We need to change how we talk about excellence and quality

We need to change how we talk about excellence and quality in higher education so that the conversation is relevant to the thousands of institutions that serve the bulk of the world’s young people. That is where improvements in quality will have the greatest impact and underpin the continued growth of the global middle class.

For the last 40 years the conventional wisdom has been that the great universities of the world are research intensive and selective. They are essential for economic competitiveness and national prestige. This framework of policy and privilege was supported by social and economic theories that assumed that less than 50% of young people would be successful in universities and colleges.

A related assumption was that a small proportion of these students would be capable of research, of creating new knowledge, or applying knowledge to solve new and compelling problems. Ideally these students would be in the ‘best’ universities.

Concentration strategies

These ideas are the basis for public policies that favour this small set of institutions with policies like a greater share of public funds, regulatory privileges like tax concessions, and freedoms in who they hire and who they admit.

These are all fine things if you have them and all things that shape the major global rankings schemes. But these concentration strategies benefit only a small proportion of the world’s young people and reinforce the reputation, the fame, of a few elite institutions in developed economies or national capitals.

They widen the gap between elite universities and all others. As participation in higher education increases and exceeds 50%, this is not sustainable, economically or socially. It also overlooks the diversity of outcomes that are served by colleges and universities.

Institutional purpose

We need a way of talking about the quality and effectiveness of higher education that is not dependent on research citations, Nobel prizes or the number of young people denied a place. We prefer a conversation about quality that is meaningful to all institutions and can inform their efforts to improve and be more effective. It is a conversation about institutional purpose and culture.

Quality is likely to improve when universities and colleges have a clarity of purpose: when they are clear about who they serve, their students, and the work they are hoping to do in the world. Institutions that have clarity and certainty about their mission are more likely to be effective.

Quality goes up when there is a distinct and observable organisational culture based on widely held core values. These values are evident in the stories people tell about the institution, about the things that are valued and celebrated in the everyday lives of the members of that academic community.

Community aspirations

Effective institutions are grounded in the community when they are aware of and responsive to local concerns, history and community aspirations. This anchors their mission or purpose. It is the connection with the local community and students that makes them effective.

These are qualities that come from within the institution, from the purposeful work of individuals and teams of colleagues working towards a shared goal. That takes time and effort and leadership. These matter more than money.

Nor is this easy work. There can be tension between national goals and local aspirations, between academic norms of freedom of expression and a desire for social cohesion. The challenge of navigating these tensions to offer a high-quality education to all can be a little easier to manage if we take a more expansive view of excellence, one based on defining and pursuing institutional excellence.

Alan Ruby and Matthew Hartley are based at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, United States. This commentary draws on their book Hartley, M and Ruby, A, Pursuing Institutional Purpose: Profiles of excellence, which is on open access.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.