References

Bastedo, Michael N. and Nicholas A. Bowman. 2010. “U.S. News & World Report college rankings: modeling institutional effects on organizational reputation”, American Journal of Education, 116, 2: 163-183.

Bastedo, Michael N. and Nicholas A. Bowman. 2011. “College rankings as an interorganizational dependency: establishing the foundation for strategic and institutional accounts”, Research in Higher Education, 52, 1: 3–23.

Bowman, Nicholas A. and Michael N. Bastedo. 2009. “Getting on the front page: organizational reputation, status signals, and the impact of U.S. News and World Report on student decisions”, Research in Higher Education, 50, 5: 415-436.

Bowman, Nicholas and Michael N. Bastedo. 2011. “Anchoring effects in world university rankings: exploring biases in reputation scores”, Higher Education, 61, 4: 431–444.

Briggs, Senga. 2006. “An exploratory study of the factors influencing undergraduate student choice: the case of higher education in Scotland”, Studies in Higher Education, 31, 6: 705-722.

Brown, P. and A. Hesketh. 2004. The mismanagement of talent: employability and jobs in the knowledge economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Burt, Ronald S. 2008. “Gossip and reputation”, in M. Lecoutre and P. Lièvre, eds., Management et réseaux sociaux: ressource pour l’action ou outil de gestion? Paris: Hermès science publications, pp. 27-42.

Ehrenberg, Ronald G. 2003. “Method or madness? Inside the USNWR college rankings”, Cornell University ILR School Working Papers.

Estermann, Thomas and Terhi Nokkala. 2009. University autonomy in Europe I. Exploratory study. Brussels: European University Association.

Fine, Gary Alan. 2007. “Reputation”, in George Ritzer, ed., Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Blackwell Publishing.

Göktepe-Hulten, Devrim and Prashanth Mahagaonkar. 2010. “Inventing and patenting activities of scientists: in the expectation of money or reputation?”, The Journal of Technology Transfer, 35, 4: 401-423.

Hemsley-Brown, Jane and Izhar Oplatka. 2006. “Universities in a competitive global marketplace. A systematic review of the literature on higher education marketing”, International Journal of Public Sector Management, 19, 4: 316-338.

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Mackelo, Olga and Greta Druteikiene. 2010. “The image of a higher education institution, its structure and hierarchical level: the case of the Vilnius University Faculty of Economics”, Ekonomika, 89, 3: 105-121.

Morley, L. and S. Aynsley. 2007. “Employers, quality and standards in higher education: shared values and vocabularies or elitism and inequalities?”, Higher Education Quarterly, 61, 3: 229-249.

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Pérez-Díaz, Víctor and Juan Carlos Rodríguez. 2001. Educación superior y futuro de España. Madrid: Fundación Santillana.

Pérez-Díaz, Víctor and Juan Carlos Rodríguez. 2012. “Dosis de realidad: la imagen de España y los países de Europa del Sur en la opinión pública europea en un momento de crisis”, Panorama Social, 16: 9-32.

Pérez-Díaz, Víctor and Juan Carlos Rodríguez. 2013. “Educación y prestigio docente en España: la visión de la sociedad”, in Fundación Europea Sociedad y Educación, coord., El prestigio de la profesión docente en España. Percepción y realidad. Madrid: Fundación Europea Sociedad y Educación, Fundación Botín, pp. 33-108.

Portera, Stephen R. 2006. “Institutional research productivity and the connection to average student quality and overall reputation”, Economics of Education Review, 25, 6: 605–617.

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Universities’ Reputation

John Haldane

Concepción Naval

Rupert Younger

Pilar Lostao

Louise Simpson

Juan Manuel Mora (Coordinator)

Jan Sadlak (Foreword)

Víctor Pérez-Díaz (Appendix)

Juan Carlos Rodríguez (Appendix)

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This publication is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act in conjunction with international copyright agreements, no part may be reproduced for any purpose without written permission of the publisher.


