With the heightened challenges and opportunities facing higher education today, the role of the board is more important than ever. Boards should be seeking engaged trustees who bring creativity and insight to the development of a strategic vision, as well as a willingness to prod and hold accountable university leadership in the execution of that vision.
There are ways that boards can enhance their level of engagement and steps presidents should take to make it easier for trustees to fully engage the college vision.
Trustees need to be informed about issues and innovations in higher education, while also considering those issues in the context of their institution. At Ithaca College, for example, our undergraduate program is composed overwhelmingly of full-time, traditional-aged students who live on or near our campus. So while the declining proportion of college students who fit that profile is of great relevance for us, forms of online course delivery whose intended audiences are part-time and adult students are less so.
The board also has a vital role to play in the execution of the institution’s strategic vision and plan. Although developed by the administrative leadership team in collaboration with the campus, the board must approve the plan as an effective path to realizing the college’s mission. Its role, however, is not limited to approval; the board must fully “own” and understand the plan, articulating it to others so the college can expand its network of support, prodding the president and the leadership team to document progress, and standing behind the plan when (not if!) portions of it encounter resistance from the campus community. Trustees must also be ready to support the goals and priorities of the plan with their personal philanthropy.
The president, in turn, must maintain effective communication with the board on the college’s constraints, opportunities, priorities, and directions, and remain open to supportive challenges from the board, going at least halfway with board members as they translate their experience in other fields of endeavor into lessons of value for the college.
It is also important for the president to create direct lines of communication between the board and the campus, removing the leadership team as the sole translator of vision into educational quality. There is great value in creating opportunities for faculty members and students to articulate directly to trustees the educational program as they experience it. For instance, at Ithaca College, board members attended classes with our students during our board meeting last October, with specific classes selected to illustrate the active learning approaches emphasized in our strategic plan.
Meaningful trustee engagement with the campus is also fostered by combining board members, staff, and faculty in campus task forces. I have asked one board member to join each of our last several vice presidential searches, encouraging them to bring their distinctive perspectives to the committee, enhancing their understanding of the issues we face, and enabling trustees, faculty, and staff to get to know each other while working toward a shared goal.
We have begun to bring the board and campus-planning groups together on the most important issues we face, such as the development of a campus facilities master plan. Our provost and deans have created a faculty group to think about Ithaca College 35 years from now, in the year 2050, and what steps it will take to get there. As their work gets underway, they will be connected with the board to encourage parallel processes of developing big-picture vision and long-run thinking.
The higher education press in recent years has emphasized that this is a challenging time, and they’re right. But it is also a time of great opportunity for any institution able to create and implement a compelling vision that builds on its existing mission. Board engagement is key both to the development of such visions and to their successful execution.
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