Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1989

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Educational Administration and Supervision

Major Professor

Dan R. Quarles

Committee Members

Kathleen P. Bennett, Timothy J. Pettibone, C. Glennon Rowell

Abstract

This was a qualitative study using ethnographic methods which examined the policy-administration dimension and board-president conflict at the essential military college. One anonymous institution's authority relations were examined through artifacts collected, by participant observation at "Eastern Military College" Board of Trustee meetings, and through interviews with board members and senior administrators (including the president) at the college.

A review of the minutes of board meetings at KMC, 1979-88, and other documents did not reveal overt board-president conflict, but did record several crises with which all authority figures had to deal. Observations made at meetings of trustee committees and of the full board during the Spring of 1989 revealed highly-organized, formal sessions at which the administration presented information for the board's edification and policy items for the board's action. Interviews during the Spring of 1989 collected the responses of seventeen trustees and administrators who gave remarkably similar responses to a number of professional development, institutional, and governance questions.

Several themes were identified in this study which underscored the participants' belief that this was an elite institution governed by a group of devoted individuals whose actions, in turn, were dictated by the mission. With this traditional orientation, other management elements--gentlemanly behavior, rank consciousness, hierarchical structure, and a commitment to consensus--were present.

Neither the board members nor the president interviewed ever lost sight of their respective roles in the policy-making and implementation agenda which was established. All the authority figures involved stressed honesty, mutual respect, understanding, and open communication as keys to addressing policy and administration. A commitment to consensus by all participants established a pattern in which conflict was avoided whenever possible.

Eastern Military College is an alternative type of American higher education institution secure in its mission and direction. The governing board and the president shared a belief in that mission and the values which the college imparted to its constituencies, yet KMC is virtually the "last of a breed" among the diversity of American higher education institutions.

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