Research Interests
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Dissertation
Title: "Knowing Better: Improving Collective Decision-making in Higher Education Shared Governance"
The nature of higher education is changing in myriad and unpredictable ways. While certain pressures (like budgetary constraints) persist, others are being introduced by inescapable waves of technological innovation. One under-examined question is how we will guide academic institutions through these uncertain and uncharted waters. How we structure governance in higher education says a lot about what we want the institution to be. If we think colleges and universities should be merely diploma factories, then it makes sense to run them like businesses by empowering a decision-making elite keen to the science of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. If, however, we think higher education should be a citizen-building enclave, then we should adopt deliberative and democratic governance structures that rely on participatory world-making. In this sense, higher education governance speaks volumes about what kind of political values we hold more generally.
My dissertation examines how theories of democracy, and deliberative theories specifically, can be applied to the practices of shared governance in higher education. It asks how we can change both the structure of these practices and the culture within which they are embedded. Recent research argues that under conditions of uncertainty, democratic decision-mechanisms produce better, more accurate results than oligarchic ones. I leverage this research to argue for better, not less, deliberation among members of academic communities.
Dissertation adviser: Leslie Paul Thiele
Committee members: Lawrence C. Dodd, Daniel I. O'Neill, Leslie E. Anderson, Sevan G. Terzian
Title: "Knowing Better: Improving Collective Decision-making in Higher Education Shared Governance"
The nature of higher education is changing in myriad and unpredictable ways. While certain pressures (like budgetary constraints) persist, others are being introduced by inescapable waves of technological innovation. One under-examined question is how we will guide academic institutions through these uncertain and uncharted waters. How we structure governance in higher education says a lot about what we want the institution to be. If we think colleges and universities should be merely diploma factories, then it makes sense to run them like businesses by empowering a decision-making elite keen to the science of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. If, however, we think higher education should be a citizen-building enclave, then we should adopt deliberative and democratic governance structures that rely on participatory world-making. In this sense, higher education governance speaks volumes about what kind of political values we hold more generally.
My dissertation examines how theories of democracy, and deliberative theories specifically, can be applied to the practices of shared governance in higher education. It asks how we can change both the structure of these practices and the culture within which they are embedded. Recent research argues that under conditions of uncertainty, democratic decision-mechanisms produce better, more accurate results than oligarchic ones. I leverage this research to argue for better, not less, deliberation among members of academic communities.
Dissertation adviser: Leslie Paul Thiele
Committee members: Lawrence C. Dodd, Daniel I. O'Neill, Leslie E. Anderson, Sevan G. Terzian