Do non-academic professionals enhance universities’ performance? Reputation vs. organisation

Universities are increasingly engaging with non-academic professionals in facilitating performance outcomes, reaffirming themselves as purposive organisations, i.e. institutions with the ability to organise strategically in the pursuit of goals and standards. However, there is little empirical evidence for the impact of professional staff on university performance. Drawing on a sample of 100 British universities, the author assesses whether the changes in the ratio of professional staff to students (from 2003 to 2011) influence subsequent university performance. The author finds that universities that are moderately increasing their share of professional staff display higher levels of degree completion, but no significant differences can be observed in terms of research quality, good honours degrees and graduate employability. University performance is largely determined by reputation, prestigious universities performing higher in all dimensions. The findings contribute to the emerging empirical research assessing the impact of professional staff in higher education

Protective effects of quercetin from oxidative/nitrosative stress under intermittent hypobaric hypoxia exposure in the rat’s heart

Background Exposure to high altitude in hypobaric hypoxia (HH) is considered to be a physiological oxidative/nitrosative stress. Quercetin (Que) is an effective antioxidant and free radical scavenger against oxidative/nitrosative stress. Aims The aim of this study was to investigate the cardioprotective effects of Que in animals exposed to intermittent HH (IHH) and therefore exposed to oxidative/nitrosative stress. Materials and methods Wistar albino male rats were exposed to short-term (2 days) or long-term (4 weeks; 5 days/week) IHH in a hypobaric chamber (5,500 m, 8 h/day, 380 mmHg, 12% O2, and 88% N2). Half of the animals received natural antioxidant Que (body weight: 30 mg/kg) daily before each IHH exposure and the remaining rats received vehicle (carboxymethylcellulose solution). Control rats were kept under normobaric normoxia (Nx) and treated in a corresponding manner. One day after the last exposure to IHH, we measured the cardiac hypoxia-induced oxidative/nitrosative stress biomarkers: the malondialdehyde (MDA) level and protein carbonyl (PC) content, the activity of some antioxidant enzymes [superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT)], the nitrite plus nitrate (NOx) production, and the inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) protein expression. Results Heart tissue MDA and PC levels, NOx level, and iNOS expression of IHH-exposed rats had increased, and SOD and CAT activities had decreased compared with those of the Nx-exposed rats (control groups). MDA, CP, NOx, and iNOS levels had decreased in Que-treated IHH-exposed rats compared with IHH-exposed rats (control groups). However, Que administration increased SOD and CAT activities of the heart tissue in the IHH-exposed rats. Conclusion HH exposure increases oxidative/nitrosative stress in heart tissue and Que is an effective cardioprotective agent, which further supports the oxidative cardiac dysfunction induced by hypoxia

Administrators in higher education: organizational expansion in a transforming institution

Recent European research has revealed growth in the number of administrators and professionals across different sections of universities—a long established trend in US universities. We build on this research by investigating the factors associated with variation in the proportion of administrators across 761 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in 11 European countries. We argue that the enactment of expanded and diversified missions of HE is one of the main factors nurturing universities’ profesional and administrative bodies. Our findings support such an assertion; regardless of geographical and institutional differences, HEIs with high levels of “entrepreneurialism” (e.g. in service provision and external engagement) are characterized by a larger proportion of administrative staff. However, we find no empirical support for arguments citing structural pressures and demands on HEIs due to higher student enrolments, budget cuts or deregulation as engines driving such change. Instead, our results point towards, as argued by neo-institutionalists, the diffusion of formal organization as a model of institutional identity and purpose, which is especially prevalent at high levels of external connectedness

Universities’ pursuit of inclusion and its effects on professional staff: the case of the United Kingdom

This paper explores the proliferation of non-academic professionals as a cultural response to universities’ mission of inclusion. Departing from a neo-institutionalist perspective, the author argues that the diffusion of highly rationalised models of institutional action shapes universities as formal organisations who engage with new levels of professional expertise in the pursuit of goals and missions. The United Kingdom (UK) offers an illustrative example, the emergence of statutory equality duties on public institutions (race equality duty 2001, disability equality duty 2006 and gender equality duty 2007) nurturing an image of universities as strategic for the pursuit of demographic inclusion. Using yearly longitudinal data on 109 UK universities from 2003 to 2011, the author shows that universities increase their professional staff in catering for demographic inclusion in terms of ethnicity and disability, revealing highly rationalised institutional responses to the aforementioned equality duties. The findings contribute to the neo-institutionalist literature drawing attention to the transformation of universities into organisational actors (i.e. highly integrated entities, strategically oriented towards the pursuit of formally articulated goals and targets), which contrasts with traditional conceptions of the university as an institution with a taken-for-granted societal role and loosely defined organisational backbone. The findings provide the impetuous for further empirical research into the role of professional staff as universities assimilate new goals and missions