The open seminar will be held as follows:

■Date
14:00-15:15, Monday, July 19th, 2021 (JST)

■Theme
The Publicness of Universities : Analysis of the Discourse and Efficiency

■Venue
Online (Zoom) ※We will inform you of the participation URL by the day before

■Language
English

■Lecturer
Jin-Kwon LEE (Seoul National University)

■Abstract
This study focused on the scope of publicness that has not been sufficiently discussed in the field of higher education despite its importance. The main purpose of the study was to examine how the discourse surrounding university publicness is organized, which factors have been discussed as public values, and finally, how publicness affects university performance and efficiency through empirical analysis. Based on the integrated publicness theory, the study derived three sectors to publicness in higher education: ownership, regulatory, and normative publicness. By applying a mixed-method approach of qualitative discourse analysis and quantitative studies, the results were as follows. First, throughout the discourse of the National Assembly’s Education Committee, the politicians shared the idea and belief that public intervention by the government can enhance the effects liken to be driven by publicness of university – although they have not reached a conclusion to which publicness they are referring to. Second, based on the three branches of publicness, it was found that particular types of publicness could lead to positive results on their performance and efficiency. In particular, public universities (which represent ownership by the government, which leads to active governmental support) did not show higher performance compared to private schools. On top of that, regulatory publicness rather seemed to reduce their performance and efficiency – exclaiming that prevailing regulatory actions by the government are rather obstructions to raising their acknowledgment. On the other hand, normative publicness, which was represented by the values shared and realized collectively among organizational members, improved their performance and efficiency.

This implied that the government’s regulatory action against universities, which does not guarantees better performance and efficiency, should be revised. That includes governmental actions of suspending national funds based on evaluation and competition. The government’s funding policy should be conducted in a way that fully guarantees universities their autonomy. Second, with different comprehension available on the publicness of universities, the Government should clarify which publicness they are seeking through their policy. The purpose of “strengthening the publicness through the expansion of public support by the government” should be specified to enhancing the public values shared and expected in higher education. Third, it is necessary to “measure” and “evaluate” the normativity of universities at the government’s policy level so that policies can be formed and implemented in a way that maximizes the normativity of universities as well as the performance of universities.

■Program
14:00 – 14:05 Introduction  Yangson Kim (Hiroshima University)
14:05 – 14:45 Presentation  Jin-Kwon Lee (Seoul National University)
14:45 – 15:15 Discussion (Q&A)

■Note
・If you would like to attend online, an internet access, device with camera and microphone are needed.
・Using your full name for your personal meeting ID is required when you enter the meeting room. You may not receive a permission to enter the room if the ID is different from the name registered.
・As a participant, you are not allowed to record the seminar or take the screenshot at your own.
・Organizing seminar through Zoom is a new attempt for us. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you, and thank you for your understanding.
・We will inform you of the participation URL by the day before. Please contact us at the following address if you do not receive the email.
k-kokyo(at)office.hiroshima-u.ac.jp
*Replace (at) with @

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