Changing the Higher Education Culture – Is It Possible? Rob Cuthbert Professor of Higher Education Management University of the West of England

Changing the Culture of the Campus Towards an Inclusive Higher Education – Ten Years On Maggie Woodrow: To achieve a genuinely pluralist higher education which meets the needs of students from under-represented groups will require a shift from an ethos of selective normality to one of diversity and inclusion conference debate: is the function of higher education to promote academic excellence rather than social inclusion?

Changing the higher education culture What is culture? Teaching, research and academic practice The social purposes of higher education What have we done that worked? Conclusion: what do we need to do now?

What is culture? By cultures we refer to sets of taken- for-granted values, attitudes and ways of behaving, which are articulated through and reinforced by recurrent practices among a group of people in a given context. Becher and Trowler (2001 p23)

What is cultural change? … culture is the result of all the daily conversations and negotiations between the members of an organisation. They are continually agreeing (sometimes explicitly, usually tacitly) about the proper way to do things and how to make meanings about the events of the world around them. If you want to change a culture you have to change all these conversations – or at least the majority of them. And changing conversations is not the focus of most change programmes, which tend to concentrate on organisational structures or reward systems or other large scale interventions. Richard Seel (2009)

Changes in HE culture Globalisation Managerialisation Marketisation Massification Diversification: institutions and students Privatisation and academic capitalism

Elite university strategy Selective Meritocratic Uncompromising on rigour and standards Globally competitive

Elite university strategy S elective M eritocratic U ncompromising on rigour and standards G lobally competitive

Reunifying academic practice Purposes Contexts Freedoms

What have we done that worked? Expansion Long-term partnership and collaboration More emphasis on preparation for HE and retention after admission Recognition of the realities of individual disadvantage and individual benefit

What do we need to do? Practice Purpose Preparation Partnership: - barriers, boundaries, bridges

What do we need to do? Practice Purpose Preparation Partnership: - barriers, boundaries, bridges Preservation - academic values, academic freedom Particularity

What is cultural change? … culture is the result of all the daily conversations and negotiations between the members of an organisation. They are continually agreeing (sometimes explicitly, usually tacitly) about the proper way to do things and how to make meanings about the events of the world around them. If you want to change a culture you have to change all these conversations – or at least the majority of them. And changing conversations is not the focus of most change programmes, which tend to concentrate on organisational structures or reward systems or other large scale interventions. Richard Seel (2009)

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