BY GLENN COLBY

Today the AAUP released a report on data collected from the 2024 AAUP Community College Shared Governance Survey, conducted in partnership with the Center for the Study of Community Colleges. This first-of-its-kind survey of community college shared governance provides information about what practices prevail nationally across twenty-six areas of institutional decision-making and how they compare with normative standards of academic governance in community colleges, filling an important and often overlooked void in the higher education governance literature.

Overall, the results of this survey present a mixed picture of community college shared governance. Key findings include:

• At most responding institutions, and especially at responding institutions with tenure systems, faculty authority is consistent with AAUP-recommended governance standards in decision-making about programmatic, departmental, and institutional curricula; teaching assignments; salary policies; and faculty searches, evaluations, and tenure and promotion standards.
• However, in several decision-making areas, including budgets, buildings, provost selection, and strategic planning, community college faculty have few meaningful opportunities to participate. In these areas, community colleges deviate from the principles set forth in the AAUP’s 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, which emphasizes faculty involvement in personnel decisions and budget preparation.
• Statistically significant differences in the level of faculty authority between unionized and nonunionized colleges appear in only three of the twenty-six areas, a finding that mirrors that in the AAUP’s 2021 Shared Governance Survey of four-year institutions. Specifically, institutions where the faculty engages in collective bargaining have higher levels of faculty authority in areas related to salary policies teaching loads, and, in the case of community colleges, full-time non-tenure-track faculty promotion decisions.
• Across most areas of academic and personnel decision-making, levels of faculty authority are lower at community colleges than at four-year institutions. However, faculty members at community colleges have more involvement in salary policies than those at four-year institutions; the difference is likely related to the higher prevalence of institutions with collective bargaining in the community college sector.

Read the full report here.

The survey was administered in fall 2024 to one respondent (senate chairs or faculty governance leaders in a similar role) at each of a simple random sample of 507 community colleges. We asked respondents to assess twenty-six areas of decision making on a scale that ranges from administrative dominance to faculty dominance. The response rate was 12 percent. Although the 12 percent response rate to this inaugural survey of community college shared governance was neither unexpected nor out of the norm for online surveys, the total number of respondents is low enough that we caution against generalizing findings to the entire universe of community colleges.

Although differences between the four-year and community college sectors render comparisons relatively useless, both in theory and in practice, toward the end of this report we provide some information about how results from this survey relate to those of the AAUP’s 2021 Shared Governance Survey of four-year institutions to illustrate how areas of faculty authority may vary among institutional types and to paint a more comprehensive picture of the landscape of shared governance in US higher education.

Community college–based faculty members and administrators can use the tools described in this report to assess governance practices at their institutions to identify areas where levels of faculty authority might be strengthened. Along with the AAUP’s previous national shared governance surveys at four-year colleges and universities, this report and its associated tools complement the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities and help paint a more comprehensive picture of the landscape of shared governance in US higher education. Together they can help community college governing board members, administrators, faculty members, students, and other campus community members work together to establish sound structures and procedures.

Glenn Colby is senior researcher in the AAUP’s Department of Research and Public Policy.