Academic Professionals and Faculty in a Research-Oriented University: An Introductory Comparative Study

125 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1987.Non-faculty, non-classified personnel have become more numerous and more vital to the operation of large, public, research-oriented universities as these organizations respond to the pressures created by expanding information and technology, and by increasing demands for service and accountability from state and federal governments, business, industry, and the general public. This study was designed to gain information concerning this primarily unstudied personnel group. These non-faculty, non-classified employees (called Academic Professionals in deference to their designation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where the study was conducted) were compared to Faculty in order to place information gained in an organizational context. Sample members of the Faculty and of the Academic Professional group were compared according to demographic characteristics, educational backgrounds, career path characteristics, and basic value systems. Information sources included computer records, responses to a questionnaire, and responses to the Allport, Vernon, Lindzey Study of Values.The university organization was considered in the structural context of Henry Mintzberg's "Professional Bureaucracy" and expectations concerning some of the interrelations between Academic Professionals and Faculty were based on the theories of Mintzberg, Martin Trow, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. These theories were borne out as the data revealed great similarity between Faculty and Academic Professionals in upper hierarchical levels. As in other organizations, the Faculty, as the organization's primary group, chooses administrators as much like themselves as possible, frequently drawing administrators from Faculty ranks.Academic Professionals in technical/support positions differed demographically and educationally from the Faculty and the upper administrative Academic Professional samples but all shared similar value systems.The study indicated that some commonly held beliefs concerning Academic Professionals are inaccurate, and suggested some ways in which university policy concerning Academic Professionals might be developed or traditional policy modified to better meet the needs of both Academic Professionals and the university organization.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD