|
Page 1 of 2
3.4.5.1. Leadership
As with the LSE, the historic and the current leadership teams are portrayed in order to grasp a full view of both the past and current leadership conditions. The historic condition has been aptly described buy the UOC’s former Director for Continuous Education: “Gabriel Ferraté is the leader with a view for the future, the one who always searches for new ways to improve the organization. Xavier Aragay is the ‘receiving’ leader, who clearly sets and defines the objectives to put the ideas of the rector in place” (De Jonghe & Van Poeck, 2005). So, similar to the FU, today the UOC had a visionary rector and a swift implementing right hand administrator. Also similar to the FU, this historic leadership of the UOC had a rather patriarchal and authoritative style. Resulting from his experience with the political university system and internal university practices, Ferraté first created a “list of things that were to be avoided,” which contained the following point: “In traditional universities I needed three years to reach something due to all the obstacles which one encounters” (ibid. p.2). In fact, while the university was given the paradigm of the client centred organisation under their rule, internally employees joked that it was actually a solar system with the rector at the centre (UOC 6). The university was set up and managed like a business wherein the organisational functions were perceived to be of more importance than an academic need for special treatment. One indication of this condition was the long struggle that transpired before a worker’s council had been organized. The initiative had to be implemented using an external union party to request its creation because the employees were anxious about upsetting the management. Decisions were made by the lead entrepreneur following the understanding that the university was his creation. While Ferraté officially included the right to such ‘errors’ in an informal house rules document, the authoritarian style resulted in a situation where university staff was not integrated in the decision making process and the rapid expansion of UOC’s spin-off companies was only one result of the personal vision of the leadership team.
This era ended on the 12th of December 2005, when Imma Tubella was named the new rector of the UOC by the board of the UOC Foundation. Mrs. Tubella holds a doctorate in social sciences and had previously been UOC’s vice-rector for research from 1999-2003 and, since its inauguration in 2000, she has also been co-directing UOC’s research centre IN3. During her distinguished career Mrs. Tubella has developed a clear profile as an expert on the ‘information society,’ and especially the Catalonian identity in this ICT-centric age. It comes hence as no surprise that she immediately stressed research and a general ‘academitization’ of UOC’s teaching staff. Under her leadership, several new research lines have been started and staffed with young researchers. Also, all UOC faculty is strongly encouraged to engage in, or quickly finish a PhD project.
UOC’s constitution states that the vice-rector posts are self-selected by the rector; Consequently, Mrs. Tubella has chosen her new management team. The new management team held several strategy sessions and has since shared with the UOC community their strategic principles and objectives. The program stresses the following development: “to move from a great project to become a great university” (UOC, 2006) which allows insights into the leadership’s core value set. This point is further elaborated by the UOC’s desire to maintain its founding principles whilst evolving into a proud benchmark of academic quality, stellar education and cutting-edge research. Furthermore, the team plans to anchor and integrate the university deeply into the European higher education schema, while at the same time stressing and expanding its growing regional importance as a Catalonian institution. Also, the central objectives reveal the team’s assessment of the current situation and their central emphasis; the first point of which is a change in organizational culture. What Mrs. Tubella and her team are looking for is participation and co-responsibility. Another point stresses the technological relaunch of the virtual campus by using free software and incorporating recent innovations such as blogs and other multi-media services. Despite these goals, institutionalized organizational culture and ingrained decision-making channels prove to be challenging bodies to change. Mrs. Tubella has struck a decidedly different leadership chord, but it still seems that it will take a while for the trickle down effects to have adequately reached all parts of the organization. As a leader, she is reported to be more of a team player and a person willing to delegate responsibility.
She is also the only rector in this research sample, and is in fact one of the first university rectors world wide who is pioneering the use of a personal blog as a legitimate communication medium. This blog has been celebrated by stakeholders as a great communication channel and a means to learn about the personal perceptions of the institution’s leader. Dr. Tubella uses her blog primarily to share interesting information, but sometimes she also reflects and shares her first-person understanding of UOC related matters.
Users' Comments (2) 
|
|
|
