Shifting Categories, Shifting Priorities? R1 Attainment, Academic Structure, and Implications for Students

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 2:30 pm
  In Roundtable Session: The Future of Faculty (Table 20)

Abstract

Though universities’ academic structures change, our understanding of how—and the implications—is limited. Incorporating theories of institutional categories, strategic action fields and racialized/gendered organizations, we explore academic structure change and its impacts at six public universities in Texas that recently became R1s. This comparative mixed methods case study incorporates novel over-time data on academic structures, degree-completions data, and qualitative analysis of strategic plans to assess the nature of change (or stability) during category shift and consider its implications for individuals and (mis)alignment with institutional priorities. Findings show some institutions enact academic change to further goals; others expand and shift resources within existing structures. Results also suggest that some universities “strive” in explicitly inclusive ways while others do so neutrally.

Authors

• Sondra Nicole Barringer, Southern Methodist University

• Kim Nelson Pryor, Southern Methodist University

• Charity Lewallen, Southern Methodist University

• Brianna Freshwater, Southern Methodist University