International Survey of Research University Leadership: Capital Spending Priori

The study presents the results of a survey of research university upper management about what they think priorities should be for their university’s capital spending. Are they spending enough? Too much? Should they be spending more or less on the academic library, scientific infrastructure, dormitories, sports facilities, information technology The 56-page study presents the findings from a survey of 314 deans, department chairmen, provosts, registrars, trustees, chancellors, vice presidents, administrative department directors and other upper level administration and management from more than 50 research universities in the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland and Australia. Data is broken out by title and by department or work role, such as for fundraising and marketing, technology transfer, student services, educational administration and other categories. Data is also broken out by country, for public and private universities and by other variables such as level of compensation and gender of the survey participants, among others. Some of the report’s many findings are that: • Leadership closest to the educational process, those in educational administration or departmental chairman, were more likely than others involved in other areas of university management (fundraising, research, technology transfer, physical plant) to support increased capital spending on the academic library. • The greatest hostility to the current direction in capital spending was from those sampled who worked in university business and finance positions, of whom more than 35% disliked the current direction of capital spending. • Canadians were by far the most likely to say that their university was not spending enough on capital expenditures and 25.49% of Canadians sampled felt this way vs. only 11.11% of those from the USA. Some of the affiliated institutions of the administrators participating in the survey were: Australian National University Baylor College of Medicine Brown University Carleton University Carnegie Mellon University Case Western Reserve University Columbia University Drexel University Emory University Georgia Institute of Technology Griffith University Imperial College London James Cook University Lehigh University Massey University McGill University Monash University Penn State University Princeton University Queen Mary University of London Rice University Rockefeller University Rutgers University Saint Louis University Swinburne University of Technology University of California, Davis University College Dublin University of Alberta University of Birmingham University of California Santa Barbara University of California, Berkeley University of California, Riverside University of Chicago University of Connecticut University of Florida University of Idaho University of Leeds University of Maryland University of Michigan University of Missouri University of Nottingham University of Reading University of South Florida University of Tasmania University of Technology Sydney University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center University of Toronto University of Utah University of Western Australia Virginia Commonwealth University Washington State University Washington University in St. Louis Yale University