Building a system of autonomous institutions: coordination and collaboration in British Columbia's community college, university college, and institute system.

This study explores the historical development of British Columbia's community college, university college, and institute system with the focus on voluntary collaboration in relation to provincial coordination and on swings between centralization and decentralization. The study examines developments in British Columbia's post-secondary system in light of developments in the broader North American context.

Introduction

British Columbia's community college, university college, and institute system has been widely regarded as one of the most coordinated and integrated postsecondary systems in Canada (Schuetze & Day, 2001). The institutions collaborate on a wide range of initiatives at both the faculty and administrative level. Furthermore, British Columbia has a well-developed transfer system that facilitates the transfer of students between institutions that offer first- and second-year academic courses and institutions that grant degrees. The high level of coordination and collaboration on systemwide initiatives occurs among autonomous institutions, yet there has been ongoing tension between the need to work as a coherent system and the desire to maintain institutional autonomy. This tension between system coordination and institutional autonomy is also a recurrent theme in the development of multicampus systems in the United States (Gaither, 1999).

Much has been written about the historical development of British Columbia's postsecondary system in terms of important legislation, policy development, and events that have led to the coordination evident in the system (Beinder, 1986; Dennison, 1997; Hollick-Kenyon, 1979; Mitchell, 1986; Schuetze & Day, 2001). As well, ample research exists on the nature and success of the transfer system (Dennison, 1997; Fisher, Rubenson, & Della Mattia, 2001; Soles, 2001). However, research has not been done to document the collaborative nature of the system, the historical roots of that collaboration, and the relationship between collaborative efforts and provincial coordination. Furthermore, research has not been done to study specifically the movements between decentralization and centralization of the system over the last 40 years and the related theme of autonomous institutions moving towards becoming a system. Such research is becoming increasingly important as the college, university college, and institute system in British Columbia has in recent years become more differentiated and fragmented, and coordination among institutions has become more difficult.

Purpose of Study and Definitions

The purpose of this article is to summarize the key elements of a recently completed doctoral dissertation by the same author. The article follows closely the structure of the dissertation and presents findings and conclusions in a manner that is true to the qualitative methodology used in the doctoral study. Readers can refer to a recently completed monograph by the author for a more detailed summary of the dissertation and its findings (Gaber, 2003).

The purpose of the study upon which this article is based was to understand better the historical development of the British Columbia community college, university college, and institute system through the lens of three dichotomies. The first was the changing nature of voluntary interinstitutional collaboration in relation to provincial coordination; the second was the movement between centralization and decentralization within British Columbia's system; and the third was the development of a provincial system from a collection of autonomous institutions. The study examined the developments in British Columbia's postsecondary system in light of related developments within the North American context.

For the purposes of the doctoral study, interinstitutional collaboration was defined as voluntary cooperation among educators and institutions designed to achieve a common purpose, whereas provincial coordination was defined as common actions at the system level among British Columbia's colleges, university colleges, and institutes brought about through intervention of the provincial government in the form of policy, legislation, and funding mechanisms. The reader should be aware that the term "college" in Canada is synonymous with "community college." Centralization was defined as an attempt by government to take a more active role in managing a college, university college, and institute system in order to meet provincial needs, whereas decentralization was defined as a more laissez-faire approach by government to the development of a provincial system coupled with greater autonomy within individual institutions. The term system was used in a narrow sense to describe a postsecondary system or quasi-system of interrelated, publicly-funded institutions within a state or province.

Literature Review of the North American Context

In order to set the context for the historical study of the British Columbia system, a review was conducted of the pertinent literature from the United States and Canada on coordination and collaboration versus competition in higher education systems and centralist versus decentralist approaches to governance of these systems.

Although community colleges are a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States, they have a longer history than in Canada. The period following World War II saw significant expansion of community colleges in the United States as a result of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, or GI Bill, and the 1947 Truman Commission (Brubacher & Rudy, 1976; Vaughan, 1985) and also involved a major expansion in access to university education in America (Brubacher & Rudy, 1976). Most provinces in Canada began their community college system in the 1960s as a result of significantly increased demand for postsecondary level training, a belief in the democratization of education opportunity, and the view that postsecondary training should be an engine of economic growth for the nation (Dennison & Gallagher, 1986). The first community college in British Columbia was established in 1965.

The unprecedented expansion of higher education opportunities in the United States through the formation of ever-increasing numbers of institutions led state governments to form statewide, multicampus systems to bring a coordinated approach to the development of what would otherwise have been fully autonomous institutions (Langenberg, 1999). Between the 1950s and early 1970s, "The bulk of governance restructuring that occurred ... moved toward a consolidation of authority into the hands of fewer boards and higher-level administrators" (Novak, 1996, p. 19). Novak notes that in the United States there are two types of higher education governance structures at the state level: coordinating structures and governing structures. Coordinating boards have varying levels of authority for making decisions and setting regulations that affect colleges and universities throughout the state, with no more than one coordinating board per state. Governing boards have responsibility for management and control of multicampus systems. Several multicampus systems can exist under one statewide coordinating structure. These multicampus systems play a major role in coordinating a wide range of activities across campuses and institutions, including performance planning, budgeting, strategic planning, and instructional productivity (Gaither, 1999).

