Campus management must do transformation

Management of Higher education institutions (Heis) need to improve its business process immediately. Environmental changes require campus reform towards good university governance. The campus must abandon business governance as usual, while the campus wishes to survive. Especially if you want to become a university that is recognized by the national or international community. There is no way unless the university implements reforms in all its aspects.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

This reform needs to be done to make the campus able to increase competitiveness at all levels, to overcome the lack of funding resources, to maintain fair access for the community, and to be able to better account for its performance to stakeholders. These four drivers should color the transformation strategy of a university.

So how do we manage the four components of the university's management transformation?

Competitive-driven reform. The reform policy in this category is driven by the interests of the university in order to improve its ability to compete with other universities and institutions that produce the same product so that it can develop with a high rate of acceleration. Quality is the ability to compete. This ability to compete requires not only high knowledge and skill, but also the ability and drive and strong commitment to do so.

The culture of competition will not arise if the structure of authority and accountability is centralistic regulated. The circumstances in which rules and orders are implemented with line authority, will also not stimulate a person to think, try and act on one's own responsibilities and initiatives. Therefore, the wisdom of empowering study programs and majors needs to be intensified. Majors must be able to answer for themselves the questions: where to go within the framework of the university's vision, using any resources, how to obtain those resources, which performance indicators are most effective for measuring the failure or success of its programs, how to create a climate that supports that change effort, and other similar questions.

Of course, in order not to have that autonomy, that independence must be seen as part of the planning and implementation of the policies and programs of universities and faculties. In the field of academic programs,  the question of  what benchmarks are used to compare the quality of graduates, and when those targets will be achieved is an important question.

Finance-driven reform. This change is made to enhance the capacity and ability of the institution to obtain additional funding to support its programs. In essence, this reform includes several strategies.

First, how to try to further streamline existing funds, in order to support the vision of a study program. This means that the study program or faculty must continuously review whether management has no longer wasted, namely spending greater costs on certain programs when the cost should be suppressed.

Second, the possibility of financing sources has been tried to be exploited with careful planning. It concerns the ability to see opportunities in the time we have difficulties.

Third, in making its programs whether the study program has made the right priority, namely to prioritize programs that have a double impact (multiplying effects) to the achievement of the study program targets.

Fourth, whether the results of academic work of lecturers and students can be sold so as to generate income that can be used for development.

These four strategies are justifications for making the necessary changes so that a study program, department or faculty can efficiently carry out its mission. It is realized that not all study programs have the same ability to carry out activities to direct their programs to overcome lack of financing, but little by little these programs must be able to enable the ability to develop on their own (sustainable program).  The ability to get funds should not be made aware of the expansion of programs worth selling, because it will result in universities, which are cynically referred to as grocery stores. The program must be based on the intensification of generating funds on the basis of academic activities by conducting various experimentation efforts involving users of the product of the study program concerned.

Equity-driven reforms. These reforms are changes that must be implemented to meet the demands for access to higher education for disadvantaged communities, including due to conditions in which members of the public are unlikely to attend regular programs. In this category also includes students who are smart from the weak economic class, the opportunity to gain access for citizens who have worked and want to improve competition and insight, prospective students from areas with low quality of education, athletes and artists who because of their profession cannot regularly attend higher education. This needs to be thought about because they should not lose their rights due to discriminatory treatment from universities. In addition, it is also necessary to compromise students who want to get an education with international quality.

Accountability-driven reform. This reform is part of accountability as a government-funded university, and stakeholders. The simple understanding is whether the results, if the study program has been given additional resources either from the government, parents or other institutions. This change requires transparency of the process and the results of the implementation of programs that have been established in the form of reports of successes and failures, as well as the resources used for the program. At the university level, the annual report always includes the rector in senate hearings held for it once a year. At the faculty level, it is also expected that the dean's report to the faculty senate, and at the level of the department / program of accounting to the lecturer of the department. In the event that it is promised to parents, it is also necessary to report account for the parents. Accountability also includes the quality of the programs that have been offered to students and other customers both internally and externally.