Governance and Analysis - Research Paper Example

? Governance Research and Analysis Introduction In the recent times it can be observed that the OECD governments, without giving rise to any kind of an exception, has been actively engaged in reassessing, restructuring or rather reorganizing their respective systems related to higher education. The reason behind the initiation of such transformation is measured to be the thoughtful alterations in terms of the intentions related to the aspect of higher education and the various challenges witnessed. Among the grave challenges, the one that is having a noteworthy effect on the aspect of higher education in the recent times is the increasing cost related to higher education. The overall increase in the cost can be attributed to the steady rise in the tuition fees, reduction in the buying capacity of the allowance aids sanctioned for the students, shrinking financial plans for higher education of the states, augmenting liability loads for the students and increasing requirements for institutional responsibilities (Meek, Teichler & Kearney, 2009). It is in this context that the augmenting tuition expenses are turning out to be a grave concern, especially for the families with comparatively lesser earning which makes it impossible for them to meet up to the increasing costs. However, in some instances the considerable boosts in the monetary helps provided by the institutions as well as the governments have assisted in alleviating the price rises for few students. This problem needs immediate attention as it might involve grave effects by restricting the right of entry for would-be college scholars focusing on the students with little earnings (Meek, Teichler & Kearney, 2009). It is worth mentioning in this context that University of Central Florida is one of the well-renowned American Universities that aim to render its students with quality education. Hereby, the main objective of the paper will be to identify the governance policies as well as programs of the University of Central Florida and hence recognize how the governance of this university can assist in resolving the issues faced by it. The impact created by the external environment on the governance procedures and policy measures will also be identified in the discussion further. Governance Policies and Strategies in University of Central Florida The administration, the faculty as well as the staffs of the University of Central Florida (UCF) work in a collaborate manner so that it can offer its staffs with high quality programs, courses, teaching facilities as well as other developmental services to the community. The university’s governance procedures tend to clarify the duties as well as responsibilities of numerous parties such as the administration division, the staffs and the faculties. It is to be mentioned that the Nominating and Governance Committee is employed by the University Of Central Florida Board Of Trustees with the objective to suggest potential candidates suitable for designation as Trustee Emeritus and Honorary Doctor for deliberation by the full board. It further aims at persuading the members of the corporate governance “best practices” and thus makes suggestions to the Board and its committee members. The governance procedure further creates and suggests the Board with the number as well as structure of the committees. The chairperson of the board is responsible to elect and appoint the members of the committee. The committee is responsible to assess its performance on a continuous basis. The committee also intends to analyze the committee charter yearly and thus contemplate any needed changes with the board in order to ensure if the panel has approved or re-approved the charter or not (Board of Trustees, 2012). Furthermore, the university also intends to render the facilities of cost sharing in the context of higher education which means a transfer in the burden related to higher education costs from being borne by the governments i.e. taxpayers to being shared exclusively by parent and students. A shift in the burden of high cost may come in the form of decline of student’s grants. It might as well come in the form of minimization of efficient grants that has been symbolized by student’s loan subsidies. The main reasons behind the shifts are three and they tend to differ in terms of economic, political as well as ideological assumptions. The first reason is the absolute requirement for other than government revenues. This need initiates with the rise in numerous countries in demand for higher education which is identified to be one of the main factors leading to national economic growth. This demand is more required in low income countries that are attempting to transform from elite to mass tertiary-level participation and are also trying to become economically competitive in the global economy. It can be viewed that the educational institutions offering higher education to the students are present in most of the developing as well as low-income countries. It is because of the financial struggles that national systems related to higher education are possessing in order to increase their governmental revenues not only with cost sharing but also with the help of other activities such as entrepreneurial activities that include faculty services, lease of university facilities, fund raising from alumni, friends and corporations. Public revenues which are increasingly scarce by its nature can be augmented with the help of tuitions as well as other fees from the students (Rosenstone, 2004). Programs or Departments in University of Central Florida Higher education across the globe is found to be facing up to a sequence of noteworthy issues led by consequences of concentrated power. It appears as if those powers have strengthened and are taking up the expenses related to college. This is intimidating the future of the country as a result. Higher education is being widely viewed as the resources to attain social, economic and political purposes for many people. According to the recent data, there will be a yearly boost in college graduates in the US. These students would be noticeably distinct owing to their structures in terms of ethnicity, ages and economic background. It is also an obvious fact that the distribution of those graduates would be different in various states. This would give rise to fresh requirements on the education system. This augmenting requirement would take the costs up because more colleges would struggle for quality students which in turn would increase the want within the students to avail costlier curriculums. Banks have been providing loans for this purpose and this has also added to the reason as monetarily weak students are availing loans in order to pay for the augmenting expenses of higher education (Rosenstone, 2004). Prospects related to higher education are considered to be vital for individuals as these prospects are also regarded to be equally imperative for the states, individual communities and also the nation at large. In terms of international economy, the significantly economically protected communities, nations and states are considered to be the ones which command a strong foundation of knowledge. From a similar perspective, the University Of Central Florida is considered to be one of the well-renowned public universities of Florida. In terms of enrollment it is positioned as sixth biggest in the United States. It is generally referred to as University Of Central Florida and is situated in Florida. The numerous undergraduate disciplines at the university can be identified as business, health, science, accounting, hospitality management, psychology, nursing, biology, elementary education and biomedical science. It can be observed that each department possesses its own mission, vision and values and thus the governance structure of the university for each department is different (University of Central Florida, 2012). Mission, Vision & Values of University of Central Florida It can be observed that since the university has distinct departments, its mission, vision and values also tend to differ to a certain extent for each particular dimension. Consequently, the governance policies of each department tend to differ considerably thereby impacting the strategies of the university on the whole. However, from an overall perspective, the primary mission of the University is to operate or function as a public multi-campus, urban and research based university. Hence, the university tends to fasten the Central Florida city-state in recognizing and attaining its economic, academic, community-centric as well as artistic needs by offering high-class, broad-based education facilities and experienced-based learning curriculums. It also aims at enhancing the students’ possessed knowledge and skills along with the growth in the leadership quality (University of Central Florida, 2012). From a similar perspective, the vision of the university indicates that it has stepped into a bold venture in order to become a new kind of university offering leadership along with services to the state. The University also envisions to maintain its capabilities that it has been offering to the communities and thus will also focus upon new strengths by influencing innovative partnerships, effectual interdisciplinary along with facilitating the culture of sustainability demonstrated by a unwavering dedication to inclusiveness, opportunity and excellence for all. The overall values of the University Of Central Florida also consist of the basic principles leading the process, performance as well as decisions of the university, its students as well as its employees. Therefore, the values embraced by the University are integrity, scholarship, community, creativity and excellence (University of Central Florida, 2012). Ethics in University of Central Florida It has been observed that the university identifies a concern for values as well as ethics that are crucial for the educational experience. It is quite vital for the faculty members to demonstrate an awareness that membership in educational institution carries with it specific responsibilities. It is worth mentioning in this context that the numerous responsibilities of the faculties have been extracted exactly from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Statement on Professional Ethics. The professors of the University Of Central Florida efficiently identify their special responsibilities that have been placed upon them apart from merely proving lectures, designing curriculums and examining the educational progress of the students. The professors are also accountable to endorse pursuit of learning in their students. Furthermore, professors are supposed to hold the best scholarly as well as ethical standards of their discipline. It has been noted that the professors attempt to make efforts in order to promote honest academic conduct in the university. Professors are further not allowed to harass colleagues in the university and thus are required to maintain highest degree of ethical standards (Office