Trustees, in consultation with the other constituencies, periodically choose new leadership for the institution, and hold fiduciary responsibility, but they delegate day-to-day internal governance to faculty, students, and staff.
Our decision-making processes -- rooted in notions of sharing governance with faculty (and students) -- are both inefficient and medieval, and allow faculty to resist needed changes.
From the corporate viewpoint, traditional notions of shared governance and faculty autonomy are a nuisance that impedes administrative "flexibility".
In university governance, the faculty was the final authority.
Colleges and universities have shared governance with faculty that has no counterpart conceptually in non-academic settings.
The result has been a remarkable experiment in the introduction of academic autonomy, including the introduction of a board of trustees to whom the university president is answerable, transparent systems of research evaluation and external review, and a role in governance for faculty and students.
Representatives of both the administration and faculty governance, including those involved in tenure and promotion decisions, should move to allay these fears.
Faculty governance is about giving faculty the right to make all decisions within the academy pertaining to their domains of expertise, most significantly hiring decisions.
The formal document that outlines the program, the Guidelines for Postdoctoral Appointments, Training and Education, received final approval from the School of Medicine administration and all faculty governance bodies in May 2000.
The great research universities, she said, have achieved their dominant position in the world through shared faculty governance, and leaving faculty both academic and research freedom.
Universities have problems of governance, but a faculty union would erode the intellectual foundation of a university.
