--- title: How Effective is Shared Governance on Education? | TIME description: A panel discussion moderated by Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow, on how to effectively govern universities at the 2013 TIME Summit on Higher Education. canonical: https://time.com/video/VjAKKBge/ og:title: How Effective is Shared Governance on Education? og:description: A panel discussion moderated by Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow, on how to effectively govern universities at the 2013 TIME Summit on Higher Education. og:url: https://time.com/video/VjAKKBge/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/VjAKKBge/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Effective is Shared Governance on Education? twitter:description: A panel discussion moderated by Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow, on how to effectively govern universities at the 2013 TIME Summit on Higher Education. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/VjAKKBge/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How Effective is Shared Governance on Education? > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How Effective is Shared Governance on Education? [Watch (HLS stream): How Effective is Shared Governance on Education?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/VjAKKBge.m3u8) (27:00)  _Published 2013-09-20. A panel discussion moderated by Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow, on how to effectively govern universities at the 2013 TIME Summit on Higher Education._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:47 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [The University of California Strike Could Reshape Higher Education](/video/1tnuTiJA/) ### The University of California Strike Could Reshape Higher Education [The Challenges of Basic Research in Higher Education](/video/jhrUlLZX/) ### The Challenges of Basic Research in Higher Education [All Hands on Deck for Higher Education](/video/EOYG5qkm/) ### All Hands on Deck for Higher Education --- ## Transcript [ music ] I guess we should begin. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the panel on the infamous subject of governments. This was supposed to be chaired by Larry Barker, who unfortunately was not able to be present and [ UNKNOWN ] in his typical shared governance democratic fashion, said to me, you will be the moderator. And do what else you were going to do. I think he did that because you all know that a Dean is a servant, and Deans are servants. What is the saying? [ COUGH ] Dean is the servant and the administration is the crook. Upon which he leans over himself [ LAUGH ] Or a crook of some kind. A crook of some kind. [ LAUGH ] I guess. Or a mouse studying to be a rat. There you go. So, let me make a few introductory remarks. They're gonna be rather optimistic in nature. And I hope that, that doesn't upset any of you too much. You know, we now of course have the great paradox. On the one hand, an enormous amount of doom and gloom about higher education. On the other hand, some institutions are called the envy of the world. And if you're talking about the envy in the world, Jonathan Cole told us, that there were about 125 research universities that produced most of the significant research in our country. Now, what I would like to argue, maybe put this in terms of lettered to Mr. Putin. I want to tell him that we are exceptional, particularly in the way in which we govern our Universities. And I think in fact that is an important explanation of why they're admired in the world and why they have achieved as much as they have. And I think that our. Research universities share six characteristics that are important and they are important as a group. And they are important in explaining our quality and they also may be important because they are so absent. In lots of other places. And I think that will affect our competitive postion in the future. Is John Echemenda in the room? No. Okay, because I used to call these six necessary conditions. But he gave me a very firm lecutre about what necessary conditions are. He is a logician. So now I call them six characteristics, but if I had known that he wasn't going to be here, I might have said necessary conditions. The first is, and I want to stress, American shared governments. This is often, I think, when people start talking about shared governments, they give the impression as if American universities have ever been participatory democracies. We have never been what existed in Europe. what existed in the colleges, at Oxford and Cambridge. Indeed, what existed in Universities in many different places of the world. Shared governance means that conditional delegation of certain authorities to faculty. But, in American universities, presidents, deans, administrators, have always retained a considerable amount of authority. I think that is extremely important. Second thing is, you know, to an American audience, is obvious, academic freedom. It is lacking in lots of places, including China. Academic freedom in this country also of course includes the rights of the first amendment, that all citizens have. The third characteristic is the merit selection for faculty and students. I realize all the complications. You know, running from an old boy system to, athletics, to affirmative action. Lots of complications, but the basic thrust is married on the basis of some objective standards. And I think on the whole we achieved that very well. The fourth point and it's interesting that many of you have mentioned it, is preservation and transmission of culture. All you know, think of all of the great American polytechnics MIT, Cal Tech, Purdue. They have all made major contributions outside of a narrow definition of science. And I think they do that because I think, in part, because they engage in liberal education at the under graduate level. It produces better students at all levels, and