© 2015. Juan Manuel Mora (Coord.)
John Haldane

Concepción Naval

Rupert Younger

Pilar Lostao

Louise Simpson

Foreword: Jan Sadlak


Editor: Miriam Salcedo de Prado

Design: Jokin Pagola

Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, S.A. (EUNSA)

Plaza de los Sauces, 1 y 2. 31010 Barañáin (Navarra) - Spain

Telephone: + 34 948 25 68 50 - Fax: + 34 948 25 68 54

e-mail: info@eunsa.es


ISBN: 978-84-313-3104-7


Digital design: Coffee Design (Dublin, Ireland)

This book is the result of a number of people´s work and dedication, and who together have made it possible to hold the Building Universities´ Reputation conference at the University of Navarra on April 22nd, 23rd and 24th 2015.

In these few lines, I would like to thank each of them for their work, support and enthusiasm regarding this project.

To Universia, the Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Españolas / Conference of Spanish University Rectors (CRUE), CASE, World 100 Reputation Network, Corporate Excellence, the Asociación de Directivos de Comunicación/Association of Communication Executives (Dircom), the European Foundation Society and Education and the British Council: Thank you for your joint work as partners.

To the Ministry of Education and Science, the Government of Navarra and Pamplona City Council: Thank you for your institutional support.

Thank you to “la Caixa” Foundation, Iberdrola, Ernst & Young (EY), and Knights of Columbus for your support as sponsors.

Finally, thank you to the whole team from the University of Navarra for their magnificent planning and running of the Building Universities´ Reputation conference 2015.

Juan Manuel Mora

Foreword

Dr. Jan Sadlak
President, IREG Observatory on Academic
Ranking and Excellence

In recent times, higher education has become more central to the lives of more people than ever before in history. It is a consequence of a whole series of reasons the most prevalent being: emergence of “knowledge-based economies”, globalization and a new wave of information technology and digital communication. There is sufficient evidence to state that no country can afford to neglect its higher education, as higher education institutions are large and unique contributors to the development of human capital and innovative products. In other words, the university is seen as both a powerhouse and a nursery essential for economic development and ­social advancement. Not less important is the fact that universities are also conserving and extending the intellectual, scientific and cultural capital that represents the heritage of a country, region or community, and as such, can be transmitted to future generations.

Against this background it is not surprising that one of the pillars that supports an acceptance of the university as a social, educational and knowledge generating institution is reputation. The reputation of a university [or any other higher education institution] is ultimately an emblem of its acceptance amongst a variety of stakeholders - peers, experts, students and parents, funding bodies, media, employers, professional organizations, international organizations, etc.

A strong reputation can translate into stronger student demand, more successful faculty recruitment and fundraising activities. This is why reference to reputation finds its place in marketing or when trying to gain a competitive advantage. In short, reputation has gained recognition as an intangible asset with tangible results.

Hierarchies based on reputation are a social reality and take place in various situations. At the same time, it should be noted that however important it can be, a long and rich history of a particular academic establishment is not enough to sustain reputation. Sustaining the environment conducive to reputation is needed as well as a lasting commitment to another constituent of the university ethos, that of seeking excellence. Both should be an effect of a culture of quality as well as capability, motivation and sincerity. It needs to be kept in mind that a university, as institution and academic community, must enjoy a large degree of space that will facilitate extensive self-determination, without which it would not have the capacity to innovate.

The renewed interest has highlighted, to some extent, that reputation [or prestige] is an important, even if the most contested, indicator in many national, regional and international academic rankings. In this context, it is appropriate to comment on the background of the current focus in rankings. It emerges as a consequence of dominant trends such as massification in student enrolment, diversification of institutions and study programmes, and global competition for talent and resources. All this calls for a shared basis for evaluation as well as readable information by various stakeholders that addresses the quality of higher education institutions and their activities. No less important is that most of the stakeholders do not have sufficient capacity to undertake a fully-fledged analysis of the complex internal workings of a particular university. The need for straightforward information, even if not comprehensive, is quite evident. And in a broad way it is what academic rankings are doing. It explains why, in a relatively short period of time and despite the challenges of comparing varied systems, institutions and activities, they become an entrenched phenomenon in the evaluation of quality and performance in higher education.