of Faculty Affairs, 2012). With regards to the external environment, it has also been observed that lack of accountability is also considered to be one of the biggest challenges in the context of higher education. It comprises of three main dimensions which can be identified as the inadequate attention towards evaluating learning results and thus adjusting teaching in response to evaluation, the ‘siloing’ of disciplines and the separated general education curriculum. Professors are well aware of their responsibility to teach but are not much concerned with linking their teaching to students learning. Students are often offered with the scope to evaluate their teachers teaching; however, this does not link well with the students (Buchanan & Griffin, 2010; Gilliland, 2012). Governing Processes and Management Practices in University Of Central Florida It has been observed that the University Of Central Florida intends to strictly obey the Principles related to Good Practices which has been articulated by the Southern Regional Education Board for the Electronic Campus (SREC). According to the prescribed standards, it is quite significant for the universities to have well qualified and trained faculty members in order to deliver quality distributed learning courses. Therefore, the university aims at offering the faculty development programs to enhance the skills of the staffs to educate the students with distributed learning courses. The University Of Central Florida’s computing as well as telecommunications resources further intend to offer a varied series of opportunities for the students as well as the employees to persuade, store and process the available information which can be apparently regarded as significant for the academic, administrative and research functions of the university. The policy of the UFC has been to motivate and ensure that all the students as well as the employees make optimum use of these resources (University of Central Florida, 2012). In this regards, it can be mentioned that after their enrollment, the students are entitled to gain freedom and rights, given the exercise thereof is attained in conformity with the University procedures and does not lead to disruption that has been specified in the Rules. The students are entitled to freedom of expression to hear, write, as well as act upon numerous thoughts and beliefs. The university further aims at developing a spirit of free inquiry and thus stimulates the timely discussion related to numerous issues between educators and the students (University of Central Florida, 2012). Furthermore, the policies stated that the members of the boards are responsible to communicate the vision of the university and thus foster collaboration with the internal as well as external stakeholders. It also aims at offering an environment stimulating excellence in terms of education, healthcare delivery, along with research and services. The governing bodies are also responsible for administering agreements with other colleges within the university along with the affiliated colleges. The governing bodies are further responsible to offer insights into the operational as well as financial performance of the university (University of Central Florida, 2012). External Agencies’ contribution towards University Of Central Florida’s achievements It has been viewed that since 1970s, when University Of Central Florida initiated its first graduating class, the university attempted to offer more than 200000 degrees along with 35000 graduates as well as professional degrees to more than 170000 alumni. It has further been observed that the alumni of the university assisted in various researches related to optics, simulation, modeling, digital media, engineering as well as computer science, hospitality management as well as education. It is in this context that alumni are often considered to be a crucial to few institutions for quite some reasons. They are known to donate funds, assist in recruiting students, offer internship as well as postgraduate service openings to students and help the academic institutions politically as well. They even have their own choices regarding what needs to be valued. This is communicated strongly to the institutions which restricts them from making any alterations in order to reduce the costs as this might result in putting an end to the donations made by them (University of Central Florida, 2012). Office of Student Financial Assistance main mission has been to offer University Of Central Florida students as well as the community of all-inclusive quality services by means of financial assistance to the students. The students are entitled to obtain financial aid counseling through appointment. Owing to confidentiality, counseling is quite restrained via phone and email. Student Financial Assistance which is one of the units for communications, marketing, strategy as well as admissions is dedicated to the achievement of the University Of Central Florida’s mission and objectives within a stipulated period of time (University of Central Florida, 2012). It is worth mentioning in this context that the rising costs of universities are making higher education more and more unaffordable for lower income group people. As higher education is known to be a way to attaining success and growth in life and also because a common perception has often been recognized to exist among people making them believe the fact that only a good college education could provide them with better employment prospects, the lower income group students