The Responsive University: Restructuring for High Performance

In The Responsive University, William G. Tierney brings together a distinguished group of practitioners and scholars to describe how colleges and universities might respond effectively to changing social, demographic, and political forces. In each chapter, the contributors diagnose a specific problem and show how solutions can be found by reorienting basic work structures and designing nimbler, more creative organizations. Their goal is to encourage systemic change throughout the academy, and they propose far-reaching changes in such areas as management, marketing, and assessment. The Responsive University provides practical, real-world solutions for achieving high performance in colleges and universities.

The Johns Hopkins University Press

"This book is about getting out of the box. It is about rethinking fundamental assumptions of higher education. To survive and thrive in the next century, colleges and universities will have to be responsive in the eyes of those being served." -- Future Survey

Booknews

These six contributions maintain that only fundamental changes will solve the endemic problems that plague colleges and universities. The authors focus on systems and structures, rather than on the leadership of particular individuals. They offer plans for generating internal responses to external demands and constrictions, and call for increased communication and involvement with society, decentralized and localized governance, and integration and coordination within the academy. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

William G. Tierney is the Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and the director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California. His books include Promotion and Tenure: Community and Socialization in Academe and Building Communities of Difference: Higher Education in the 21st Century.