Coordinated and multicampus systems are still the dominant form of governance structure in the United States today. Richardson, Bracco, Callan, and Finney (1999) write of coordinating boards in 24 states, 21 of them (including Illinois, Texas, and New York) with regulatory authority and 3 with advisory authority (including California). The authors also write of consolidated governing boards in 24 states, 15 of these (including Arizona and Florida) having statewide boards for community colleges apart from other higher education sectors. The authors mention states with a third type of structure called planning agencies. Such states "have no organization with authority that extends much beyond voluntary planning and convening of higher education" (p. 3). Interestingly, only two states (Michigan and Delaware) have this voluntary kind of structure.

Canada, on the other hand, does not tend to have provincially coordinated or multicampus systems. Education in Canada falls constitutionally under the jurisdiction of each province. Thus what has emerged over time is a variety of "quasi-systems" that have developed differently in each jurisdiction based on the unique historical, sociocultural, and economic characteristics of each province or territory (Dennison, 1995). In Canada, community colleges tend to have a closer relationship with government than universities do, and universities have much higher levels of institutional autonomy. However, the system-like structures that have developed in each jurisdiction often include universities with community colleges and technical institutes, with the different types of institutions coordinating their activities to varying levels "either through voluntary agreements or through more formal arrangements (in which governmental authority usually plays a role)" (Dennison, 1995, p. 121). Thus, although formal systems do not exist in Canada as they do in the United States, there are varying structures in place to bring coordination to higher education at the provincial/territorial level.

The literature shows that the movement towards centralization of higher education systems in both Canada and the United States occurred for similar reasons. Commonly given reasons include the need to coordinate massive enrollment growth and the increasing cost to governments, minimize competition among institutions over resources, ensure the efficient use of state resources and accountability for the use of those resources, improve student transfer and mobility, allow coordinated statewide budgeting and strategic planning, and encourage collaboration across institutions (Dennison, 1995; Healy, 1997; Novak, 1996).

Despite the continuing importance of coordinated and multicampus systems in American higher education, some literature suggests a gradual move towards more decentralization of higher education systems because of the negative consequences of over-centralization. These consequences include a lessening of the authority of the campus president; an expansion of system governing boards' responsibilities, resulting in the boards being far removed from the students and institutions that their decisions impact; and unclear lines of authority between statewide coordinating and multicampus or campus governing bodies (Novak, 1996). Fisher (1995) argues that statewide boards and multicampus systems stifle campus creativity and innovation, result in unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, slow down the decision-making and program approval process, cost a lot to operate, and add costs to institutions that must hire additional staff for negotiating with and reporting to central boards.

Several authors describe the move towards greater decentralization in U.S. higher education in the last few decades (McGuinness, 1996; Novak, 1996; Richardson et al., 1999). Burke (1999) writes of greater decentralization in a number of jurisdictions in the early 1990s as a result of a move towards a competitive paradigm, based on business practices and political conservatism. Such decentralization involved greater institutional autonomy and increased accountability following a market-based approach to education. In a similar vein, MacTaggart (1996) and Novak describe the move towards increased competition in higher education based on the philosophy of reinventing government, which is rooted in a market-driven ideology. Novak (1996) also states that the move to market-driven approaches to providing public education "is fostered by the state disinvestment in colleges and universities" (p. 35), a statement that is echoed by Burke as a major reason for the move to decentralization in the 1990s. Thus considerable evidence exists in the American literature about moves over the 1980s and 1990s to greater decentralization, increased institutional autonomy, and increased accountability for outcomes.

Although there is ample literature on centralizing and decentralizing trends and the coordination of higher education systems, the literature is scant on voluntary collaboration among institutions, a key focus of the doctoral study. A review of the literature finds few references to the concept of interinstitutional collaboration other than occasional references to the role of coordinating systems in fostering such collaboration, and this dearth of literature on the topic adds to the significance of the study.

Tollefson (1981) calls such collaborative efforts "consortial relationships," which he says differ from higher education systems in that participation is voluntary and is based on genuine interreliance among institutions. Tollefson lists a number of benefits he feels accrue from cooperation within academic consortia, including avoiding unnecessary duplication, increasing the diversity and breadth of education provided to students, achieving financial efficiency through sharing of resources, and preventing competition for resources and students. Interestingly, many of the benefits that Tollefson describes as resulting from voluntary collaboration are similar to the benefits from and roles of coordinating systems.

Glenny (1959) describes four weaknesses of purely voluntary systems of coordination. Voluntary systems "(1) have a tendency to preserve the status quo, (2) lead to domination by the largest or oldest institutions, (3) inadequately represent the public interest in policy making, and (4) ineffectively coordinate large systems of institutions" (pp. 248-249). In terms of preserving the status quo, Glenny states that existing institutions are reluctant to reevaluate their programs or to consider future areas of necessary development from a system perspective and that "The primary motive of participants in voluntary systems is the welfare of individual institutions, not the system as a whole" (p. 262). Glenny also states that "The success of voluntary coordination requires unanimity" (p. 255). This unanimity becomes more and more difficult to achieve as systems grow and become more complex and differentiated, as has been the case in British Columbia over the last several decades. Glenny states that large, complex organizations cause blocs and sectors of institutions to form and make strong interpersonal relationships more difficult. Glenny asserts that mutual respect and trust among participants are seen as a key to successful voluntary coordination.