Without a doubt, the concept of reputation as a “common currency in a variety of university markets” and the fact that it has implications for policy, governance and administration, calls for its management, empirical research and open debate. It is a credit to the University of Navarra, and its partners, that they have taken note of the strategic significance and value which building universities’ reputation represents, and that they have organised a space around this topic in order to study this important issue. Anyone attending the Pamplona Conference will undoubtedly acknowledge the quality of the background documents, stimulating debates… not to mention the beauty of the campus and its surroundings. Compiling a book based on six contributions presented at the plenary sessions of the event reflect the “state of the art” position on this topic and give a glimpse into the depth of the discussions.

To sum up, the university today is under pressure as a result of social, economic and technological changes. It is important, therefore, that universities be creative and respond to local conditions and general trends as competition increases for staff, students, funding and partners. In this context reputation is an asset, while its continuity and enhancement is a challenge.

I. Students at the heart of the university education enterprise

John Haldane
Director of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs
University of St. Andrews

1. Introduction

Let me begin by quoting the opening paragraph of a commentary article by Janan Ganesh published in the Financial Times on 21 April 2015, the day prior to the opening of the international conference on Building Universities’ Reputation hosted in Pamplona by the University of Navarra:

In the world of universities, the word “brand” itself has a bad brand. At best, it sounds shallow. At worst, it evokes a marketing spiv. Swap the B-word for “reputation” and suddenly it is easier to talk about this decisive educational variable. For nobody doubts that a university’s reputation – its image and perceived values, the gut reaction created by a mention of its name – goes a long way to determining its prospects.

The relevance of the points is evident notwithstanding that Ganesh was not speaking about universities but about political parties - for “the world of universities” read “politics”, for “educational” read “electoral”, and for “a university’s” read “a party’s”. Ganesh was writing in the midst of electoral campaigning prior to the UK 2015 General Election and reflecting in particular on the reputation of the Conservative party. His general point was that voter’s ballot decisions are as much dependent on their general impression of the character of a political party as they are on their views of that party’s particular policies and manifesto. Likewise for many people including prospective undergraduates and their parents, choices in applications to universities are based on apparent general character as much if not more than on specifics of courses or prospectuses. Here I wish to explore these issues not from the perspective of sociology or economics but from that of educational philosophy.

2. Interpreting rankings when choosing university

As is noted in the very useful position paper “The Reputation of Universities” coauthored by Victor Pérez-Díaz and Juan Carlos Rodríguez (“Appendix” 85-118), and as is discussed in other contributions, the issue of universities’ reputations has been transformed by the development of international university rankings as well as by national publicly funded teaching-quality and research assessment exercises, and by independent discipline-based and institutional reviews and guides.

There has been much professional discussion of the methodologies involved in these diverse modes of evaluation but what is of greatest interest to most constituencies, or ‘publics’ as Pérez-Díaz and Rodríguez term them, namely students, academic staff, administrators and managers, public officials, potential employers and the general public, are the results. Apart from the issue of different criteria used in evaluations there is the fact that the products are notoriously amenable to selective display. It is often said that the intended purpose of such reviews, surveys and rankings is to inform potential students, employers and funding sources but I doubt that anyone who was not already well informed could read far into them, or know what to make of divergent rankings.

I will mention just one example, and loyalty and familiarity dispose me to choose my own institution, the University of St. Andrews1. Founded in 1413 it is the third oldest university in the English-speaking world following Oxford and Cambridge. It also follows immediately behind them in the order Cambridge, Oxford, St. Andrews in the 2015 Guardian (“University League”), and in the Times and Sunday Times university guides (O’Leary), and is placed 4th in the UK Complete University Guide League table with the LSE placed 3rd. As regards international tables it is 39th in the most recent CWTS Leiden ranking – with Cambridge 19th and Oxford 24th, but in the QS rankings Cambridge and Oxford appear as joint 2nd and as 5th while St. Andrews comes in at 88th; and in the Times Higher World Rankings Oxford is 3rd, Cambridge 5th and St. Andrews 111th, though 33rd for Arts and Humanities.

