College and Research Libraries DWIGHT R. LADD Myths and Realities of University Governance The traditional view of academic governance that the university is a self-governing community of scholars is a myth. The fact is there are a number of groups, both inside and outside the institution, involved in governance, each with its own interests and in conflict with one another. Recognizing this fact, we can approach governance realis- tically and devise a reasonably workable system which toill deal with the paramount issue of jurisdiction. THIS IS A DIFFICULT TIME to discuss uni- versity governance, especially if one would like to be at all definitive. We are in the midst of a transition from a rather long period of "growth and gran- deur," to use Kenneth Boulding's apt alliteration, to a highly uncertain, if not declining, future. The dimensions of our uncertainty are generally famil- iar. Our financial problems are so well known that they even have a more or less official name, "the New Depression in Higher Education." The press no longer pays much attention to us, and when it does it is mostly to announce that we have lost public confidence. 1 En- rollments are dropping, faculty posi- tions are scarce, and tenure is being at- tacked from all sides as a result. Above all, we generally seem to be thoroughly unable to respond effectively to the buf- feting we have been taking, and in part, this is a problem of governance. A time Dwight R. Ladd is professor, Whittemore School of Business and Economics, Univer- sity of New Hampshire. This article is based upon. an address delivered at a meet- ing of the Association of College and Re- search Libraries, July 7, 1974, in New York. of stress requires efficient and effective decision making, and few would argue that either term describes academic de- cision making. Our typical governance procedures are simply not suited for the present time of deep uncertainty and rapid change. Yet we seem unable to make our governance procedures more effective, because we cling to the tradi- tional view of ourselves as a "self-gov- erning community of scholars." This self-view involves some very basic myths: that we are self-governing, and that we are a community, let alone a community · of scholars. More than one social organization has sustained itself and prospered on the basis of myths, but in our case the myths have outlived any usefulness they may have had. They prevent us from recognizing that for better or worse the university is made up of and functions for a congeries of interest groups which do not share a ba- sic consensus about the institution's val- ues, goals, and processes, and who are quite regularly in conflict. Failure to recognize this keeps us from attempting to devise governance structures more ap- propriate to our character and, there- fore, far more likely to provide the ef- ficient and effective decision making these troubled times call for. I 97 98 I College & Research Libraries • March 1975 THE MYTH OF SELF-GOVERNMENT Perhaps the most dangerous of our myths is that governance is basically the function and prerogative of "insiders" -faculty, academic administrators, stu- dents, professional staff, and so on. Most of our discussions about gov- ernance have to do with the nature and extent of participation by one or anoth- er of these groups. We ignore the many "outsiders" -state coordinating board~, legislatures, governors, federal offices- who are potentially, and increasingly, in practice, a part of governance. We also tend to ignore the important class of "in-betweeners," primarily our boards of trustees. Ignoring these groups when we deal with governance is danger<;>us, because while we argue among ourselves about our jurisdictions and our prerogatives, they may end up doing the actual governing. In its 1973 report on governance, the Carnegie Commission observed that we are in the midst of a "transfer of au- thority from the campus to outside agencies."2 The outsiders are indeed making more of the decisions tradition- ally made on campus. Whether a par- ticular institution will offer instruction in a particular subject is now often de- cided by a coordinating board and not by the institution itself. Legislatures regularly consider, and sometimes pass, regulations of faculty teaching loads and minimum class sizes. Nor are pub- licly controlled institutions the only ones experiencing this transfer of au- thority. For example, "Affirmative Ac- tion," whatever its merits, is a very di- rect infringement on what is surely one of the most fundamental of all profes- sional prerogatives, control over admis- sion to the guild. Affirmative Action ap- plies equally to public and private in- stitutions. Nor should one ignore the in- creasing tendency of "inside" issues to be referred to the courts for adjudica- tion-a transfer of authority to out- siders which may be rather more subtle than direct action by a legislature, but which may also be rather niore difficult to reverse if reversal should seem de- sirable. Legal precedents resulting from court decisions do not just go away. To recognize this shift in the locus of governance is not to know what to say or to do about it. There really are no relevant experiences or parallels on which to draw. One