Research Design and Methods

The methodology used in the doctoral study was qualitative in nature based on the historical method and the underlying assumptions of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is defined as the study of understanding and interpretation, especially as it relates to text (Palmer, 1969). The modern hermeneutics philosopher whose influence is evident in the present study is Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gadamer's (1975) hermeneutic theory of text interpretation is called dialectical hermeneutics, which treats the interpretation of text as a dialogue or fusion of horizons between the interpreter and text. For Gadamer, each interpreter enters the interpretation process with her or his own expectations, ideas, and prejudices, which Gadamer refers to as one's traditions. Furthermore, one can only interpret the past from one's position in the present. Because all interpretation is related to the present and is based on each interpreter's traditions, there can be no one right interpretation but rather multiple perspectives.

The primary method used in the study was the historical method, which is used to search data systematically to answer questions about something that occurred in the past (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 1999). Historical research is viewed as qualitative because of the subjective nature of the interpretive framework. History involves the reconstruction of the past in a meaningful way based on the interpretation of available records and the inferences made by historians in the present (Gottschalk, 1950). From a hermeneutic stance, the interpretation by historians will vary because of the unique traditions of each historian and her or his attachment to the present.

The study incorporated historical research methods, including the review of relevant literature and the collection of oral history. The researcher began by reviewing the important secondary sources related to the research purpose, including key dissertations related to the history of college development in British Columbia. From these sources, the researcher located and read other important secondary sources and then a large number of primary sources, such as memos, government documents and legislation, reports, letters, minutes of meetings, and proceedings of conferences. The researcher worked with a voluntary research advisor, a respected and long-standing leader in the British Columbia college system who agreed to help with identifying important literature and suggesting interviewees. Based on the researcher's interpretation of both the primary and secondary British Columbia literature, 15 key findings were identified in relation to the research purpose. These 15 key findings are presented in the Appendix.

The key findings from literature were used to prepare a set of interview questions to collect oral history that would be used to confirm findings and fill in gaps in understanding from the review of the literature (Moss, 1974). Interviews were then conducted with 10 key informants who were chosen because they had a thorough knowledge of the British Columbia postsecondary system, had been primary witnesses during its four decades of development, and represented as wide a variety of perspectives as possible. Interviewees included four institutional presidents (three of them retired), two board members, two Ministry staff (one of them a former Assistant Deputy Minister), and two past provincial faculty association presidents. The initial interviewees were chosen with the assistance of the research advisor, and additional interviewees' names emerged from the interview process. The researcher took the necessary steps to ensure the protection of human subjects, and each interviewee agreed to be identified in the research and to have comments attributed to her or him.

The interviews were conducted using a modified standardized open-ended interview (Patton, 1990), based on the aforementioned interview questions. The interview process was based on a constructivist methodology in which core questions were supplemented with probes to flesh out emerging themes and one new question was added part way through the interview process. The process involved transcribing, analyzing data, and member checking for both the transcription and written analyses after each pair of interviews. The analyses were based on the processes of meaning condensation and meaning interpretation (Kvale, 1996) and involved the researcher summarizing in writing each interviewee's response to each question. Based on the interpretation of the interview data and of the primary and secondary historical literature related to the British Columbia context, the researcher drew conclusions from the study in relation to the research purpose.

Because of the use of historical method based on a hermeneutic stance, the research is qualitative, subjective, and interpretive in nature. The researcher ensured trustworthiness of the qualitative research findings through the use of a variety of strategies first proposed by Guba (1981). The strategies are designed to address the criteria of credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability of the research and its findings. The researcher also took steps to ensure the external criticism or authenticity of the primary sources of literature and the internal criticism or accuracy of those same sources.

Findings from the British Columbia Literature and the Interviews

The following section provides a summary of the findings that emerged from the researcher's interpretation of the data from both the literature and the interviews. An extensive review of primary sources of literature related to the historical development of the British Columbia college, university college, and institute system, along with a review of relevant secondary sources, provided a main source of data in relation to the purpose of the study. A list of the 15 findings from the literature is included in the Appendix. Interviews that were conducted based on these findings from the literature represented a further primary source of data.

In general, there was a high degree of support for the findings from the literature from many of the interviewees on most questions. Interviewees provided strong support for all or some assertions related to 12 of 15 findings, mixed support for 2 findings, and no direct support for 1 finding. The differences in responses that did occur would be expected using a hermeneutic approach because each interviewee brought a different perspective to the interpretation of the past, based on her or his time, role, and experiences in the postsecondary system. A primary reason for interviewing for multiple perspectives was for the researcher to gain greater depth in his developing understanding in relation to the purpose of the doctoral study. Below is a synthesis of the major findings from the literature review and interview data, with major variations between the two sources of data noted.