deliberately intend to pursue higher education even at huge expenditures nearly unaffordable by them facing barriers in terms of costs. However, greater spending in the higher education rarely associates with better results. The Liberal Center for American Progress stated in its recent study that by merely investing money into schools will not lead to better outcomes. Furthermore, it has been observed that there is no close association between spending and achievement. Offering more money for the status quo will not lead to results that the students deserve, the country aspires and the taxpayers expect. There is need for fiscal responsibility as well as resourcefulness in order to refocus upon investments and thus deliver the outcomes (Rosenstone, 2004). Sustained availability of higher education would result in a well-built country both economically as well as socially. Higher education would bring hope and help in shaping brilliant futures for a lot of students of the country as well as provide with a ray of expectation to the low earning families for an improved and quality life. Higher education facilitates in enhancing the national economy on the whole. The rising college costs are preventing students from higher education which would in turn have an impact on the national economy. The national economy would suffer because of decline in the revenues from tax as there would be a decrease in the average income of the people in the country. Productivity would turn down as a result of unskilled or educated human resources. Higher college costs would also require the government to increase the financial support towards education which would create an impact on the budget of the country (UNESCO, 2005). It has been observed in this context that states participate in a vital way in financially supporting higher education. At the similar time, it was also observed that majority of the states witness deficit in the long-term financial plans. In such circumstances, it was learned that almost every state slashed the aids in relation to higher education. Cut in the financial support provided by the governments would mean that the educational institutions would need to take care of their complete expenses. This made them increase the costs of the programs. The aspect of funding programs related to higher education is considered to be less significant in the state as well as in the federal levels. Another important reason to be identified behind the increasing expenses for higher education is inflation. It was seen that the low ratio between the students to faculty was perceived to be necessary in order to provide quality higher education. For this reason, to keep away from the reduction in the comparative income of the faculty, the tuition costs were augmented. They were increased more compared to the inflation in order to offer income for the purpose of salary hikes as well as to retain the present faculty and also to lure fresh ones (Johnstone, 2003). The other most important reason behind this increase was the purpose of the academic institutions. The main intention of few such institutions lies in the fact to be considered as the best in every facet of their related behaviors. They have been said to ‘cookie monsters’. Such institutions have been observed to uncompromisingly look for the available potential resources and employ those funds in supporting things which according to them would add to their reputation. They constantly strive for better faculty, enhanced instructional technology, superior facilities, quality students and enhanced research support. All the above mentioned enhancements would call for the need for more finance. The academic institutions as a result augment their course fees in order to bring in more finances to support their needs. There are certain programs which enjoy more importance and are values more than the others. Expenses or costs related to such programs are seen to rise in regular periods owing to their demand accompanied by popularity (Back, Davis & Olsen, 1997). Higher and quality education would facilitate in developing a strong economy which would ultimately prove beneficial for the country. Strategies need to be planned and structured immediately so as to put a halt in the increasing costs of college education. It is also important for the government to intervene in this matter and take immediate actions before much damage being made to the national economy. Higher education to the youth of the country would ensure a better life for them as well as promote the ‘quality of life’ in the country as a whole. The augmenting prices cannot be controlled in a short limited period or with the assistance of an individual act. The issue commenced or emerged over the years and functions as the convergence of numerous powers. Thus, owing to this, it would take quite some energy, time along with determination to find a complete solution for the problem. Dealing with and conquering this multifaceted matter would obviously need endeavors taken on by numerous parties with the aim to operate in a universal way. Therefore, the stated attempted to restructure the governing policies as well as practices need to be altered for the reason of overcoming the challenges that are currently witnessed in terms of higher education. The reorganization and the restructuring are considered to be essential in order to attain social as well as individual growth in a nation (UNESCO, 2005). Conclusion In the present times most of the governments have been paying due attention towards the restructuring