thing can be said with a good deal of confidence: If the shift of authority to outsiders becomes very widespread we will be in a very new and different ball-game. Leaving aside trustees, the in-betweeners dis- cussed below, decisions about basic edu- cational policies, standards, professional activities, and so on have always been made by insiders, primarily academic administrators and faculty. Whatever else their disagreements, these insiders have generally shared an understanding about certain traditional norms and values; but with a significant shift of power to outsiders, this understanding would, for better or worse, be lost. There are some questions which are un- answerable, some actions which are not justifiable in any conventional, nonaca- demic sense, yet which are answered and justified within the academy by those who are initiated into its true faith. For example, Why does Professor X teach only one course to just four students? Why does the library have to own a copy of the Bay Psalm Book? Why are there courses in classical Greek when only seven students take it? Of course, such questions should be asked, and our failure in recent times to have asked them often enough is surely a major reason why ~e are now in trouble. But even when they are asked, the reasoning underlying the answers is deeply rooted in the university culture, a culture not readily accommodated to the practical world of affairs. It is not to criticize out- siders from that practical world to ob- serve that values which are self-evident to us may not be self-evident to them, and perhaps cannot be made so. It has not been my intention to praise or condemn this transfer of authority to outsiders, but simply to point out that while we in the academy struggle over our jurisdictions, we may find (when and if we settle them) that there will be nothing of importance to exer- cise jurisdiction about. In this as in many other matters, we are alarmingly like the railroads who for years have competed busily among themselves for business-so busily that they completely ignored the trucks, pipelines, and barges that emerged from changing technology and took away most of the railroads' business while they warred among them- selves. I am enough of a traditionalist about higher education to hope that this does not happen to us. We did get fat, careless, and enamored of our own importance during the glory years, and some difficult drying out is inevita- ble. Surely we must pay more attention to the needs of all our constituents and the resources of our supporters. How- ever, there are some vital, albeit very fragile, aspects of higher education whose protection and nurture require a. very special kind of understanding- an ideal, perhaps-which is not likely to be a part of governance by outsiders. Trustees are also involved in this transfer of authority. As the Carnegie Commission observed, there was until quite recently a general consensus that boards of trustees should watch ·out for the money, care for grounds and build- ings, and appoint a good president. 3 Consensus there may have been on this limited role, but no longer. In a recent poll, 599 board chairmen agreed that "trustees should assume a bigger role in handling such issues as faculty work- loads, tenure, and even the content of the curriculum."4 Ralph Besse, a lawyer and member of the former Carnegie Commission, asserted, "The very essence of the university is wrapped up in these two phrases-'what is taught' and 'how University Governance I 99 it is taught.' . . . I believe that the re- sponsibility of trustees in both areas is very great. . . ."5 According to reporter Malcolm Scully, the trustees to whom Besse spoke agreed that they "must be- come more involved in the academic and curricular issues that faculty mem- bers have seen as their own territory."6 It is virtually certain that in the com- ing years trustees will be more involved in governance than most of them have been in recent years, but their greater involvement may not be as contrary to traditional norms as I have suggested outsiders' may be. This is why I refer to trustees as in-betweeners. Trustees are rather more likely to identify them- selves with the institution than with out- side constituencies, more likely to accept some of the unique values of the acad- emy. But even if they do, assumption of active jurisdiction by trustees over "inside" affairs will create a very differ- ent environment from what most of us have long been used to. THE MYTH oF CoMMUNITY The second half of the myth is the myth of community and its operational handmaiden-consensus. Membership in the community has steadily been ex- panded, well beyond any meaningful limit; and consensus about institutional goals, values, and processes has largely been shattered. Both changes largely re- sult from the same underlying phenom- ena, but they need to be discussed sep- arately. Whether or not the community of scholars ever did exist in fact, it has been disappearing for some time. It partly disappeared in the smoke of Jencks and Riesman's Academic Revolu- tion: Rapid growth, increasing diversi- ty and specialization, and movement of faculty outside the ivory tower into the world of affairs all undermined what- ever community may have existed among the faculty. It became rather thoroughly lost when we began, in the 100 I College & Research Libraries • March 1975 late 1960s, to expand our definition of community to include students, profes- sional staff, and more. These various groups may well have a right to a voice in university decision making, but it is surely as groups with unique interests that they speak, and not as members of a community of scholars. Their unique interests preclude, in most cases, the ba- sic consensus which is the operational basis of a true community. With very rare exceptions, universities have always had faculty and students, and through most of history they have been two quite separate interest groups, generally engaged in some form of con- flict. 