Abstract
The purpose of the study was to profile the state of faculty governance in US higher education. The survey was based the National Data Base on Faculty Involvement in Governance. Using a similar protocol, the study used survey research with a sample of research university faculty senate presidents. Results include a growing use of non-tenure track faculty and faculty with little senate experience being elected to lead senates. The presidents indicated that the skills most necessary to them are problem analysis, judgement, sensitivity, and oral/written communication skills. They perceived their primary task as developing a sense of direction for the senate, and the most critical issue they face is one of determining institutional priorities. The study was limited to only one type of institution (research-centered) in one country (the United States), and with a 38% response rate to the survey. A growing number of non-tenure track faculty have been identified as leading senates and that there is a group of ‘fast-track’ senators with limited experience being elected into leadership positions. This means that there may be significant changes in how shared governance is being socially constructed. The study re-establishes the annual survey of faculty senate leaders, and longitudinal data will be critical in determining the future of faculty senates. Findings have immediacy in helping senate presidents and administrators understand the changing role of senates, how they see themselves, and what they value.
Highlights
The American perspective on higher education includes a strong, historical inclusion of shared governance (Rosser, 2003)
The purpose of the study was to profile the state of faculty governance in US higher education
The study was limited to only one type of institution in one country, and with a 38% response rate to the survey
Summary
The American perspective on higher education includes a strong, historical inclusion of shared governance (Rosser, 2003). Trends in higher education management, whether directed by boards of trustees, leader motivation, financial distress, student demand or some other prompt continue to place the administrative and managerial function of the academy at the forefront of decision-making The result of this movement is a continued refocusing on what faculty governance units engage in and the content of the agendas that they implement each year. The corporate perspective of institutional operations, a perspective that stresses financial gain and stability, has grown and has come to stress efficiency and profit over process (Ilyas, 2017) This means that the historically-rooted shared decision-making that has been an integral part of the academy has, to some extent, become threatened (Vican, Friedman, & Andreasen, 2020). Once an open process that stressed stakeholder input, many of these searches are conducted in private with only a final candidate being presented to the institution (Dettmar & Glick, 2019).
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