Governance Reconsidered E-Book

Susan R. Pierce

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 354

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Revamp senior administration organization for more effective governance Governance Reconsidered: How Boards, Presidents, Administrators, and Faculty Can Help Their Colleges Thrive takes an in-depth look at the current practice of governance in higher education and explores solutions for more effective functioning. Written by a former college president, the book provides an insider's perspective on the growing tensions around the traditional shared governance model and identifies the key challenges facing trustees, presidents, senior administrators, and faculty. Traditional shared governance operations are typically time-consuming, process-laden, and slow to respond to the internal and external forces acting upon modern educational institutions. Higher education is facing increasing political and economic pressure, and senior administration frequently needs the flexibility to make institutional decisions quickly. Using recent public scandals as examples, Governance Reconsidered illustrates how the tension between the need for timely decisions and action versus the importance of mission and academic quality is creating a dramatic systemic problem. The book provides practical advice on the issues at the heart of the matter, including: * The nature and pace of change on campus, including the pressures facing higher education * Clarity about the roles and responsibilities of trustees, the president, and the faculty * The campus community's role in decision-making activities * How thriving universities can govern collaboratively The book also addresses the brand new challenges that affect higher education governance, including MOOCs, online learning, and rising questions about value and cost. Campus leaders must work together effectively to boost higher education, and Governance Reconsidered contains the questions and answers integral to implementing effective governance.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

The Inspiration for This Book

The Intended Audience

The Structure of This Book

Some Explanations for My Readers

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Chapter 1: Shared Governance: Its History and Its Challenges

The Pressures on Shared Governance

Differences in How Shared Governance Has Been Practiced

The History of Shared Governance

Differences over the Nature and Pace of Change

Pressures on Trustees, Presidents, and Faculty to Change

Chapter 2: The Impact of Financial Pressures on Governance

The Causes of Financial Pressures

Efforts to Control Tuition and Limit Growing Financial Aid

The Dangers of Business as Usual in Times of Budget Problems

A Successful, Proactive Approach to Financial Pressures

Chapter 3: The Impact on Governance of Contingent Faculty, Online Learning, and MOOCs

Reliance on Contingent Faculty Affects Governance

Online Courses and MOOCs

Chapter 4: The Impact on Governance of Questions About Higher Education's Value and Cost

Higher Education Is Vulnerable to Criticism

Claims That Colleges Are Failing to Educate Students

Elected Officials Seek to Influence Higher Education

Trustees Are Assuming More Activist Roles

Chapter 5: Cautionary Tales: Protests of Presidential Actions and Lessons for Shared Governance

Chief Financial Officers Seek Academic Cost Reductions

Recommendations for Presidents

Chapter 6: Cautionary Tales: Faculty Failures and Recommendations for Collaboration

Case Studies: Faculties That Resist Administrative Decisions

Recommendations for Faculty Members

Chapter 7: Cautionary Tales: Boards That Fail to Fulfill Their Fiduciary Responsibilities and Recommendations for Changes

Examples of Boards Failing to Provide Oversight

Lessons Learned

Recommendations for Boards

The Complexity of Terminating a President

Recommendations for Boards That Are Confronted with Concerns About Presidential Performance

Chapter 8: Exemplary Tales: Successful Presidents

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Kettering University

American International College

Pitzer College

Commonalities

Resources

References

More from Wiley

Index

End User License Agreement

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Governance Reconsidered

How Boards, Presidents, Administrators, and Faculty Can Help Their Colleges Thrive

The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series

Cover design by Michael Cook

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and is on file with the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-1187-3849-8 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-118-73862-7 (ebk.)

ISBN 978-1-118-73857-3 (ebk.)

First Edition

For my father, Elliott Resneck For my sisters, Linda Resneck DiStefano Krohn and Brenda Resneck Laughery For my daughter and son-in law, Sasha and Steven Seigel For my grandsons, Sean and Ryan Siegel

Foreword

Dr. Susan Resneck Pierce is the celebrated former president of the University of Puget Sound and the author of On Being Presidential, one of the preeminent guides for college and university leaders. With this second contribution, Governance Reconsidered, to the canon of the American academy, she is becoming one of the most consequential scholars of the discipline of higher education. Without leaving anything to the imagination, she inspires the imagination. She writes with clarity and specificity and provides examples and case studies which one can actually use to address a working agenda.

