| 3.2.1. Overview |
|
|
|
|
The Freie Universitat Berlin is a sizeable institution hosting 34000 students in almost all academic disciplines. It paradoxically continues to have a highly decentralized academic structure, while the administrative functions are increasingly centralized. Consequently, the entrepreneurial climate is heterogeneous, instable and very much based on individual initiatives and social-networks. The FU was founded in 1948 under the initiative of entrepreneurial students who did not accept Russian ideological paternalism at Berlin University. They henceforth created a new university which embodied the ideals of western liberalism. The FU quickly developed due to efficient bootstrapping and international support, and became one of West-Germany’s key educational institutions. By the time the ‘1960’s Student Movements’ hit West-Germany the FU already showed embryotic signs of a mass university. After the unrest of this first critical experiment, the traditional bureaucratic and committee based administrative/governance system’s incapacity to deal with the complexity of the institution became readily apparent. The institutional decline that started in the nineties was hence not only caused by the regress of state funding but also by intrinsic institutional malformation. German re-unification and the subsequent renovation costs of the last two decades, have shrunk the FU to almost half the faculty and administrative personnel it had at its climax. In that sense one can say that the FU has been in a continuous organizational crisis, managing its diminution since 1992. As such, its agenda was dominated by controlling and executing measures in the “realm of exigency” (FU chancellor and management 35). Only very recently, as the political orders are fully implemented, has the institution witnessed new competitive inspiration through the occasion of a national excellence competition held between German universities. Building on its historically inter-disciplinary structured entities, it has succeeded at producing a mid-term vision for its development as a “lighthouse of science” in Germany. From this perspective, it becomes clear that the FU has undergone a double ‘perspective buckle’ (Perspectivenknick (FU faculty 38) when looking at the development of the institutional  mindset. An ironic transformation for the institution that it started as a ‘lighthouse of capitalist liberalism’ after the world war. The communal identity of what the university ‘was’ saw transformation during the 1960’s student movements, which promoted a critical leftist idea of the university, stressing the institution’s cathartic role of individual liberation and the platform from whence to level a critique of society. In recent years, the second renaissance of the FU’s organizational self-understanding has taken place. Now the FU – lead by the strengthened steering core - strives towards excellence as defined by the external environment. Interestingly, this acceptance of an external set of objectives has mobilized entrepreneurial potential that is now being deployed in order to model the internal world of the university. To summarize, we witness an internal locus of control with an external teleology.The long and continuing period of financial hardship has resulted in an administration that is much more efficient than before, but which has also a focus on control rather than giving access to opportunities. Organizational infrastructure has been organized to maximize structure over potential. While the preceding mindset stressed freedom and autonomy, (which caused a waste of resources because of exploitation of this freedom due to the vacuum of control), today’s monetary crisis and the new institutional focus on control, has lead to an organization that does not give its stakeholders the spielraum to develop initiatives and truly cooperate. Furthermore, the concentration of power concentrated upon the president and the chancellor has led to cliquism and power politics. As the university continues to struggle with the financial and political change, it begins to prepare itself to deal with the rapid change evidenced by new technologies. Internet based innovations are entering the FU through various channels but there is no institutional strategy in general nor with regards to IT fully exploit the potential. The theme of e-learning and to a lesser degree e-research is occupied by an entrepreneurial institution (CeDiS), which has installed a very effective network of e-learning consultants within the departments. Nevertheless, the exploitation of internet based opportunities depends exclusively on the motivation of the individual faculty member.
|
No comment posted
mXcomment 1.0.7 © 2007-2012 - visualclinic.fr
License Creative Commons - Some rights reserved
| Next > |
|---|
Latest Blog Entry
Tag Cloud Content
academic administration assessed based because business developed development education entrepreneurial entrepreneurship faculty following individual information innovation institution institutions internet into knowledge leadership learning lse management opportunities political practices research services social strategy students technology universities university uoc uocrsquos upc web 2006
Created with AkoCloud 1.1 final.