Colleges in British Columbia began in the 1960s as highly autonomous institutions with a strong school board, with community involvement through plebiscites and referenda, and with partial funding from local taxation. Gallagher (1984) states that "Zealously guarded autonomy, regional responsiveness, and curriculum comprehensiveness were the bedrock for British Columbia colleges" (p. 7). The colleges were formed in a decentralized environment with minimal direction from the government Ministry, which was small in size and served more as an enabler of the development of institutions. One interviewee described the "sheer inability of the Ministry to manage a very rapidly developing system." A key function of colleges at their inception was the provision of academic programming at the first and second year level for transfer into universities.

As the number of institutions grew because of their popularity with the public and as the cost to government grew accordingly, the Ministry became more involved in the mid- to late 1970s in providing central direction to institutions and demanding greater accountability for the use of provincial funds. The passage of the Colleges and Provincial Institutes Act in 1977 provided government with the tools it needed to take increasing control. Mitchell (1986) describes the Act as the "benchmark policy of the B.C. Government in establishing a system based on provincial rather than local goals" (p. 86). The worsening of the provincial economy, particularly in the early 1980s, resulted in severe government restraint and a more centralist approach being taken by government, including the development of the first five-year strategic plan for the system and demands for program rationalization across institutions. A more transparent funding formula was also developed by the Ministry through a consultative process in the early 1980s. The literature provides evidence that the formula reduced competition among institutions because it removed perceptions of inequitable treatment of institutions by government. Some interviewees agreed with this finding, while others believed that the formula actually increased competition for resources because of the transparency of the funding allocation model.

As the Ministry took an increasingly active role in coordinating the development of institutions, the colleges began to be "collectively referred to as parts of a provincial 'network' or 'system' with the clear implication that province-wide interests should take precedence over responsiveness to community needs" (Gallagher, 1999, p. 2). Dennison (1997) states that government had truly become "a senior partner in the governance of colleges" (p. 50).

The improving economy in the late 1980s resulted in the expansion of the college and institute system through the Access for All initiative and the creation of university colleges, which combined the traditional programming of a comprehensive community college with third and fourth year degree-level programming. In the early 1990s, when the New Democratic Party came to power, there was a significant increase in stakeholder input into governance and decision-making at both the institutional and provincial levels and a more centralist approach by government to the planning of an integrated system. Stakeholders included administrators, faculty, support staff, students, board members, and Ministry representatives. The impact of stakeholder involvement was viewed positively by most interviewees. The increasing centralization, coupled with the increasing differentiation among sectors of the college, university college, and institute system, resulted in a fragmenting of what had been, until the mid-1990s, a fairly uniform system of autonomous institutions. In 2001, the Liberal Party gained power and adopted, despite the worsening economy, a more decentralist approach to institutions based on a market-driven ideology that involved deregulation, increased autonomy for institutions, and a focus on accountability. At the same time, the new government was quite centralist in its approach to directing institutions to meet government's election commitments.

The history of centralization and decentralization and the development of a system of autonomous institutions serve as the backdrop for the discussion on voluntary collaboration and provincial coordination. The colleges, university colleges, and institutes of British Columbia have a long history of voluntary interinstitutional collaborative efforts rooted in the early development of autonomous institutions with minimal government intervention. However, interviewees had different perspectives on the time periods in which the height of such collaboration had occurred. There were numerous reasons given in the literature and by interviewees for this voluntary cooperation, including the need to develop an adequate transfer system to allow student mobility, to do joint program planning across institutions, to present a common voice to government on important issues, to lobby government, to provide a support network among college presidents, and to share expertise in the developing college system. Another reason was the availability of adequate funding, which prevented competition and made collaboration possible. As one interviewee stated, "Cooperation is easy when you're not fighting over too small a pot." At the same time, a positive working relationship between the Ministry and the institutions grew over time. One interviewee, a retired college president, stated, "We really felt like we were on the same team. We were working together towards common goals." However, the status of that relationship varied considerably from decade to decade according to the different perspectives of interviewees, depending on such factors as the availability of funding, the development of a transparent funding formula, the changing reliance of institutions on the Ministry for funding because of the development of new funding sources, the growing complexity of the system, and the personalities and backgrounds of senior-level bureaucrats working in the Ministry.

Throughout this changing relationship, the literature suggests that both institutions and the Ministry realized the need to cooperate with each other in their respective roles to build a provincial system of autonomous institutions. Over time, there was a gradual blending of voluntary collaboration and provincial coordination as the Ministry played an increasingly important role in involving institutions and, later, stakeholder groups in important system initiatives, such as establishing an accountability framework, developing data collection systems, and developing provincial strategic plans. Interviewees provided additional insights into the intricate nature of the evolving relationship between coordination and collaboration and suggested that some form of Ministry intervention was required to sustain collaborative efforts across institutions because, as one interviewee said, "Institutions don't have a natural urge to be cooperative." At the same time, the Ministry could not lead system initiatives unless relationships among individuals in the system were positive and institutions cooperated with the Ministry willingly. Thus voluntary collaboration and provincial coordination appeared to become mutually dependent constructs.

