Research Forum 2003

William T. Mallon
Association of American Medical Colleges

Disjointed Governance in the Research University: the Role of Centers and Institutes

Organized research centers are inextricably woven into the history and development of the research university in the United States. They arguably predate the department as an organizational unit of the university. Past research on centers and institutes has focused on organizational characteristics, structure, function, and responsibilities. Little attention has been paid to the role of these organizational entities in university governance. In fact, researchers have assumed that centers have no role in governance, that the discipline-based department is the organizational focal point of formal governance representation. Historical evidence supports this view. Traditionally the department has had faculty appointment authority; responsibility for promotion and tenure decisions; and a significant role in matters concerning the curriculum. Research centers and institutes, on the other hand, traditionally have had no authority in these decision-making arenas. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, at least in certain fields of inquiry, tradition may be changing.

This paper will consider the idea of disjointed governance as a conceptual framework for the ways in which organized research centers influence and interact with traditional governance structures and processes. The structure of centers poses a tense layering upon the preexisting form of traditional department-based governance. This alternative structure, adaptive and nearly invisible, adds to and complicates, but does not dismantle, the traditional governance systems of the research university.