An Comparative Study On The College System Between Chinese And American Research University

With the rapid development of higher education, the organizational structure and management system of the universities have undergone great changes. To achieve the goal of establishing world-class universities, the research universities in our country are in the process of gradually reforming the internal management system to share resources and improve the efficiency in running the school. The implement of college system has become the trend of the reform of the research universities. As one of the the most advanced countries of today’s higher education, the United States has a relatively perfect college system for research university. Meanwhile, the construction of this system in our country comes into late and has many problems in every aspect. Therefore, the present study compares the college system between Chinese and American research universities.In this thesis, the college system of Chinese and American research universities are compared from three aspects, they are college settings, management system and operation mechanism. For college settings, there are more colleges in Chinese research universities than that in American research universities. The division of colleges in Chinese research universities is based on the level of discipline, while colleges of American research universities are divided according to discipline fields and disciplinary cluster. For management system, American research universities adopts the dual management system, separating the academic management system from party management. For operation mechanism, the power operation mechanism of American research universities is binary in horizon and in vertical, but the Chinese research universities uses superior-subordinate mechanism. In addition, the present study investigates the causes of these differences in terms of national policy, social demand and school management. Finally, based on the research results, some implications are discussed. Pay attention to the standardization of the college scale, regulating the college scale to a reasonable figure; The autonomation of college rights, giving the colleges more autonomy in running the school; The professionalization of the dean, allocating the power properly through the separation of academic power and administration power; The scientification of discipline construction, improving the core competence of the colleges; The specialisation of college construction, building characteristic colleges and improving their influence.