The fragmentation of the college, university college, and institute system beginning in the mid-1990s, the changing leadership at both the Ministry and institutional level, and competition for limited resources had made both interinstitutional collaboration and provincial coordination more difficult by 2002. At the same time, the Liberal government in 2002 made a commitment in its three-year Service Plan to build a more integrated postsecondary system over the next few years, although many of its early actions, such as the move towards block funding and the full deregulation of tuition fees, have resulted in greater decentralization and increased autonomy for institutions. Interviewees' opinions were divided on whether the new government is being more decentralist or centralist in its actions.

Discussion

The Relationship Among Decentralization/Centralization, Autonomy/System, and Collaboration/Coordination

A review of the findings from the literature and the interviews has shown a clear relationship among the three dichotomies inherent in the research purpose: decentralization/centralization, autonomy/system, and collaboration/coordination. In general, a move from a decentralized collection of institutions to a centralized system was accompanied by a loss of institutional autonomy and a move towards institutions being seen as part of a larger provincial system. At the same time, voluntary collaboration, which was more necessary in a decentralized system with little government intervention, was replaced by ever-increasing levels of provincial coordination with government playing a senior role in that coordination.

However, over time voluntary collaboration and provincial coordination became less distinguishable as separate entities as the Ministry and institutions worked closely together to sustain collaborative efforts and achieve system goals, often based on government policy and planning documents that encouraged, if not mandated, interinstitutional cooperation. Thus voluntary collaboration became more formalized and more closely intertwined with provincial coordination, but coordination relied upon strong interinstitutional relationships and a willingness of institutions to cooperate with the Ministry.

In the early 2000s, the new Liberal government began moving the system back towards decentralization based on its market-driven philosophy, resulting in increased autonomy and less provincial coordination. There is no evidence in the literature yet as to whether more voluntary collaboration will develop because of the reduction in government involvement at the system level.

Figure 1 illustrates the relationship among the three dichotomies. The bottom row in the figure denotes a two-way flow between collaboration and coordination to reflect the above finding that the two processes have become closely related over time.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The Relationship of Research Findings to the Broader Literature

The history of colleges, university colleges, and institutes in British Columbia, of having begun as autonomous institutions with a decentralized, laissez-faire approach by government, moving to a much more centralized system under government control and then moving back to a more decentralized model based on a market-driven ideology, is similar in many ways to the history of higher education in the United States. However, the swings back and forth between decentralization and centralization have tended to be later in British Columbia because of the relative youth of the college system in Canada.

The reasons given in the broader literature for both the centralizing and decentralizing trends over the decades are similar to the reasons that emerged from the literature and interviews in the British Columbia context. Some additional reasons for greater centralization emerging from the doctoral study include the feeling that locally driven development has led to inconsistent service across the province; support from institutional representatives for a greater role by government in coordinating, but not controlling, a college system; and a growing feeling of inequity in terms of how individual institutions were being treated. Improved transfer is also deemed a reason for a more coordinated system, but the establishment of a transfer system in the early days of college development resulted from collaborative efforts among individual institutions rather than from government intervention.

The swing to decentralization in British Columbia in the 2000s occurred much later than similar developments in the United States and is related primarily to the recent election of a new and more conservative government. As in other jurisdictions, the decentralist approach to postsecondary education in British Columbia is based on a market-driven ideology that promotes deregulation, increased institutional autonomy, greater accountability for outcomes, and an increase in competition from private education deliverers. Additional reasons for the move to decentralization were found in the British Columbia literature and from interviews and included increasing differentiation and fragmentation among the college, university college, and institute sectors; the departure of longstanding leaders from both the Ministry and the institutions; and the smaller size of the Ministry, leaving it incapable of its past level of involvement.

One of the biggest differences between British Columbia and U.S. jurisdictions is the system governance structures that are utilized by government. Almost all states in the United States involve either statewide coordinating boards or multicampus governing boards (Novak, 1996; Richardson et al., 1999). British Columbia, on the other hand, would be described more like a quasi-system (Dennison, 1995) in that it does not have a coordinated or multicampus system with a coordinating agency or board but rather 27 autonomous postsecondary institutions, each with its own board. Most coordinating agencies and boards in the United States appear to be either closely tied to government or have the status of an independent agency but, in either case, serve an intermediary function between government and institutions. However, the responsibility for postsecondary institutions in British Columbia has always rested within government through a series of advanced education ministries. Three intermediary councils were created in 1977 with regulatory authority but were quickly abolished because of widespread dissatisfaction with them. Other agencies that exist in British Columbia have no regulatory authority and, although they serve some of the functions of coordinating boards, they do so based on broad policies of government and on the strength of their relationships with institutions.

Thus, unlike American states, there is no structure in British Columbia with regulatory functions that would act as an intermediary between government and institutions. Instead, each institution deals directly with government regarding its operational and capital needs. As well, institutions lobby government through various sector organizations that have developed with part-time or full-time staff. The British Columbia situation is similar to the rest of Canada, and Fisher et al. (2001) state that "No province is yet at the system level of coordination where agencies transcend institutional and sector boundaries" (p. 6).

