17th of September 2025, 3 pm (on campus and via MS Teams-Livestream)

Prof. Gary Rhoades, Professor of Higher Education at the University of Arizona’s Center for the Study of Higher Education

Title: Universities' pursuit of increased productivity: To what purposes, in whose interests, and at what costs?

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

Livestream: via MS Teams

Abstract:

So much of the pattern in higher education internationally has been the increased emphasis by government and university policymakers to manage postsecondary/tertiary organizations and their academic workforces for increased productivity. That has been characterized over the decades in many ways by various comparative higher education scholars. But the trendline is clear and widespread, including in the European context, for example, recently in the introduction of tenure tracks for academic employees. The overall trendline throughout the world often in some way invokes some vision and version of developments in the U.S., with their own particular and distinctive versions of seeking to enhance university productivity. Yet, to what larger purposes, in whose particular interests, and at what costs are such efforts and policy initiatives undertaken? Drawing on examples from the U.S. as well as from other national contexts, from Europe and Latin America, I explore these questions in relation to how the pursuit of productivity plays out for nations, for higher education organizations, and for the academic workforce. The latter is important because at the center of efforts to counter such developments, calling for a higher education’s greater attention to its fundamental social missions are the academic employees who are being increasingly managed by national policy and university practices to achieve increased productivity according to particular, generally quantitative metrics. 

Biosketch:

Gary Rhoades is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Arizona’s Center for the Study of Higher Education, of which he was Director for 19 years. Rhoades’ scholarship focuses on the restructuring of academic institutions and of academic labor, as in his books, Managed professionals: Unionized faculty and restructuring academic labor (SUNY Press, 1998), Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education (co-authored with first author Sheila Slaughter) (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), and Organizing professionals: Academic employees negotiating a new academy (Rutgers University Press, 2025). From his years as a postdoctoral scholar in Burton R. Clark’s Comparative Higher Education Research Group at UCLA, Rhoades has throughout his career researched and contributed to the comparative higher education literature, often with international colleagues, including, among others, Simon Marginson, Barbara Sporn, Bjorn Stensaker, and Jussi Valimma.

June 4, 2025, 15:00 CET, Livestream: via MS Teams

John Aubrey Douglass, Senior Research Fellow - Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE)

Title: US and Global Higher Education in the Trump Era

A short bio and more information can be found here.

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

March 3rd, 2025, 15:00 CET

Prof. Dr. Frank Ziegele, Executive Director, CHE Centre for Higher Education

Title: Dissolving Certainties and Emerging Identities: The Role of Science Management in Shaping the ‘Authentic University’

A short bio and more information can be found here.

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

Livestream: via MS Teams

November 21, 2024 at 4pm CET

Pedro N. Teixeira, Professor in Economics at the Faculty of Economics (University of Porto)

title: This time is different? The impact of AI on graduate employment and its implications for higher education

registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

Livestream: via MS Teams

20th of March 2023, 4pm CET

Cláudia S. Sarrico, policy analyst at the OECD Science, Technology, and Innovation Directorate

title: Beyond the Ivory Tower: Navigating Diverse Career Paths for Emerging Research and Innovation Talent 

An abstract and a short bio can be found here.

registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

Livestream: via MS Teams

November 22, 2023, 4pm CET

Prof. Dr. Liviu Matei, Professor of Higher Education and Public Policy, Head of the King's School of Education, Communication & Society (ECS)

Title: Academic freedom and institutional autonomy in Europe: diverging paths?

Abstract and a short bio can be found here.

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

Livestream: via MS Teams

November 10 2022, 11am CET

Prof. Piet Naudé, Professor of Ethics and the immediate past Director of the University of Stellenbosch Business School

Title: The future of management education: radical shifts, societal expectations, and the role of businesses

A short bio and more information can be found here.

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

Livestream: via MS Teams

October 18, 2022, 4pm

Prof. Dr. Marijk van der Wende, Distinguished Faculty Professor of Higher Education an der Fakultät für Law, Economics and Governance der Universität Utrecht

Title: Openness challenged university at risk? 

A short bio and more information can be found here.

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

Livestream: via MS Teams

24th of June 2022

Prof. Dr. Francisco O. Ramirez, Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology at Stanford University

Title: Universities: From Historical Institutions to Organizational Actors?

A short bio of Prof. Ramirez can be found here.

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

3th of May 2022

Prof. Bjørn Stensaker, Vice-Rector Education, University of Oslo

Title: Strategic university alliances - potential implications for competition and cooperation in the global higher education landscape

A short bio of Prof. Stensaker can be found here.

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

24th of March 2022

Prof. Dr. Tatiana Fumasoli, Director, Centre for Higher Education Studies CHES, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London (UK)

Title: The globally engaged university: organisational capacity and strategic positioning at times of Covid 19

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

23rd of November 2021 - via MS Teams

Prof. Dr. Georg Krücken, ICHER-Kassel International Centre for Higher Education Research Kassel

Title: Vom Wettbewerb zum multiplen Wettbewerb im Hochschulsystem

A short bio and the abstract can be found here.

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

20th of October 2021

Prof. Dr. Marijk van der Wende, Distinguished Faculty Professor of Higher Education at Utrecht University’s Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance

Title: Facing global change: Eurasian relations in higher education

Registration: verena.herbsthofer@wu.ac.at

Livestream: via Youtube