University Leadership Under Pressure | University Leadership Steering Approaches To Enhance Education Quality Through Centres Of Teaching And Learning
Kathi Lemmens-Krug is a PhD student in the department Center for Higher Education Policy Studies. (Co)Promotors are prof.dr. R. Torenvlied and prof.dr. B.J.R. van der Meulen from the faculty of Behavioural Management and Social Sciences, University of Twente.
This dissertation explores how universities navigate the tension between preserving academic traditions in a rapidly transforming society. Universities are rooted in historical rituals and values, but must also adapt to shifting societal, political, and economic demands. This tension creates contradictions in university governance, because leadership must balance competing ‘institutional logics.’ University Centres for Teaching and Learning embody this balancing act, reflecting academic and managerial approaches to educational quality. Using an institutional logics lens, this study examines how university leaders gain legitimacy through three steering strategies: compartmentalisation, integration, and aggregation. Seven European universities with Centres for Teaching and Learning are studied based on qualitative data. The results reveal how integration and aggregation enable collective action in educational enhancement. By contrast, compartmentalisation leads to paralysis and conflict, especially in academically-led environments. Centres for Teaching and Learning are much more than instruments for quality enhancement: they emerged as key mediators between the academic logic and the managerial logic. Through an in-depth analysis of this mediating role, the present study extends extant academic debates on the legitimacy of universities. It positions university leadership as an active agent who balances between competing institutional logics that arise from internal and external conditions, and steers university change. From this perspective, university leadership must align their steering approaches to academic and managerial values, while engaging teaching staff, to successfully steer educational quality.
