Reimagining Shared Governance in Higher Education: Addressing Fault Lines and Alignment

Chapter 2 of The Evolving College Presidency: Emerging Trends, Issues, and Challenges, "The President as Chief Purpose Officer" discuss the role of the campus president as chief purpose officer as well as chief executive officer and explore the implications of word choice in fulfilling an institution's mission.

Higher education’s serious fault lines were evident even before COVID-19 interrupted the Spring 2020 semester and beyond. Consequently, the disruptions were more severe than expected and the recovery has taken longer.

Much has been said about the heavy reliance on student tuition supported by ever more student debt, increasing levels of tuition discounting, rising levels of campus debt for facilities, expanded commitments to marketing and branding that seem to exceed attention given to academic quality, and generally poor student success metrics, among others.

However, much less has been said about two other dynamics in contemporary higher education. These dynamics, which have disrupted relations between and among boards of trustees, presidents, and campus faculty, have threatened the traditions of shared governance.

The first dynamic concerns the way boards of trustees are composed. Under 15% of American college and university trustees have professional experience in higher education. One cannot imagine a corporation like Google or Amazon declaring that 85% of its directors knew little if anything about the characteristics, economics, and competitive landscape of their enterprise. Yet college and university trustees, whether nominated or elected through a political process as at public institutions or approved by a self-perpetuating board at private institutions, are not selected for their knowledge of higher education or their governance acumen. (Scott, March/April 2021.)

The second dynamic is the evolution of the college and university president’s role. Campus presidents have variously been described as cheerleaders, budget masters, lobbyists, sales reps, high-stakes panhandlers, promoters, and entrepreneurs. Too seldom are they thought of as educators, the keepers of an institution’s mission and legacy for transformational teaching and learning.

Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) focus on size and scale, organization and delegation, short-term goals, the efficiency of means, money and markets, customers, personnel, and labor. By contrast, Chief Purpose Officers (CPOs) focus on mission and meaning, the long-term, the integrity of ends and means, student success, and faculty as partners in a moral and noble enterprise. This change in the president’s perspective is due in large part to the composition of boards, the focus on money, whether state appropriations, fundraising, debt service, or state and federal compliance requirements.

A third dynamic in the current campus environment is the failure of boards and presidents to prepare faculty members for their roles in governance and leadership. After all, faculty are closest to the students whom institutions are chartered to serve, and they are integral to the fulfillment of institutional missions. Higher education leaders cannot fulfill their commitment to shared governance if the parties to it are unprepared for their roles in it.

All three dynamics exacerbate the increasingly corporate style of higher education institutions. To change course, board members must be selected and educated for their role; presidents must be encouraged and rewarded for service as Chief Purpose Officer as well as Chief Executive Officer; and faculty must be prepared for their involvement in governance and leadership. In addition, all three parties must monitor the alignment between mission and goals on the one hand and rewards and results on the other. By monitoring alignments, the parties to shared governance can ensure that the goals for student learning are supported by resource allocations and rewards. (Scott, Volume 11, 2020.)

Concerns about alignment in governance and leadership
Some of the concerns about alignment in campus governance and leadership in addition to graduation rates are illustrated by these gaps between mission, goals, strategies, resource allocation, rewards, and results. These issues are explored the chapter from which this blog post is drawn.

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