7 For one thing, they are, and in some sense must be separated by the cer- tifying function. As long as the degree is awarded on the basis of achievement defined and measured by designated ex- perts, there cannot be true community of students and faculty. Certification involves faculty in a kind of authority and power over students which cannot be wished away. For another thing, and I know that this has almost become cliche, students and faculty do have different time perspectives. Student at- tachment to the university is, except for those few preparing for academic ca- reers, quite transitory, whereas the fac- ulty member normally devotes a life- time to it. While it is, I think, another, minor myth that faculty members have only the long-run welfare of the insti- tution at heart (we are about as self- centered as any other group), it is gen- erally the case that faculty have a broader and deeper perspective of the past and are better able than students to think of the institution's future in a long perspective. (This does not mean that faculty will always act with the best long-run future of the institution in mind. Our recent responses to pro- posals to cut out tenured positions in the face of declining enrollments have not always been exemplary; but at least the potential is there.) None of this is to denigrate the value of listening to and consulting with stu- dents. I think most of us learned in the late 1960s that they did have something to tell us about what higher education and its institutions had become. It is to say that because of the university's cer- tifying function, because certification is the primary interest of most students, because of differing time perspectives, and from that, a different relationship to the institution, faculty and students cannot make up a true community. Universities have not always had ad- ministrators, but most American uni- versities have had them during their his- tory, and today administrations come in battalion or regimental sizes. It is fash- ionable among many faculty to con- demn the growth of administration, but most of what administrators do has to be done, and I am not aware of any great willingness by faculty to give up the time required to do them. We have institutions with student bodies number- ing in the tens of thousands and facul- ties in the thousands. Libraries of a million or more volumes are not uncom- mon. The trivium and quadrivium have been joined in the curriculum by psy- cho-linguistics, biophysics, advanced bas- ketball, and a host of others, while ex- pensive computers and electron micro- scopes have joined paper and chalk as commonplace tools of instruction and research. There is a constant need to raise money, along with a growing num- ber of ways in which its use must be ac- counted for. There is a parking prob- lem. The contemporary university is simply too large, too complex, and too . expensive to be run by part-time ama- teurs, however gifted. Compared with faculty and students, it is surely easier for faculty and ad- ministrators to form something of a community if for no other reason than that most administrators are recruited from faculty ranks. By and large, they share an understanding of academic mores and traditions, and they have much the same time perspective. Never- theless, there is, inevitably, something of an employer-employee relationship involved, however much it may be cam- ouflaged by the rhetoric and social be- havior of colleagueship. Furthermore, administrators work in a hierarchy much more akin to that of industry and government. They are much more di- rectly accountable to superiors and out- siders than are most faculty members, especially in a short-run sense. I can spend years and years working on '~my book," but my dean has to develop and stick with an annual budget, has to re- spond to unhappy or angry parents, and has to placate various outsiders (some- times even me) who think we should or should not be doing this or that. Further to confound the vision of community is the growing army of pro- fessional staff on most campuses. Com- putation centers, counseling centers, budgets and reports, fund-raising, neighborhood relations, audiovisual cen- ters, and so on and so on do not just happen. They require trained and skilled professionals who have a profes- sional stake in the institution. Yet I think it cannot be denied that there is a gulf between professional staff and faculty. The activities in which profes- sional staff are engaged are, in the eyes of