In terms of voluntary collaboration among institutions in British Columbia, the scant literature from the broader context on the topic is applicable to the findings of the doctoral study. As in the United States, governments in British Columbia have recognized the importance of interinstitutional cooperation to achieve system goals, and successive systemwide strategic plans have referenced the need for such cooperation. Furthermore, the benefits of voluntary collaboration described by Tollefson (1981) were similar to the benefits of statewide coordination, and this similarity would provide support for the possibility of the two concepts merging over time, which was a finding in the doctoral study.

Glenny (1959) writes of the importance of interpersonal relationships and of goodwill and trust among presidents for successful voluntary coordination, The British Columbia literature and interviews provide strong evidence of the importance of such relationships in the development over time of both collaborative and coordinated activities in the British Columbia system. Glenny states that a weakness of voluntary coordinating systems is the tendency of such systems to maintain the status quo because the allegiances of individual participants lie first with their own organizations and not with the system as a whole. Burke (1999) and Langenberg (1999) also make statements about the inability of individual campuses in multicampus systems to make decisions and take concerted action on their own accord to benefit the system as a whole. These statements are similar to statements made by some of the interviewees in the doctoral study. Finally, Glenny's statement about the difficulty of achieving unanimity in increasingly differentiated systems and about the negative impact on interpersonal relations is similar to findings from the doctoral study.

Designing a Postsecondary System That Balances Centralist and Decentralist Tendencies

Both U.S. and Canadian literature provide relevant information on system designs for higher education that result in an appropriate balance between centralization and decentralization. This literature is described briefly below in order to set the context for some of the conclusions that follow.

Skolnik (2000) speaks of the need for a system design, rather than a system plan, that balances the roles of government and postsecondary institutions. Skolnik argues that such a design should acknowledge institutional autonomy by providing institutions with "procedural autonomy" over institutional operations while limiting "substantial autonomy such that the state through a consultative process which involves all stakeholders would determine the mission and major goals of all postsecondary institutions" (p. 3). Fisher et al. (2001) agree with Skolnik's distinction between procedural and substantial autonomy and assert that "the state can and should set the mandate and major goals for institutions," and that "institutions should have full procedural autonomy in deciding how best to achieve the substantive goals set by the state" (p. 6). Fisher et al. continue, "Without a guiding provincial design, it is difficult to provide a strong policy direction for the system as a whole to the people who are responsible for making decisions in the postsecondary sectors or institutions" (p. 6). Such a system design could result in achieving a proper balance between the needs and role of government and the autonomous aspirations of institutions.

Several U.S. authors also write of the need to find a better balance between centralizing and decentralizing trends. McGuinness (1996) and Novak (1996) state that higher education systems in the future are likely to rely more, rather than less, on some form of central system to achieve the goals of state governments. McGuinness states that the question is not whether some form of centralized system will exist or not, but rather what is the appropriate balance in systems between centralized authority and autonomous institutions. Similarly, Novak asserts that different states are developing increasingly complex models in an attempt to find the appropriate balance between centralized control and institutional autonomy.

Richardson et al. (1999) conducted a study of seven American jurisdictions (California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Texas) to determine the influences that shape higher education performance in adopting appropriate policies and system designs. Like Novak (1996),

Richardson et al. refer to the period between 1980 and the present as one of "incremental rebalancing" in which states adopted a variety of approaches that "defy simple, one-dimensional explanations" (p. 9) in order to find a balance between over-centralization and institutional autonomy. Richardson et al. state that "institutional autonomy versus state authority, or centralization versus decentralization" (p. 2), the focus of much of the doctoral study, is the traditional approach to studying state governance of higher education. Instead, the authors assert that the performance of systems should be judged by examining the symmetry or disconnect between the state policy environment and its system design. According to Richardson et al., the state policy involves "the role that the state government chooses in balancing the competing influences of professional values and the market" (p. 11). Professional values include institutional independence and academic freedom. System design determines "the tools policy makers and professional leaders have available to improve or change higher education performance" (Richardson et al., 1999, p. 16).

The work of Richardson et al. (1999) is important within the British Columbia context because it shows how some of the American states that they studied have managed to meet their goals for higher education while maintaining an appropriate balance between state control and institutional autonomy. Their work shows that those states that maintain a federal system design with an intermediary coordinating board or agency that builds consensus among self-governed institutions are better able to meet their goals within a market-based philosophy that encourages competition and consumer advocacy. The importance of consensus rather than relying on statutory authority is similar to the approach taken over the decades by the Ministry in British Columbia as it has built high levels of consultation into most systemwide initiatives. In British Columbia, the Ministry plays many of the roles of statewide intermediary boards by coordinating activities among a federated system of autonomous institutions.

Conclusions

In keeping with the qualitative and interpretive research methodology employed in the doctoral study and based on the research findings, the researcher reached conclusions or key understandings and insights into past events and related those understandings to how British Columbia's postsecondary system might develop in the future. Some of the key conclusions are summarized below.

