What Do Vice‐Chancellors Do?

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Abstract
More than 110 people have served as vice‐chancellors of Australian universities, but very few of them have written about the role of the vice‐chancellor and how they themselves shaped and experienced it. In this paper a serving vice‐chancellor considers first the way in which his lime is allocated for a variety of recurring activities, and then considers the role of vice‐chancellor from a political science perspective. A vice‐chancellor is seen to play a comparable role within the university community to a prime minister or premier in larger political communities. The reasons are valid ones: universities are communities, and they are characterised by high levels of interest in the community and in its state of health and productivity. The chapter categories of Carl Friedrich's Man and His Government are used to illuminate the role of the vice‐chancellor in a series of quintessentially political sellings, which include the myths and symbols of the university, legitimacy, bureaucracy, innovation, the settling of disputes, negotiating political bargains, dealing with succession, and the use of power.

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