BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL In our new book – How to Run a College: A Practical Guide for Trustees, Faculty, Administrators and Policymakers – Dr. Joey King and I lay out the case for revitalizing the shared governance structure under which higher education institutions operate. We see governance, especially at the trustee level, as a significant…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Writing in a recent front-page story in the Boston Globe, Deirdre Fernandez reported that Merrimack College “has recalibrated its approach to move away from the traditional liberal arts offering – and the strategy is working.” Ms. Fernandez noted that Merrimack is among a handful of small private colleges that have avoided drastic…
BY MICHAEL DECESARE The AAUP will hold its shared governance conference and workshops at the Loews Madison Hotel in Washington, DC, September 30 – October 2, 2016. Proposals are now being accepted for presentations on topics relating to academic governance (read the call for proposals). The conference will also include a series of training workshops…
Last week, Marywood University’s student newspaper reported that the faculty had taken votes of no confidence in the university’s president and its vice president of business affairs and treasurer. With 135 of the 182 eligible faculty voting, the percentages who expressed no confidence were 71 and 88, respectively. The vote, which took place online between…
Joint Statement of the UW-Milwaukee AAUP, UW-Whitewater AAUP, and UW-Madison AAUP executive committees to the UW System Tenure Policy Task Force. Milwaukee, Whitewater, and Madison, 17 September 2015 The University of Wisconsin has a one hundred year-long tradition of upholding the principles of academic freedom and shared governance as set forth by the American Association…
“Change in any industry is difficult, but it is particularly problematic in higher education with its unique culture and history of shared governance.” So begins the description of the first “module” offered by the new Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership. The Academy, which launches in November, bills itself as “the premier training ground for those…
By Elena Levy-Navarro, University of Wisconsin at Whitewater I write this as the state house leaders announce they have reached an agreement over the Wisconsin budget. If it is agreed upon on Thursday, they will craft the final bill. As of now, all we know about the discussions is what has been reported: namely, that…
BY LARRY G. GERBER This is a guest post by Larry G. Gerber, a contributor to the recent January-February issue of Academe. Gerber is professor emeritus of history at Auburn University. He is the author of several books, including most recently The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance: Professionalization and the Modern American University (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). Gerber is a…
This is a guest post by Miranda Merklein, a contributor to the recent September-October issue of Academe. Merklein is the acting president of the Santa Fe Community College-AAUP chapter, where she works as an adjunct professor. She also teaches at Northern New Mexico College. Follow her on Twitter @MirandaMerklein. The organizing drive really picked up over the…
It is almost impossible for those who live outside the academy to understand and appreciate how American colleges and universities govern themselves. Basically, college governance has three partners – the faculty, the administration, and the trustees. It’s commonly thought to be a kind of “three-leg” stool with each leg required to be strong enough to…