During his afternoon talk, Lombardi touched on a number of issues pertaining to definition, competition, measurement and trends in higher institutions of learning in the US.
The Chancellor and Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, opened his speech with several one-liners, joking about his academic career and academic job security at ivy league universities on both sides of the Atlantic.
He then proceeded to trace the history and economic development of nations to the 'leading or innovation curve', the technological discovery or edge that led to the creation of new sectors, new ideas and new capacities to produce wealth. This, in his view, is a ‘nationalistic game’, a self-reinforcing competition to create capacity for its own society to prosper and flourish. Within this frame of reference, universities are regarded as rarified, exotic products, ‘luxury goods’ or an economic surplus.
He then proceeded to trace the history and economic development of nations to the 'leading or innovation curve', the technological discovery or edge that led to the creation of new sectors, new ideas and new capacities to produce wealth. This, in his view, is a ‘nationalistic game’, a self-reinforcing competition to create capacity for its own society to prosper and flourish. Within this frame of reference, universities are regarded as rarified, exotic products, ‘luxury goods’ or an economic surplus.
He pointed out that out of 4,140 accredited colleges and universities in the USA (Source: National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2005), only 600 are successful and competing for research funding and only 160 receive significant amount of competitive research money. About 92 percent of all money for research goes to the top 1,000 researchers who he also regards as top quality faculty members. However, these faculty members face challenges to sustainability, namely producing high quality, original research year after year after year.
Thus, hiring and retaining outstanding research faculty is essential to enhance a university’s overall excellence in creating and advancing knowledge, stimulating and sustaining related work in other areas within the institution. The lack of good, research scholars produces a competitive culture that is changing the embedded culture of entitlement with tenure becoming less and less viable. The new competitive environment is characterized by a) quality and productivity; b) fast moving; and c) money matters. In other words, universities have to be constantly good, be more efficient and budget on driving quality in both teaching and research, with first rate researchers, technicians, labs, libraries, programs, students, etc.
The competitive culture also results in short-term contracts for faculty staff and a rougher, tougher environment that is not collegial and congenial. In fact, the academic world is turning into a Ruthless Pursuit of Excellence for the Best or Next Best via Money, Performance and Strategies to Achieve Objectives. Hence, promotional exercise is deferred from seven to nine years and peer reviews go beyond the minimum standards required for promotion to tenure track.
During the Q&A, Lombardi addressed issues relating to the Superstar phenomenon, the volatility and problems of rewarding, keeping scores and measuring countable productivity, via number of reputable publications, awards, ranking, tokens of quality or standards that apply across disciplines.
According to him, there are no absolute indicators for measuring standards of performance among academicians today; the marketplace defines the work and sets the benchmark for continuous improvement.
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