I think the relentless push toward interdisciplinary activities makes it necessary. A fifth point is, a fifth characteristic is, significant human contact. This came up yesterday. You know, there's no doubt that the modern technology will be enormous pluses and in fact I think that one of the big changes that has taken place. Since I was a student is that we now really think about teaching, about learning. How do people learn? How do we do this? How do we do this better? But, I ask all of you to think back to your own education. What comes to your mind? I think of teachers. I can think of teachers and primary school and secondary school and college, graduate school. They are people who in many ways changed my life. I think Bill Bowen calls it, minds rubbing against minds. I do not think that a screen will take the place of that. And the sixth characteristic I would like to mention is that we are all not for profit. If maximizing shareholder value, is the purpose, the previous five characteristics that I listed really the in become nothing but but obstacles. Again, these things are not so clear, all of us engage in for profit activities, but the basic motives remain not for profit. One of the oddest suggestions that I have heard at this meeting is that somehow we don't change. Again, think back of when, as I look around I see a few people who might have graduated before the class of 2000. Think, think back of your own experience, think of what your school was like and think of the situation today. You know, when I think back of my experience, everything was different there were, the departments that exist today are not the same. What they do is not the same. That's after all in many ways the core of the institution, the student body was not the same, I think that we change more than almost any other sector in our society, we changed so much that it becomes difficult to see. Finally, I think that one of the big problems of the moment, because there is a lot of critcism. There are a lot of decisions to be made. I am concerned over the fact that our trustees who are after all the court of last resort. For all of our institutions are not well trained are not, I don't know how to say it. You sometimes get the feeling that we care more about whether or not these people can read a balance sheet. And less about whether they understand the values of the institution. now. Okay. Mark, I wanted to ask Mark to react to some of this from the point of view of. Public institutions. Kay I had try to be brief and say a few things. I, I think actually many of you probably disagree that public lay boards of regions to me work tolerably well. I guess I'm a skeptical sort. I'm amazed they work as well as they do. And they are highly imperfect but I can't think of a perfect formal governance, and may be the governor shouldn't appoint the members, I can imagine different ways of doing it but I don't know that, that will result in error boards. I know elected boards seem to be disastrous. They look around the country that doesn't, seemed to work very well. I do think you need to educate them. And and try to get a greater understanding. And I know it can be aggravating. Look, I'm the guy that has Jerry Brown sitting next to me at every board meeting. And, he has many, many good points but he's like a machine gun of questions and observations while the board meeting's going on. And which leads me to another point, which is, I may now write my book on the governors I've known, from Jerry Brown and Jesse Ventura to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rick Perry, I've had them all. [ LAUGH ] I did wanna comment on this business issue. And, I, I'm of two minds, and I'll just state, on one hand, I'm very taken with the ah, you know the cost of these literature. And you know, I imagine putting on a Mozart clarinet concerto and the the business manager says you gotta cut cost. And someone says I know we'll cut the size of the Orchestra in half. That'll work. Someone else says let's just not go for quite the same quality musicians. And someone else says, I've got a great idea. Let's just videotape it. And we'll show it to people and then you can, have a a, I guess you can have an infinite audience theoretically that way, cause you can or nearly so because you can charge very little. So, you know? There is something special and different about education, and maybe the human touch. On the other hand, I, I, I do think we're, we sometimes don't do very well on the business side of the equation. And my prediction is, we will absorb this technological revolution that everybody is so worried, we won't be able to handle. I mean, we, meaning higher education. The ten years from now, I mean I honestly think what you already see today, is the moral equivalent of Commodore and Wang computers in 1970. I don't think it's gonna look like what we see today. But I think ten years from now, we will be as comfortable with online modules or some variations of that as we are adopting a, a text book written by an author who is not on our faculty. So I, I think that certainly would happen. And the other thing I worry about, and I don't really have a solution to this, but I hear a lot of complaints that go something like this. The state pays 10 % of your budget, they have virtually 100 % of your regents. What should be different? How should it be different? Do you have the students represented in proportion to their tuition? Do we have at the University of California eight or $ 9 billion a year in clinical, medical revenues? Do you have the docs represented? Do you get people from Washington to sit on your board because you do $ 5 billion worth of research? I'm not really quite sure what inference you draw from that. Other than I do think we need some attentiveness to stakeholders. And I think you have seen more of that or at least you know, at the universities I've been apart of. The students have been