most faculty, ancillary to the main- stream activities of teaching and · re- search. Furthermore, professional staff inevitably have a style different from that of most faculty members. Rather than the endless discussion and contin- ued refinement of intellectual subtleties so characteristic of faculty activity, pro- fessional staff people generally have to make decisions in a timely fashion on the basis of the best information avail- able. Businessmen have long criticized faculty members as "dreamers who nev- er met a payroll." In a sense, staff pro- fessionals could have the same general view of faculty. University Governance I 101 I will not attempt to add to what I have already said about outsiders. They do participate in institutional govern- ance, yet there is no way I can see in which they can be made a part of a "community" in the operational and ideological sense of that term. THE MYTH OF CoNSENsus With or without considering out- siders, we have so expanded our notions of legitimate participation and member- ship, that we simply do not have a com- munity as a viable basis for governance. Furthermore, even if we could agree on a workable basis for membership in the community we would not have gained very much, because community is effec- tive ,as a basis for governance only if there is some kind of consensus about the basic goals, values, and processes on which the community rests. With such a basic consensus, most issues can be re- solved through reasonable discussion, rather than through the avowedly po- litical process of forming tactical al- liances, devising parliamentary strate- gies, and so on.8 If we ever did have such a consensus about academic goals, values, and processes, it has been shat- tered by the academic revolution, the student movement, and the loss of pub- lic (and perhaps self) confidence. Certainly the primary educational ob- jective is scholarship. This is an objec- tive which reflects such values as ration- al thought and behavior, objectivity, personal detachment, belief in the cog- nitive, and the authority of knowledge. With those values dominating, the teacher is placed at the center of the learning process, and teaching is primar- ily subject-centered. Most campuses, however, have at least small groups of faculty, students, and others who see personal development of the student as the principal educational goal. This goal involves such values as belief in the personal and subjective, experiential learning, the importance of feelings, 102 I College & Research Libraries • March 1975 and the authority of every individual being. Such goals and values tend to be reflected in teaching which is student- centered, and which is more concerned with values and attitudes than with facts and theories. And increasingly in the present economic climate, there are many on most campuses whose educa- cational objective is career preparation. (My son, a junior at Brown, recently characterized such students as "up- tight, preprofessionals.") These people value the practical over the theoretical and relationships with practitioners and the outside world over academic and in- tellectual contacts. Service, rather than scholarship or personal development, tends to be their guiding concept. 9 The foregoing, brief description of differ- ent value sets found in contemporary academia has been cast in terms of fac- ulty, but there is an increasing tendency for groups of faculty, students, and administrators to coalesce around a pro- gram reflecting one or another of these. What this does, of course, is to add still another set of unique interest groups which cuts across the more or less func- tional groupings which were described earlier. Whether consisting of faculty alone or of faculty and other adherents, these three groups share very little consensus about educational goals, values, and processes. They may be, and regularly are, engaged in debates and discussions about curriculum, standards, grading, and so on, but they rarely achieve last- ing decisions. The cognitively oriented chemist will simply not recognize en- counter groups as a legitimate academic pursuit. The practical-minded account- ant or engineer will accept applied mathematics, but will not value the ab- stractions and aesthetics of theoretical mathematics. The student-centered pro- fessor will tend to reject lectures, pre- scribed reading lists, and objective tests. When these groups come together to make institutional decisions about aca- demic matters, even interminable dis- cussion will not produce a decision ac- ceptable to all. Because they assume community and consensus where none exist, our governance processes tend to be characterized by endless, and rarely reasonable, discussion and few real deci- sions on matters of consequence. Per- haps we are lucky that more decision- making authority has not moved to out- siders. A REALISTIC APPROACH TO GOVERNANCE What we have, then, is a kind of in- terest group pluralism in the university with several groups of insiders, the trustees as in-betweeners, and several groups of outsiders, each with a some- what unique stake and unique interest in the institution. On rare occasions- a Martian invasion might be one-these diverse interests would come together around a basic