| Abstrakt: |
Cameroon's public universities are established on three primary missions: teaching, research, and outreach. Academics are supposed to carry out this triple mission in their key performance areas. Literature, however, highlights growing controversy around academics' fulfilment of these missions because some universities rank each mission differently. Drawing from the findings of a larger study, this paper focuses on how university leadership practices influence the construction of academics' professional identities. Designed as a qualitative case study, 11 academics were purposively selected from the different faculties, and in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted. The force field model and distributed leadership theory provided a theoretical framework for data production and analysis. The paper revealed leaders' failure to implement higher authority-directed policies, neglecting the university's triple mission. This neglect, evident in inadequate teaching tools, research resources, and community engagement supervision, impedes academics' professional identities. The study underscores the need for a quality assurance mechanism to address challenges in professional identity development and the need for educational leaders to develop practices that regulate the implementation of educational programmes and foster leadership ethics and competencies for academics to flourish as professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
