How Universities Work

Higher Ed Leadership Essentials

by John V. Lombardi

The single best description of the inside workings of contemporary universities. Witty and insightful, How Universities Work is destined to be an essential handbook for anyone wanting to understand universities in the United States. John V. Lombardi gives readers an insider’s view of the academy, describing the structure, logic, dynamics, and operational styles of both public and private institutions of higher education. Lombardi defines and describes all the bits and pieces that compose a university with remarkable economy―from budgeting systems to tenure, from the library to the athletic field. Although focused on research universities, much of the discussion applies to other types of post-secondary institutions. Ideal for students, this book will form a solid foundation for courses in higher education, but it will also be a welcome addition to faculty and administrators’ personal libraries.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 17, 2013

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although fairly comprehensive, this book was much drier than I expected given the author (who was the President of my university when I was in attendance). The author is an extremely charismatic speaker and I was expecting that to cross over to the book. There are many interesting insights into the management/leadership of the university, but what was missing were the anecdotes and personal stories that would have brought the items discussed in more vividly. Not bad as a textbook for a seminar class on university management, but likewise not for the casual reader.

[Thomas Warger · Rating 5 out of 5]

It turns out that much of what we suspected is true. A history professor teaching a lecture of 200 students is subsidizing the Physics professor with the big grant. Grants cost money but they build reputation, which is literally capital at universities. Filled with excellent and hard-won insights. One of the things I like best about Lombardi is that he has been fired multiple times for his truth-telling. Those instances never deterred him.

[Chynna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very biased opinion of how universities work! The book is very detailed and implies that research universities are the best universities.

Lombardi speakers from a Higher Education budget and funding perspective rather than a academic based perspective.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was an easy, straightforward, and well organized read. Offered a comprehensive overview of the world of higher education, with a specified bias toward research universities. Seemed to gloss over some important issues i.e. finances and athletics, and, brushed over the topic of staff.

[James Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative overview of the American university system that focuses on what were called R1 schools - research universities. I earned my undergraduate degree from one, and just entered a Master's program at another. Beginning graduate school was my impetus to read this book, and I'm glad I did. In fact, I wish I had read a book like this when I was coming out of high school. The exact in-and-outs of university hierarchy, even rather obvious ones, like the tenure-track progression, escaped me as an undergraduate.

I was fascinated by the clinical, dry prose Lombardi was able to employ and maintain throughout the text. It's utterly dead, or rather, exhumed from the 1960s. It's "textbook" writing, colorless. Opinion has largely been excised, until Lombardi shows you why he's earned a blurb from E. Gordon Gee on the front cover - he is anti-union, claiming that, "Part of the union tradition is an adversarial relationship between management and labor..." as if, before unions, management and labor produced and existed in an Arcadian utopia of brotherhood. Unions exist because of the adversarial relationship that management has, since time immemorial, imposed on labor - not the other way around. He goes on to say that unions incessantly act to stoke self-serving tensions to capitalize on. I suppose that's one way of looking at it.

Perhaps that's a minor complaint when viewed in isolation, but Lombardi's reactionary impulse, though subdued through his soporific styling, rears its head once more on the subject of Sunshine laws. Yes, Lombardi has a problem with the media having access to meetings that take place at public institutions, like our great state schools. Lombardi: "Through the agency of aggressive public records and public meeting laws, the media become participants in the decision process of the public university under the guise of informing the public."

Lombardi has again tacked on spurious claims of excessive self-interest to sectors of society generally understood to be in the public interest. He then goes on to say that, "The public nature of complex discussions in this environment encourages university people to conduct their business off book, out of the formal processes, and off the public records."

Yes, that very impulse is why Sunshine laws exist. Blaming those laws for that behavior is acausal.

You can guess, then, that Lombardi is unlikely to be first in line to march with student activists. He refers to student activism as "...the behavior..." as in "Even so, sometimes the behavior spins out of control and requires more direct action." Lombardi's view of the university is that of an apolitical institution that should do its best to not engage social issues. "Universities are not authorized to serve as agents of social and political change other than through the education and research that is their function."

The rest of the book clearly illustrates just how well Lombardi knows his material - if his CV of leadership at four major universities didn't convey that to you already. That wealth of knowledge makes it all the more disappointing that he has entirely missed the point of his vocation.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

incisive analysis of some budgetary issues for university administrations but otherwise kind of an odd book. Once over lightly on a wide range of issues, mostly trailing off in inconclusive "no doubt technology will continue to become a bigger issue in higher education" blandness.

mainly focused on research-intensive universities, and I guess if you found yourself plunged into the job of president of one without having any previous higher ed background this would be a good quick overview to orient yourself. Otherwise, skippable.