Manichean discourse about morale and our wider culture's approach to happiness. Both normally deal in extremes, and much more rarely in graduations. Why is so much discourse about contemporary higher education structured around (real and imagined) unhappiness? How does this connect with the realities of life within (and just outside) the institutions? Does it matter, and, if so, what should we be doing about it? Based on historical, sociological and philosophical analysis, this book offers some answers to these questions.