a, on the board of regents in all three of universities that I've, I've had it you have staff representation. You know, different constituent groups, people have very serious interest in where the university is going. In addition to the more conventional. I donated to the governor's campaign and I'm happy to be on the board of regents. Those I would say are some of, of the major issues, but I am sort of comfortable with the idea, which really comes out of the progressive era. That, you, you don't trust higher education exclusively to the professionals. That it's important to have lay leadership and accountability to the people of the state, to legislature, and to others. no. We thought that John has had a certain amount of experience. With shared governance. And we should ask him to comment. [ LAUGH ] I, I think that means that I am here as to serve some schadenfreude function. [ LAUGH ] Which has been, for many of you my role in your lives. [ LAUGH ] So I'd like to, you know, I, I have some strong views here. And I'd like to get it right out on the table. So, 25 years I've been at this 26 I guess. 14 as dean, and 12 a president of the university. And I had some modest success with the deans, I've had virtually no success with the presidents. When you get an invitation for something that says, ties not required You should come dressed like this. I'm looking out at the room. You know, this an unbelievably, I mean this says something about how conservative you are, as, as, as a group. With that having been made, that's my major point, [ LAUGH ] I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk to something on which my feelings are less intense. [ LAUGH ] And that is this issue of the shared governance. So, it's interesting. I, first of all, wanna thank you, dean. You were never my dean, but you've been my mentor. You and Jaroslav Pelikan have set for me in your two books the frame of what a great university can be at the pinnacle. And I think all of us here feel that way. And I think the six principles you've laid out are, are exactly right. I want to get to shared governance. And I'm a little less sanguine than Mark about where we are. In fact, I think we're at a very, very important inflection point. It, the word hasn't been used much. But if you think about virtually all of the presentations, from last night through right now. Nimbleness is important. We tend to, to, to take, The challenge I'm a huge fran, fan of Fareed's. I was, by the way, one of the presidents that was on the panel about which he spoke last night. I thought, frankly I haven't seen him today to say this, didn't have time last night He completely mischaracterized the reaction of the presidents on that panel. I know it wasn't, it wasn't my, the gist of what I said. I didn't react defensively to the introduction of technology. I think we're going to embrace it. I think, in the great symphony orchestra. and, and there's been a, a, an understandable focus on the research university in recent conversations here. But never forget we're a symphony orchestra of higher education. The idea's getting the right students to the right sections. And making sure everybody has Access to the sections to which they belong. But technology will play a role in all of the sections, including the great research universities, as it already is. I think those that criticize us as, the blacksmiths, and say, you know, you just don't read Christianson enough, don't get, how much is going on. There's a lot of nimbleness, as, as Henry, as, as Henry said. Now, the question is, What is the direction in which we go? Each of us as a part of an orchestra. And how is that determined? Now I would submit to you that we do have these ultimate fiduciary, the trustee. And that, that they in the end have a special role, at least legally to play. And they look at us and take technology as an example. The interesting thing about technology is, they, a lot of them know a lot about technology and they think they know more about technology and higher education than we do. And they see us as a guild. And when I talk about the us, the antecedent of the us there is we faculty, because notwithstanding, we take different roles in the university. We are at least, I think most of us, faculty, that we were put on Earth to be faculty. We remain faculty. We have the faculty soul. And that's the notion of shared governance. May I just [ INAUDIBLE ] does one the experience of University of Virginia recently throw some light on this issue. I, I think you can use the University of Virginia and you can use NYU as in a way as counterpoints. This University of Virginia was where a board of trustees got a far too out in front. Um- hm. Thought they knew far too much, 'kay. And, and, and NYU in a way is, is, is an interesting example of, of the, the other end of the balance. Okay, and be, be because that the fact of the matter is that this is an apologia for being assured. I, I would I would point to several hundred at this point. Saturday sessions with any fact [ UNKNOWN ] wanted to come in for two hours of Open conversation on anything they wanted. The most recent one yesterday. I write these reflections. You can go on my website, and see ten of them that I put out there for ideas, on, on, on the issue, by the way. Which, after ten years of silence with two strategic plan discussions that were university wide. That metastasized some and I would emphasize some. What you see in the media is of course, provocative. But some of our faculty to say they were unhappy with the direction in which the university was going. fran, frankly was when we were successful in getting from the city, 2 million square feet of additional zoning capacity on land we already own. Self evidently saving the university a billion dollars. When we got land we already own. We weren't gonna displace anyone, but the other people on the land we already own were 40 % of our faculty. And we would