Teachers' participation in school management Teachers' participation in school management is first manifested in their participation in teaching management. Professors' councils and academic committees have decisive rights in curriculum setting, teaching requirements, students' academic performance evaluation and degree awarding. Secondly, the Professor Council and the Academic Committee also have greater rights in the appointment of new teachers, the evaluation and promotion of teachers' work, the granting of tenured professorships and the dismissal of teachers. Thirdly, teachers' participation in management is also manifested in the selection and evaluation of administrative personnel.
Departments in American universities have the right to handle important matters such as appointing teachers, setting courses, awarding degrees and carrying out academic activities. The dean and dean of the university are appointed. In American universities, the board of directors is regarded as the only legal authority of the university, which is relatively independent and enjoys full power to decide the affairs of the whole school. The school board is responsible for deciding the school's major policies, approving the school's budget and selecting the principal, but it is not directly responsible for school affairs. Institutionalization of school management. The normal operation of American universities depends on a set of strict "operating rules". These operating rules were gradually improved and developed in the long-term development of American higher education.
American higher education has a mature educational accreditation system. Higher education accreditation system is a quality assurance mechanism based on self-evaluation and peer evaluation, and it is also one of the important means of self-management in American universities. Education certification is mainly carried out by independent certification institutions under the association of private voluntary colleges or specialized professional associations. At present, there are 65,438+09 university accreditation bodies in the United States, and 64 specialized accreditation bodies accredit medical schools, law schools and normal universities. These institutions are self-managed and operate independently. Their main task is to evaluate the quality of schools and majors, help improve the quality of education, and publish the list of all certified institutions and majors to the public.
In teaching, American universities implement the credit system. Teachers arrange a large number of reading books and materials for students at the beginning of each semester to cultivate students' self-study and academic research ability. At the undergraduate level, students have two or three specialized courses every week. Outside the class, discuss in groups. The professor doesn't give lectures, but lets the students read the materials themselves, and then discuss them together and finish them independently. Guide college students to carry out scientific research, encourage and organize undergraduates to participate in scientific research work, so that they can get training in scientific research as soon as possible, understand and initially master scientific research methods. American colleges and universities have strong teachers and high academic qualifications. Teachers who want to teach in four-year colleges and universities usually have to get a doctorate and adapt their teaching methods and contents to the needs of their majors. Tenure in American universities. Tenure is an important system in American higher education. The original intention of this system is to protect academic freedom, so that tenured professors are not interfered by administrative rights and specialize in scientific research, teaching and writing. Therefore, colleges and universities have trained a large number of talents for the society. American higher education institutions also provide various financial assistance to college students through various channels, such as scholarships, grants, long-term low-interest loans on campus, short-term loans, long-term low-interest loans off campus, work-study programs by the federal government, and part-time jobs inside and outside the school.
At the same time, many American colleges and universities are not only bases for cultivating senior talents, but also bases for important scientific research and even cutting-edge scientific research. In order to better serve social production, strengthen the competitiveness of schools to meet the needs of market economy, and make full use of external resources to accelerate the development of schools, American colleges and universities pay more and more attention to strengthening close ties and substantive cooperation with industry, and have achieved great success. The University Science Park is its representative. For example, Stanford University Science Park. Stanford University is located in the center of "Silicon Valley", and 50% of the annual sales of "Silicon Valley" are created by enterprises related to Stanford University, forming a high-tech industrial belt with millions of employees and stretching 150 km. Among them, electronic integrated circuit products account for about 25% of the world's total output, with an annual output value of 44 billion US dollars. The president of Stanford University once said: "People say that without Stanford University, there would be no Silicon Valley. I would also like to add that without Silicon Valley, there would be no first-class Stanford. " For schools, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements not only strongly promoted the development of American economy, but also significantly improved the teaching and scientific research conditions of schools due to the injection of considerable funds from enterprises, greatly increased the scientific research strength and formed a virtuous circle.
The guarantee mechanism, decentralization and diversification of school education quality are the remarkable characteristics of American higher education system. American higher education has developed into a multi-type, multi-level, competitive and decentralized system in the world. An obvious feature of American higher education is that the government has no right to interfere in education. The administrative power of American education is not in the federal government, but in the states and local governments or private institutions at all levels. The authority of the Education Department of the United States federal government is very limited, and its main responsibility is to allocate education funds to States according to the intention of Congress and provide scholarships to domestic students in the United States. According to the constitution when the United States was founded, the federal government has no right to interfere in the education of the States. 1865 after the end of the civil war, the United States began to feel the necessity of establishing a central education leading institution. 1868 The General Directorate of Education was established in the Ministry of the Interior, which only managed a small amount of federal education funds and provided assistance and consultation to schools in various states.
The funding sources of American universities are diversified. In the long-term practice of running a school, American universities have formed diversified financing channels. Today, with the increasing funds for running schools, American universities actively seek government funding, increase tuition fees, expand the scale of international students, issue university bonds, transfer university patents, and strengthen social donations to raise funds for running schools.