What would it be reasonable to conclude from these results taken together? Two main things, I think: first that Oxford and Cambridge are the leading UK universities, nationally and internationally; and second, that while St. Andrews, which is a much smaller and much poorer institution2, is a very good British university when viewed in world context, it lies well behind larger multi-faculty institutions.

These judgements are broadly correct but I think that to some extent they lead rather than follow the assessments. What I mean is that in guides and rankings, there is an element of reputational a priorism based on shared assumptions about the nature of universities. It is worth thinking about these assumptions because they relate to what, I suggest, remains the primary role of universities, namely the teaching of undergraduates in traditional disciplines. I am not now concerned, therefore, with the issue of ‘prestige bias’ complained about by scholars as it is said to influence appointment and publication decisions and peer reviews (Oprisko; Colander and Zhuo; Clauset, Arbesman and Larremore), though I agree with Pérez-Díaz and Rodríguez when they write that “to a great extent, academic life, especially in its research dimension, has very similar characteristics to those of a reputation market” (“Appendix” 103). As such it is liable, I think, to the same distortions and deceptions. I should say that the issue of ‘prestige bias’ also bear on the issue of graduate employment and it is a long-standing complaint of graduates of other universities, particularly civic and provincial ones, that Oxbridge students benefit unfairly in securing employment in professional and other high prestige high reward occupations from having attended those universities.

The source of the shared assumptions about what is likely to be best is a certain picture of the university as consisting in whole or in part of a community of scholar-teachers and students gathered in recognisably scholastic surroundings, reading great works as part of the study of academic disciplines. It is no accident, I suggest, that however quaint this image may seem in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, nine hundred years after the founding of Bologna, Oxford and Salamanca, it is one to which the universities I mentioned do in fact conform, and at the heart of this is the teaching of undergraduates.

3. Perspectives on reputation

The position paper cites an encyclopedia article by the American sociologist Gary Alan Fine in which he distinguishes objective, functionalist and social construction accounts of reputation (“Appendix” 99) and goes on to endorse a definition of reputation by another American sociologist, Ronald Burt, according to whom it is “the extent to which a person or group or organization is known to be trustworthy” (qtd. in “Appendix” 100). Certainly one may take different perspectives on the idea of reputation while thinking that the status itself has a common character, but the idea of trustworthiness is too close to moralizing, I think, and one might instead speak of reliability and associated value3. More to the point, however, is Pérez-Díaz and Rodríguez’s observation that reputations may be general or specific, regional or global, and perceived by one or more ‘publics’ and the consequent question of whether these dimensions may be consolidated or reduced. The authors write as follows:

Supposing that all or some of these ‘reputations’ do exist, there remains one last question to address, that if all these aspects, components or contents of reputation are reducible to a single dimension or just a few dimensions so that one can could speak of the reputation of a given university and not only about the research reputation, the professional training reputation, the education of elites reputation, etc. (“Appendix” 106).

Strictly speaking, the attribution of reputational standing is not absolute but aspectual (not dictum simpliciter but dictum secundum quid as the Iberian logicians of old would have said) and there are a number of different features in respect of which a university may be well regarded. MIT, for example, is highly rated in respect of the acquisition of new knowledge particularly as that might be applied practically, and its undergraduate education is limited and conditioned by its overall research orientation. This character derives from concerns to turn scientific intelligence towards practice and innovation, but I suggest that it should be seen as an outgrowth of the main body of university education which is for the sake not of research or of professional training but for that of inducting undergraduates into the study of nature both general and specific, and among the latter pre-eminently human nature: such is the basis for the distinction between the sciences and the humanities.

Both consist primarily of sets of disciplines but universities also teach and research in subjects, and studies. A is marked by three features: