The head of the central administration of the university is known as the president. The president of the university is elected by a board of trustees, constituted by politicians, teachers and recognised citizens. The term of the president is indefinite and he continues unopposed for several years.
Sometimes, the president of the university is less educated than many professors whom he heads.
He looks after the financiers of the university and solves related problems. He tries to maintain contacts with registered graduates who have been educated in the same university. He also maintains contact with local administration, state administration, traders, industrialists and other generous institutions in order to get donations when needed to meet the financial shortage.
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Faculties in the Universities:
The administration of the university is divided into various faculties. Every faculty has a dean who tries to solve the financial and individual matters from legal point of view. He is also the head of the department of the subject concerned in the affiliated college.
In some universities, the Dean is not the head of the department of the affiliated college, but the college has a separate head of the department. Sometimes a faculty has to look after two colleges with common curricula, e.g. the medical department of Harvard University supervises the School of Dental Medicine and Medical School both. Liberal Arts C .lieges and Graduate School of Art and Sciences are run under the supervision of Science and Arts faculty.
The main problem in this system is that the teachers take interest in the education of graduate colleges and neglect the student in other colleges. This attitude is harmful. To solve this problem, Columbia University has entrusted the colleges of two levels in the charge of different faculties. Provision of separate teachers has been made for the two levels. This system seems expensive and there is always a fear of the one overlooking the interest of the other.
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The above university faculties are wholly responsible for the education of the concerned students. They are responsible for the admission, examination, formulation of educational policy, vocational and citizenship guidance and counseling of the students.
The guidance of the faculty is praise worthy for the success of student life. Universities with large faculty spheres are divided into administrative divisions for the sake of administrative convenience and are thus given the form of sub-faculties.
These sub-faculties undertake the responsibility of related financial provisions and annual budgets. In Chicago University, faculties have been broken into sub-faculties for running the administration.
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Organisation of Inter-faculty Programmes:
Whenever a programme related to the different sub-faculties is organised the dean calls a meeting of the assistant deans to discuss about the implementation of the programme. But when the programme concerns the different faculties separately, the dean of the university conducts the programme with the joint efforts of heads of departments.