ABSTRACT
Much of the criticism we hear on campuses of the quality movement and its applicability to higher education focuses on a mismatch of cultures, the inappropriateness of transplanting a set of practices designed on the shop floor to the halls of academe. While much of Total quality management (TQM) conceptual base might be consistent with academic culture, its language seems foreign, at least at first blush; it reflects a world many faculty hoped to escape by choosing the academic life. Faculty members evaluate TQM’s ideas and language in a context of their own loyal membership in the academic community and its value system. TQM seems a natural fit for organizations such as universities that rely heavily on the intellectual and creative abilities of their people. It is a tool for managing and leading such organizations. The leadership skills it would evoke are rooted in the concept described by the word administration, that is, “to minister” to the enterprise.