their educational systems, especially with regards to the context of higher education. It has been observed in this regards that one of the most significant issues in the context of higher education has been related to the high cost owing to which, there has been rise in the tuition fees. Furthermore, the financial plans of the universities in various states have been shrinking considerably (Johnstone , 2010). It is in this context that the rise in the tuition fees, subsequently tend to become one of the alarming issues from the families whose income is quite low. The issue is quite difficult to resolve without the assistance of the governing bodies as well as external agents. It is because of the rising cost of colleges and universities, the students are not capable of affording higher education which in turn has a negative implication on the national economy. It has further been noted that the numerous bodies of University of Central Florida such as the administrative department, the faculties as well as the staffs work in cohesion in order to offer quality educational programs to the students as well as the community. The governance of the UCF has clearly described the roles as well as responsibilities of the above mentioned bodies such as administrative departments, the faculties as well as staffs. The university aims at increasing the knowledge of the students and thus focuses upon the enhancement of the leadership skills perceived by the students. It can be mentioned that in order to resolve the issues related to higher cost, the government is required to increase the financial support towards education. In order to re-focus upon the investments and thus to resolve the issues related to higher cost, there is a fundamental requirement of valuing its fiscal responsibilities. The teachers are also required to make an effort in order to bring significant improvements in the education system of the nation. Contextually, the role of the federal government in order to escalate the funding for the students has been remarkable (Johnstone , 2010). University of Central Florida needs to restructure its governance structures in order to bring improvements in the education system. The issues related to funding can be effectively resolved through the University’s Office of Student Financial Assistance Program. The students facing funding issues can avail some aid through these programs which aims at offering financial assistance to the students who desire to complete their education effectively thereby serving the nation. The university can as well consider taking the assistance of the external agencies such as governmental bodies as well as banks in order to avail funding. If the issues of funding are resolved, the university will be capable of improving its efficiency in the overall educational system. The board also has a significant role to play in preparing the strategies and policies regarding the educational system in the university. It can arrange for funds from different agents such as banks and other external as well as internal agents so that the various departments can function effectively and the students can be capable of studying with full dedication (University of Central Florida, 2012). References Board Of Trustees. (2012). Nominating and governance committee charter. Retrieved from https://bot.ucf.edu/files/2011/12/Nominiating-Governance-Charter.pdf Buchanan, J. & Griffin, J. (2010). Finding a place for environmental studies: tertiary institutions as a locus of practice for education for sustainability. Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability. 12(2): 5-16. Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs. (1997). Comparative costs of higher education courses for international students in Australia, new Zealand, the united kingdom, Canada and the united states. Retrieved from http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/eip97-15/eip97-15.pdf Gilliland, M. W. (2012). Transforming higher education: overcoming the barriers to better schooling. Retrieved from http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/809 Johnstone , D. B. C. E. (2010). Cost sharing in higher education: tuition, financial assistance, and accessibility in a comparative perspective. Retrieved from http://sreview.soc.cas.cz/uploads/fb12ec3edf90cf183643fe7651da107f1d5dfd11_288_34john32.pdf Meek, V. L., Teichler, U. & Kearney, M. (2009). Higher education research and education: changing dynamics. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001830/183071e.pdf Office of Faculty Affairs. (2012). Faculty handbook. Retrieved from http://facultyrelations.ucf.edu/docs/FacultyHandbook.pdf Rosenstone, S. J. (2004). Challenges facing higher education in America: lessons and opportunities. . Retrieved from http://www.utoronto.ca/president/04conference/downloads/Rosenstone.pdf University of Central Florida. (2012). Faculty handbook. Retrieved from http://med.ucf.edu/media/2012/04/com_faculty_handbook_2012-final.pdf University of Central Florida. (2012). Student financial assistance. Retrieved from http://www.transfer.ucf.edu/manual/manual_1112/files/UCF_Student_Financial_Assistance.pdf University of Central Florida. (2012). Academics. Retrieved from http://www.ucf.edu/ University of Central Florida. (2012). Strategic planning key elements. Retrieved from http://www.ucf.edu/strategic_planning/elements.shtml UNESCO. (2005). The impact of education quality on development goals. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/education/gmr_download/chapter2.pdf Read More