Plano de desenvolvimento institucional: implicações na gestão universitária em contextos emergentes

Abstract

This research sought to understand the challenges generated by the emerging contexts in a Public Higher Education Institution (PHEI) and the implications of the Institutional Development Plan (IDP) in the performance of the heads of teaching departments - professors/managers. It is a qualitative research with a socio-cultural approach; the instruments for its accomplishment are: documental analysis - with the study of the IDP - and narrative interviews with the heads of didactic departments from University Federal de Santa Maria - UFSM using guideline topics. For the interpretation of the interviews, we structured an organizational framework, based on the recurrences of narratives. This framework considered two major dimensions, university management and emerging contexts and, the transversal elements - challenges and confrontations. In the dimension - university management - we found out that the professors/managers have an overload of functions, as they exercise teaching, research and extension concurrently with management, and these four activities require time and commitment. Then, in the dimension - emerging contexts - we observed that professors/managers are immersed in the transformations of teaching and learning, and management processes that permeate the emerging contexts and that consider the technologies and the vacancy reservation system as something enriching for the university, but that requires new knowledges and skills in the institution. Regarding to the transversal themes, we found out that collaborative work and relationships are the aspects that most challenge these professors/managers. The analysis of the IDP shows that the institution has already been thinking about these challenges and confrontations of them with proposals for professional management, to optimize the times and spaces of these activities. The research enabled us to understand that the IDP is intertwined with the performance of professors/managers and that it is being appropriate according to the requirements of their functions.