consensus about the uni- versity, but most of the time two or more groups will be in conflict. Our governance structure should reflect this. It should be designed to deal with con- flict rather than to ratify consensus, which is what it has generally been de- signed to do. We need to have a gov- ernance structure which recognizes that we are not a "self-governing community of scholars," that outsiders do have a legitimate voice in our affairs, that con- flict rather than consensus is our normal posture, and that a rapidly changing en- vironment requires timely and efficient decision making. I believe it is possible to devise a rea- sonable workable system for these con- ditions, if one thinks only in terms of insiders and trustees. I confess that I see no effective way of including out- siders. Such things as state coordinating boards are, in reality, the antithesis of institutional self-government. They came into being to correct distortions and excessive costs in the system and to prevent future distortions and excesses, both of which result from the self-cen- teredness of individual institutions. Some government by outsiders is bound to exist for a very long time to come. If most of us insiders believe, as I do, that this should be limited, I believe that the most and best that we can do is to put our own house in order and demon- strate that we can make policies and de- cisions which are sensitive to. the needs and constraints of outsiders, and that we can do so effectively. Effectiveness begins with recognition that we are not a community, that we are a collection of diverse interest groups with separate and distinct goals and values. We cannot define the one true path to follow through any amount of reasonable, community dis- cussion. Each group wants to follow its own path with a minimum of diversion, and therefore jurisdiction becomes the paramount issue. Who decides is often as important as what is decided. In a true community, jurisdiction is not an issue, and because we cling to the myth of community, we often are involved in unstructured debates about jurisdic- tion when we think we are debating the substance of issues. The results are rare- ly effective. Broadly speaking, there are two ways of dealing with the jurisdictional issue. One approach is to create a broadly rep- resentative body whose sole function would be to decide who decides. The other approach would be to attempt to solve the jurisdictional issue once and for all by centralizing all decision mak- ing in an acceptable way. The first approach is to create a body representing all of the interest groups which would have as its sole function deciding who decides. The group could function either in a steering or appel- late role. In the first case, all issues re- quiring decision would be referred to this body, which after reviewing the is- sue and possible solutions would rule that it would go to an academic subunit (e.g., a college or school within a univer- University Governance I 103 sity), to the faculty senate or its equiv- alent, to a similar student group, or, per- haps, one representing professional staff. In many, perhaps most cases, the administrative hierarchy would be the appropriate locus for the particular de- cision. Obviously, some issues would be referred to more than one group, and some rules for resolving split decisions would be needed. If the jurisdictional body functioned in an appellate role, it would decide on jurisdiction only when some interest group challenged the assumption of jurisdiction by an- other such group. Which approach, steering or appellate, is most appropri- ate would depend on the situation in a particular institution. To the best of my knowledge, no uni- versity has developed such a system, though my own is presently contemplat- ing the introduction of something very much like it. Some obvious difficulties are defining the interest groups which should be represented in such a body, and especially recognizing and including interest groups or constituencies which develop after the body has been formed. There is also the possibility that one or another of the interest groups would not accept a decision denying it jurisdiction. To that latter objection, I can only reply that unless we are willing to accept some level of decision as final and binding, there is no point at all in talking about governance systems. Raw power would then become the arbiter. Centralization of decision making would tend to eliminate jurisdictional quarrels, and I believe it can be done without a real violation of whatever as- pects of community and consensus re- main. What is involved is the adapta- tion of the idea of responsible govern- ment to the university. The trustees would select a chief executive officer who would have de facto power of de- cision within the university, which pow- er includes, of course, the power to dele- 104 I College & Research Libraries • March 1975 gate. The chief executive officer would be responsible for the use of full pow- er in the sense that any of the · recog- nized interest groups could at any time indicate a lack of confidence in the de- cisions of the chief executive, follow- ing which his or her performance would be reviewed and his or her tenure either terminated or