get. But you do illustrate the point, don't you? And that's Exactly, and, and same mailing, I just wanna finish the point, the same mailing, one day, I got from one of our most illustrious departments an expression of concern, or maybe even opposition, to the building project. And in a different envelope same mailing I requrested 30, 000 square feet of additional space placed right next to where we are now. So the, the, the, the, the university, this is where the nimbleness comes in. Yeah. You know, you, you, we need to be nimble. We need to adapt to technology, to globalization, to everything else. And, and what we cannot do, even with NYU being by some counts other than the government the largest employer in New York. Providing millions of meals, millions of all the complexity of the research university. We can't let the trustees step in and say this looks like a business. And we're gonna run it like a business. And we must maintain the faculty soul of the matter, but it has to be what you said. A trusted delegation. And the fundamental [ UNKNOWN ] of the problem, is, that the minute you become the dean. The minute you become the provost. The minute you become. The, the president, that, in these complex organizations. Where, by and large, you're detailing with wholesale, not retail. You're not a parish priest or a cardinal. You're no longer viewed as a faculty member. Even though that is the driver of everything you do. And the gestalt of America, which is, we don't trust anybody, has infected the universe. Well, we lawyers have contributed to that. What I was going, gonna to say. I agree with that. I mean, and it's just thinking of alternative governance structures. I mean that's what makes it so hard. I think the, the precedence of an obligation to try to educate their, their, their regents or trustees. I mean that's part of it. I agree with the analysis of Virginia, Henry. With what you were saying. They got way out front. Th, the idea that over a weekend they had some razzle dazzle solution to a, an institution hundreds of years old. And they were simply gonna impose this on all the constituencies. It was a genuinely moronic idea. And that, that's the technical legal word. And and by the way, one of the things could happen is in, in all I've been president of something for 16 years. I've only had one member of all the boards of regents on which I've served, that had a former academic on it. I mean it is odd. You know, I mean, if you had the banking industry say you know, on our board, the one thing we don't want is bankers, that would be a terrible idea. I mean, it really would help to have some regents who have been academics who understand the enterprise. I mean, I've never heard of a form, maybe some of you have, but a former president, or former provost, or a dean of something, or a distinguished professor of chemistry or something. It, it doesn't happen. That's not uncommon, I think, in private institutions. [ CROSSTALK ] Well, maybe. I've never seen it in the public institutions I've served. [ INAUDIBLE ]. But, you know? No one, it's not written anywhere that you guys should be happy. Or that you should have an. [ LAUGH ] That you should have an easy life. But the fact is. I'm part of a [ INAUDIBLE ] people, I know that. You are [ INAUDIBLE ]. You know? You are retaining. Authority and a great deal of power. So the delegation, the reason for shared governance is I think, primarily, universities are extremely complex institutions and to govern it entirely from the center would be highly risky. And the other thing is you know, they need, cre, the creative juices of the faculty that you're not going to get. And that, and that's stipulated in the Mark's, Mark's invitation to suggest things that, that might make the faculty capable when they choose to pay attention, and most of the time, frankly. The fact that he would rather be working on their work then be involved in. I wonder. [ LAUGH ] And it's very, very hard work to make some of the decisions. And, but what we've, what we've started doing is even on the, the issue of space for example. We put together uh, uh, faculty committee chosen by the faculty senators or the deans to be credible skeptics. And then they did the hundred hours of work. Running over the same territory. Yeah. That's the, the economists would say highly inefficent. But we had to build crediblity. And low and behold they came to the same result. We did. I think that kind of special ad- hoc structure will be important for key decisions. I think what we lawyers call notice and common rule making on certain, you know, now, I actually floated this and tried this in 2007. Stupidly, not withstanding my Irish- Catholic political roots. The example I chose or the first instance I chose to use notice [ INAUDIBLE ] was graduate student unioinization. It turned out people had strong feelings on that, that, weren't susceptible to, to reasoning, and I walked into a room that was a rally. When I went to my first town hall on it. But I think notice and comment rule making is, but the, we've gotta Five seconds [ CROSSTALK ] trusted delegation. Well, I think those are wise words, and the clock has run down. And thank you both for participating. [ NOISE ] And thank you very much. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Effective is Shared Governance on Education?","description":"A panel discussion moderated by Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow, on how to effectively govern universities at the 2013 TIME Summit on Higher Education.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/VjAKKBge/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2013-09-20T15:46:07.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/VjAKKBge.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/VjAKKBge/","duration":"PT27M","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/VjAKKBge/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```