Merging divergent campus cultures into coherent educational communities: Challenges for higher education leaders

摘要

Mergers in higher education areviewed here as a sociocultural issue. Concentrating particularly on mergers inAustralia during the late 1980s and beyond,highlighted are some cultural challenges thatarose and strategies adopted by institutionalleaders in trying to create integratedcommunities from the merging of campus culturesthat were historically and symbolicallyun-complementary. By viewing a number ofcases, how hoped-for post-merger integration or`coherent educational communities' were andwere not achieved is a specific focus. Evidence indicates that in newly mergedcampuses integrated as opposed to federal structures provide more scope for tightercultural integration. In particular, expertleadership is needed that keeps culturalconflict to a minimum and pays specialattention to developing new loyalties, highmorale and a sense of community within thenewly created institution.