University presidents are burning out like so many moths in a room filled with lit candles. Governance Reconsidered provides an antidote to this melancholy circumstance. To read this book is to experience the scales falling from one's eyes about the management and governance of America's colleges and universities in one of the most daunting times since the Great Depression. Pierce has identified the most significant contemporary challenges to institutions of higher education and their leaders and has provided answers that are insightful and informed by reflection and practice. In her studies she covers shared governance, university financing, university personnel issues, the place of the university in America, and remarkable and fascinating tales of issues addressed by presidents, faculty, and trustees. This book is a tool that will help institutions address their future.

This book will be of interest to all who have any concern whatsoever with the future of our nation's colleges and universities. It will be particularly helpful to policy makers and practitioners and should be read by political leaders, university presidents, and other administrators, including provosts, vice presidents, deans, and department chairs. Faculty who need to be knowledgeable about the institutions which host their work will also benefit from this valuable volume; likewise, students of both university administration and governance. Every trustee of state-supported and independent colleges and universities should receive a copy of this book along with his or her appointment letter. Journalists and others who think and write about the academy should have this on their desk to consult on a regular basis. Parents sending their youngsters off to college, as well as adult learners, should read this volume in order to better understand the institutions with which they are engaged. In other words, this is an important book, perhaps vital, for all.

Someone who reads Governance Reconsidered as well as On Being Presidential will begin to understand the fascinating special world of the American university. The literature will reveal how universities work and don't; will describe generic and unique challenges of university leadership; and will give reason for concern and encouragement. But Pierce's contribution is surely one of the most contemporary and comprehensive available and should be at the top of any such reading list. It is an outstanding contribution and, properly understood and used, will save the career of many a university leader in the demanding days to come.

At age seventy-six, I have not lived long enough to completely understand the meaning of the term “shared governance” as it is applied to colleges and universities and yet it persists, as I have myself said elsewhere, to enjoy an almost religious status in the academy, even while the tempo of faculty deliberations goes on to dominate university decision making. This is as true today as it was one, two, or three decades ago, even as we engage now in an even more taxing environment where large amounts of money are committed and the strategic agenda is increasingly complicated.

The culture of faculty tends to be risk adverse. This is arguably the result of the skill set developed while earning a PhD where the credential was not historically awarded for pyrotechnics. It is hard to recall when the need for sound decisions made in a timely manner was more imperative on campus, and yet our universities have divided into what the late C. P. Snow called, “two cultures”—one of which focuses on decision making while the other makes decisions. And if the second group doesn't apply themselves, then the first may have cause to worry about future compensation and employment. This is not a good thing. Susan Resneck Pierce's book addresses and helps to mitigate the worst concerns that I contemplate. She explains why shared governance must be accompanied by shared responsibility. She illustrates that fiscal concerns involving big data needs full-time attention that is not an easy fit with full-time scholarship and teaching. She shows why when these two cultures come together the meeting is sometimes noisy. The deliberate faculty culture may not fully appreciate that shared governance includes a timely call to action; and that universities are about to be disrupted, as have most recently journalism, medical care, and other historic practices. The reconciliation of faculty and administrators to the common good within the process of vital decision making could not be more imperative. President Pierce's contribution is the right book at the right time.

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is President Emeritus and University Professor of Public Service at The George Washington University. He is the author of five books about higher education, most recently along with Gerald B. Kauvar and E. Grady Bogue, of Presidencies Derailed: Why University Leaders Fail and How to Prevent It (Johns Hopkins University Press).

Preface

In July 1984, two weeks after I began what turned out to be a six-year tenure as the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tulsa, the provost, Thomas F. Staley, gave me important advice. Telling me that I was off to a good start, he cautioned that I might be even more effective if I were a bit more patient. Specifically, he advised me to look both ways before crossing the street.