continued by the trustees. Procedural arrangements would no doubt differ somewhat among institu- tions but should always insure that legit- imate grievances would be heard while safeguarding against purely capricious charges of no confidence. This system would require that boards of trustees be reconstituted so that all of the legitimate interest groups would be represented in its membership, for only if all have a voice in the selec- tion of the chief executive and in re- views of his performance, would the legitimacy of his power be accepted. It would also require acceptance by trust- ees that its principal functions would be selection and review. Within the in- stitution, the same arrangements could, and no doubt should, apply to subordi- nate administrative officers to whom the chief executive would delegate power. In some measure, many institutions are working toward this system by ap- pointing presidents, provosts, deans, etc., for fixed terms, and reviewing perform- ance at the end of those terms. What has not yet happened, as far as I know, is that the various interest groups have been willing to relinquish whatever ves- tiges or fantasies of power they have. (This may be happening, too. I have re- cently been involved with two institu- tions which faced the absolute financial necessity of eliminating some faculty positions. In both cases, the administra- tion presented the faculty with the re- quirement and asked the latter to make the decision. After deliberation, due and undue, both faculties returned to the president saying, in effect, "You do it. We can't.") Properly instituted, I believe that such a system would provide safeguards against arbitrary and unchecked power, because the board which would make the decisions on appointment and re- moval would be characterized by legiti- macy and would be relatively detached from the day-to-day affairs and passions of the institution. Nor would involve- ment and consultation be eliminated. The extreme complexity of the modem university makes nonconsultative gov- ernment virtually impossible. No execu- tive could possibly know about and un- derstand all of the diverse things going on. He would have to have advice and counsel from those who do have the necessary familiarity and would seek it. Without it, he would surely increase the risk of making badly conceived deci- sions which could lead to his recall and removal from office. In practice, the function would be much like that of the jurisdictional body described above. The chief executive would decide which of the constituencies should be consulted or delegated to for any par- ticular issue, and would conduct the necessary dialogue with them. CoNCLUSION I have no doubt that experience would indicate many necessary modifica- tions in either of these proposals, but I argue that they or something quite like them must be tried. The longer we cling to governance systems based on the myth that we are a community with a widely shared consensus about educa- tional goals and values, the longer we will continue to fail to respond to a changed and changing environment be- cause we will continue to be bogged down in jurisdictional disputes. And the longer we behave in that way, the great- er the risk that we will lose all vestiges of reality behind the other part of our myth-self-government. Those outside the academy are clearly impatient with us. They may already have decided that t we cannot govern ourselves effectively. I prefer to think that we still have some time to shed our myths and prove that we can. REFERENCES 1. George N. Bonham, "Change and the Aca- demic· Future," Change 6:9-12,64 (June 1974). 2. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, Governance of Higher Education: S·ix Pri- ority Problems (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), p.l. 3. Ibid., p.31-36. 4. Malcolm G. Scully, '' Many Trustees Seek to Assert More Control," Chronicle of Higher University Governance I 105 Education 8:1-2 (May 6, 1974). 5. Ralph M. Besse, "All _the King's Men," AGB Reports 16:4 (May/June 1974). 6. Scully, "Many Trustees," p.2. 7. Frederic Rudolph, The American College and University (New York: Vintage Books, 1962); Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1965). 8. Richard C. Richardson, Jr., "Governance Theory: A Comparison of Approaches," Journal of Higher Education 45:344-54 (May 1974). 9. Dwight R. Ladd and Allan R. Cohen, "The Need for New Organizational Structures," in Reform of Undergraduate Education, ed. B. Sagan (forthcoming). INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS Manuscripts of articles submitted to College & Research Libraries are to be sent to the Editor: Richard D. Johnson, James M. Milne Library, State University College, Oneonta, NY 13820. Manuscripts should be in two copies and typed in double space. The title, name and affiliation of the author, and an abstract of 75 to 100 words should precede the article. Notes are to be consecutively numbered throughout the manu- script and typed in double space on separate sheets at the end. The journal follows A Manual of Style, 12th ed., rev. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969) in matters of bibliographic style; and recent issues of this journal may be consulted as well.