Finding an appropriate balance between centralization and decentralization may be both desirable and achievable, but it seemingly may only be achieved through systematic and conscious efforts on the part of both government and the institutions. Such efforts could address the present state of differentiation and fragmentation in the British Columbia college, university college, and institute system, fragmentation that is jeopardizing both coordination and collaboration on systemwide initiatives. What may be required to address this fragmentation is a policy framework, or system design, that would set the substantial directions at the system level for a differentiated postsecondary system, thus transcending the institutional and sector levels. The framework, which could be developed through a consultative process with strong leadership from government, could clearly spell out the mission and goals for a postsecondary system and the respective roles of the Ministry, of various sectors including universities, and of individual institutions in meeting those goals. Institutions and sectors would be given procedural autonomy to meet the goals and would be held accountable by government for doing so. An advantage of such a design may be that it could bring some stability to the swings between micro- and macro-management that changing governments are prone to make based on differing ideologies.

In developing a system design that seeks to balance centralist and decentralist tendencies, policy makers might learn from British Columbia's rich history and from the experiences of other jurisdictions. Of particular interest would be to review the work of Richardson et al. (1999) to examine the symmetry or disconnect in the British Columbia context between the provincial government's policy role and the system design. As part of its policy role, the government could determine an appropriate balance between the needs of postsecondary institutions on the one hand and the market on the other. Policy makers could also explore the pros and cons of utilizing an intermediary coordinating body to provide direction in a federated system of autonomous institutions.

The doctoral research has shown a long history in British Columbia of voluntary collaboration among institutions on issues of interinstitutional concern, although recently the extent of voluntary collaboration has been eroded by system fragmentation and competition for scarce resources. Encouraging institutional collaboration may well be an important element of the Ministry's goal of achieving a more coherent and integrated postsecondary system. Likewise, evidence from the literature suggests that institutions have recognized for decades that their inability to cooperate with each other may result in increased and unwanted government intervention. Such recognition was a key driver behind the early development of British Columbia's transfer system. It may be possible and desirable to build upon the different motivations of government and institutions for a collaborative working environment and to develop a sustainable balance between voluntary collaboration and provincial coordination. This balance represents a formalization of the blending of coordination and collaboration that has occurred over the last few decades. A balanced approach could involve agreed-upon objectives for necessary interinstitutional activity and accountability requirements and reward structures for meeting those objectives, with or without the direct involvement of the Ministry.

The transfer system that has developed in British Columbia over the last 35 years is a good example of enduring interinstitutional collaboration with full Ministry support but minimal involvement in terms of the actual mechanics of developing and maintaining transfer arrangements across institutions, which has been accomplished through long-term, trusting relationships between faculty and administrators. A similar model to that used in the transfer system may be appropriate to build and maintain other relationships at the program level across institutions and over time with minimal involvement of government.

Finally, the research shows that there is a strong relationship between the way in which institutions are funded by government and the level of cooperation or competition among institutions. Perhaps there are ways in which productivity targets, accountability requirements, and appropriate levels of market-driven competition cart be achieved by government without pitting one institution against another in a battle for resources.

Possible Areas for Future Research

Several implications for future research flow from the doctoral study. It would be informative to do a similar study in 5 or 10 years to determine the status of an integrated and coherent postsecondary system in British Columbia and the balance that has or has not been achieved between meeting the needs of the province and accommodating the aspirations of individual sectors and institutions. A further study could be conducted to compare the understandings that have emerged through this research about the history of coordination and collaboration in British Columbia's colleges, university colleges, and institutes with similar developments in quasi-systems of other Canadian jurisdictions. A related piece of research would be to compare the Canadian and U.S. experiences in selected provincial and state jurisdictions in building effective system designs for higher education. It would add to the understanding of the effectiveness of governance structures by comparing the more mandatory approaches to system coordination, as evidenced in many of the states, with the more voluntary nature of system cooperation among autonomous institutions in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada.

Someone may wish to conduct a more in-depth study into the history of the transfer system in British Columbia and the reasons for its apparent success. The knowledge gained from the more in-depth review of the success of transfer could be used to determine how to build other successful, enduring interinstitutional relationships around system issues with minimal involvement from government. Finally, as students were not included in the doctoral study, it would be informative to conduct a study about the perspectives of students on the benefits of a coordinated system with high levels of cooperation across institutions.

Appendix

Key Findings from the Literature

Below is a summary of the 15 major findings that emerged from the review of British Columbia literature.

1. Roots of institutional autonomy: An independent report by the President of the University of British Columbia (the Macdonald Report) and the subsequent enabling amendment to the Public Schools Act, coupled with the lack of interest on the part of government in directing college development in the early days, are at the root of the strong sense of institutional autonomy, community responsiveness, and resistance to centralization that developed in British Columbia and has been maintained to some extent to the present.

2. Centralization and decentralization: The pendulum has swung from a decentralized set of institutions to a centralized system, and it is now swinging back to a decentralized system. However, the reasons for decentralization have changed, with the 1960s witnessing the development of autonomous, community-based institutions based on grassroots support for the democratization of education and on a lack of government interest, and the 2000s experiencing a move to decentralization based on a market-driven ideology that favors deregulation, less intervention by government in the affairs of autonomous institutions, and greater accountability for outcomes.

