Intellectual leadership in higher education: renewing the role of the university professor, by Bruce Macfarlane

This book addresses a much under considered issue, the role of the professor. ‘Professor’ has different meanings and different significance in different countries. In Spanish profesor commonly refers to any teacher and in the United States (US) and Canada ‘professor’ refers to any teacher in a post secondary institution. However, US and Canada distinguish assistant, associate and full professors and further distinguish the occupants of endowed chairs. Full professors in the US are roughly equivalent to tenured associate professors and professors in Australia. Macfarlane (p. 48) notes that aspiring professors in Germany complete a doctorate and then undertake a habilitation of four to 10 years during which they are expected to publish substantially, typically a book in the humanities and from 10 to 30 articles in the sciences. Academics who complete their habilitation are only then qualified to supervise research candidates and become a Privatdozent. A Privatdozent is eligible for appointment to a chair, in some states only after five years’ service. France has a similar Habilitation à diriger des recherches (accreditation to supervise research, abbreviated HDR) and there are similar arrangements elsewhere in northern Europe. British academic ranks range from the increasingly rare tutor to lecturer, senior lecturer, the increasingly rare reader, to professor. Other members of the British Commonwealth such as Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and India follow British tradition, although in some countries associate professor is more common than reader which may be restricted to research intensive posts at the same level. Macfarlane (p. 59) reports that professors were 12 per cent of academic staff in United Kingdom (UK) universities in 1964 and increased to 14.5 per cent in 2009–10. Full professors are 35.5 per cent of academic staff (‘faculty’) in US doctoral granting universities. Traditionally professors have been expected like other academics to teach, research and serve the community. However, Macfarlane notes that service or academic citizenship is rarely significant in chair appointments in the UK (p. 137). Professors have also been expected to chair their department. However, academic leadership and management have become increasingly separated in modern universities (p. 28). Macfarlane (p. 51) notes that academic roles are becoming more specialised, differentiated, fragmented or unbundled into posts that concentrate on teaching, research or academic management. Macfarlane argues that the unbundling of academic roles is changing what it means to be a professor and indeed an academic generally (p. 62). Macfarlane argues that there are now five types of professor: the less common ‘classic’ professor who teaches, researches and is a significant institutional leader, often as head of department; the increasingly common research professor; the star professor, many of whom spend much of their time outside the university adding lustre to their university’s reputation; and the practice professor, typically in professional fields, who are most distinguished in their practice (p. 74).