A Study Of UC Berkeley’s Academic Governance System From A Field Theory Perspective

China is at a new historical point in the transition of higher education.Behind the phenomenon of expanding scale,ensuring quality and diversifying the relationship of higher education is the fundamental need for optimization of internal governance system and structure,and promoting the establishment,reform and improvement of academic governance system is the top priority of the reform of internal governance system of universities.The University of California,Berkeley has been unique in the field of international higher education since its establishment,and the study of the academic governance system of the University of California,Berkeley as a case study can inspire the improvement of the internal academic governance system of universities in China.This study has taken a holistic approach to the historical evolution of power relations in the field of university governance in the United States from the perspective of the field,roughly going through the periods of "dominance of board power," "emergence of faculty power," "manifestation of presidential power," and "multiplicity of power.The historical evolution of power relations in university governance in the United States has gone through four stages: the "dominance of the board of trustees," the "emergence of faculty power," the"manifestation of presidential power," and the "dynamic checks and balances of multiple powers.Under the influence of this external field,UC Berkeley has also gone through the power relations of "the dictatorship of the Board of Trustees at the beginning of the university," "the power of Chancellor Wheeler," and "the shared governance of Clark Kerr.The logic and characteristics of this external field have a significant impact on the formation of Berkeley’s academic governance system.Based on this,this study further takes the 54 minutes and subcommittee reports on UC Berkeley’s official website as the object of study,and uses the rooting theory to codify the textual materials at three levels to obtain the academic governance system of UC Berkeley,including the value system,institutional system,organizational system,operational system,and functional system.In the field of academic governance,the value system and institutional system define the values and internal logic of the field,and to a certain extent,lead and regulate the practice of actors.In addition to the role of values and institutions,diverse actors are also influenced by their own capital and habits,thus producing different action strategies,and all the ways eventually lead to the formation of three trajectories of actors’ practices: dynamic stability,upward breakthrough,downward decline or even departure,and different practices also give the field different functions and meanings.Ultimately,UC Berkeley has developed a system in which academic,administrative,and student power actors and organizations are guided by the social values of"shared governance,freedom of expression,academic freedom,and academic excellence" and the university’s own culture and mission,and are regulated and constrained by various formal and informal institutions.In this paper,we examine the role of academic governance in the rational allocation of resources,the maintenance of academic freedom and innovation,the cultivation of talents,and the promotion of sustainable university development.Based on the above research,this paper constructs a theoretical framework of "five-in-one" academic governance system from the perspective of the field,and makes suggestions on academic governance of Chinese universities in five aspects: promoting academic governance value system,improving academic governance system,perfecting academic governance organization system,regulating academic governance operation system and strengthening academic governance function system.In addition,the theoretical framework of "academic governance system" has been discussed in five aspects: promoting the value system of academic governance,improving the institutional system of academic governance,improving the organizational system of academic governance,regulating the operation system of academic governance,and strengthening the functional system of academic governance.