3. Relationship between funding and centralization: The increasing level of centralization by the government of the developing college and institute system was related in large part to the increasing level of funding provided by government for both capital and operating costs of larger numbers of institutions coupled with decreasing levels of local funding. More government funds also meant an increasing emphasis on accountability for the use of those funds.

4. Relationship between the economy and centralization: Whenever the provincial economy has worsened and public resources have become limited, the government of the day has tended to take a more centralized approach to the management of institutions and a greater interest in program rationalization to ensure that provincial funds are being used efficiently and that programs are applied in nature and are meeting the province's economic needs. In the economic downturn of the early 2000s, however, the present government is responding with a decentralist approach based on a market-driven ideology.

5. Voluntary, interinstitutional collaboration: Institutional representatives have always realized that a degree of interinstitutional coordination is necessary. Therefore, they have put considerable time and effort over the last four decades into voluntary collaboration so as to prevent unnecessary program duplication, ensure student transfer, lobby government, and prevent government from becoming too directive in the coordination of a system.

6. Voluntary nature of transfer: The Academic Board developed a facilitative rather than directive approach to dealing with college development in the 1960s and created a voluntary approach to solving transfer and articulation issues. These voluntary collaborative efforts at improving transfer of students have continued over the last four decades and are at the root of much of the collaboration and goodwill that have existed among institutions, including universities. Furthermore, the Ministry has recognized the importance of this voluntary approach to the success of the transfer initiative.

7. System/Ministry cooperation: While institutions have recognized the benefits of voluntary collaboration, both institutions and the Ministry have recognized the value of working closely together to plan and implement systemwide initiatives. The institutions have understood the important role that the Ministry must play in coordinating an accountable provincial system while the Ministry has understood that systemwide initiatives are more successful if the institutions have a role in their planning and implementation. The result has been the development of a positive working relationship in which both the Ministry and institutions agree to and have ownership of systemwide initiatives.

8. Blending of collaboration and coordination: Beginning with the Colleges and Provincial Institutes Act and continuing through a number of Ministry policy and planning documents over the next two decades, interinstitutional cooperation was recognized by the Ministry as a necessary element of a cohesive provincial system. Therefore, what had previously existed as voluntary collaboration among institutions without Ministry intervention became required cooperation as part of systemwide goals. As system/Ministry partnerships became more prevalent in guiding the development of systemwide initiatives, provincial coordination and interinstitutional collaboration often became blended into a single effort at developing and maintaining a coherent system, with the Ministry as a senior partner in the process.

9. Impact of abolishing the intermediary councils on system/Ministry cooperation: Institutions were particularly critical of the role of the three intermediary councils in interfering with institutional autonomy and in serving as a buffer between institutions and the Ministry. The abolishment of the three councils in 1983 through an amendment to the Colleges and Provincial Institutes Act was a key factor in allowing a strong direct working relationship to build over the years between Ministry officials and institutional representatives.

10. Importance of the funding formula: The funding formula, developed in 1984 by the Ministry in close cooperation with institutional representatives, has brought stability to the system by creating a predictable and an equitable means of funding institutions of different size and mandate. This predictability and equitability has lessened competition among institutions for resources and has had a major impact on the ability of institutions to cooperate for the good of the system.

11. Institutional differentiation: The history of the British Columbia public post-secondary system has been one of progressive differentiation, beginning with a single university until the early 1960s and expanding to include 28 institutions made up of colleges, university colleges, institutes, agencies, and different kinds of universities. This differentiation, and in particular the development of university colleges since 1990, has occurred in the absence of a provincial policy or legislative framework for the development of a coherent system and has resulted in part in the present fragmentation of the post-secondary system.

12. Importance of personal relationships: One of the key stabilizing influences throughout the 1980s and 1990s on the development of a coordinated college, university college, and institute system has been the personal relationships that have developed between Ministry and institutional officials and among institutional officials. These relationships have been built on trust and goodwill and were remarkably stable over the two decades. However, the change in key personnel in both the Ministry and institutions beginning in the late 1990s has had a negative impact on the maintenance of a balanced and coordinated provincial system.

13. Impact of stakeholder involvement in provincial governance: An increase in centralizing efforts by government in the 1990s, coupled with an increase in stakeholder involvement in provincial decision making, led to greater centralization of the college, university college, and institute system and weakened the historic relationship between the Ministry and institutional administrators and boards. This weakened relationship and the backlash to perceived over-centralization are in part responsible for the present fragmentation of the system.

14. The declining role of boards: The powerful role played by the institutional boards in the coordination of a system and in communicating with government on institutional and system concerns has been gradually eroded over the years, and by 2001 there was no formal mechanism remaining for boards to work with each other on interinstitutional or system concerns. At the same time, the role of institutional presidents has become increasingly important, both in terms of interinstitutional relationships and relationships with the Ministry.

15. Role of important individuals: Over the decades, and particularly in the first 25 years of college and institute development, certain individuals have played a very important role in the way in which institutions and the system have developed. These individuals held strong views on the values of institutional autonomy and/or the need for system coordination, and these views helped shape the system.

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Devron Gaher is an Associate Director with the British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfer in Vancouver, Canada. [e-mail]