From the Board Chair: How a Culture of Innovation Led to a Board Restructuring at Butler University

The word innovation evokes different things for different people, for different departments or divisions, and for different campuses. Like synergy or holistic, innovation seems to be tossed around frequently in marketing and strategic plans. But is innovation just a word sprinkled into mission statements—or is it truly a process taking place on college campuses across the country?

During my tenure serving as both the chair and a member of the board of trustees at Butler University in Indianapolis I have seen an evolution of innovation from buzzword to the basis of our everyday reality. Within the landscape of higher education, the concept of change has often been nuanced–often chastised for being slow to achieve and riddled with bureaucratic barriers. However, with the disruption in higher ed, the shift in student demographics and populations, and the lessons learned during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is obvious that innovation should not be a hollow promise, but rather a substantive metric for boards to evaluate and envision the future of the university at every level.

From the outside looking in, it may seem like the process of leaning into innovation at Butler was gradual for many years before it accelerated rapidly. But the truth is that innovation has been the driving force behind our decision-making processes since the inauguration of Butler’s current president, James Danko, in 2011. An entrepreneur-turned-academician, President Danko brought a much-needed penchant for breaking with the mind-set of “this is how we’ve always done it” and replaced it with “wouldn’t it be great if we could do it this way?”

Since his inauguration—aptly themed Imagine the Possibilities—Butler’s campus has seen the addition of state-of-the art academic and residential facilities, a jump from the Horizon League to the Big East, a broader national approach to admissions recruiting, increased financial and programmatic support for academic innovation, and the most successful capital campaign in institutional history. Under his leadership, Butler has consistently been recognized by US News and World Report as the top Regional University in the Midwest, its most innovative school, the number one school for undergraduate teaching, and the best college for veterans.

These accolades were not earned by one or two changes, but rather by creating a culture that authentically embraces innovation as a critical facet of our operations. Six years into his presidency, President Danko created a cabinet-level role and we hired our first vice president for strategy and innovation, Melissa Beckwith. Since starting in her role, Beckwith has championed the implementation of a new strategic plan and mission statement, the development of groundbreaking community and corporate partnerships, and the creation of incubators for innovation: a dedicated Transformation Lab (a space for taking ideas from across campus and launching them into new educational models and programs that transform the university) and Butler Ventures (a separate subsidiary focused on transforming the landscape of higher education).

Innovation at the leadership level has also encouraged innovation at the board level. With expertise shared in the 2015 AGB report Restructuring Board Committees: How to Effectively Create Change and benchmarking across peer and aspirant institutions, our board recognized that if we were so passionate about innovation and change, we would need to reevaluate how the trustees and our committees operated. Like many other institutions, our structure was outdated and siloed, which we now realize truly limited our ability to maximize the engagement of our members and resulted in a focus more on institutional operations rather than strategic issues.

A task force within our board carefully assessed our previous committee structure and proposed changes. This initiated important conversations about how we as a governing body could better utilize our time and resources to focus on the innovation that would propel Butler into the new age of higher education. The nine committees that previously replicated our administrative areas became four committees with interdisciplinary focuses. Separate, truncated plenary sessions were melded into a larger block of time at the beginning of each quarterly meeting, allowing for a central focus or presentation to better inform our committee meetings and align our discussions around a singular, common goal. The trustees’ response to the new committee structure was universally positive. It has resulted in much better engagement by the trustees with more of a strategic focus. Removing the silos and barriers that had been the status quo for such a long time immediately resulted in richer, deeper conversations and substantial gains in programmatic and institutional development. The propensity to innovate became inherent.

Change no longer takes years to realize, but rather months and weeks. While still respecting policies and procedures, we shirked the boundaries that lived in our previous silos to create a collaborative strategic plan with innovation at its heart. Since restructuring our board to remove barriers to innovation, our administrators have been able to work across campus to implement new academic programs and develop new ways to serve our faculty, staff, students, and a growing number of learners outside of our traditional undergraduate, residential market.

Without the support of innovation and support of my fellow trustees, President Danko, and our cabinet members, Butler itself could look very different. In the midst
of this pandemic, innovation and the collaboration it espouses has ensured that Butler can successfully weather the storm caused by growing financial pressures, rapid demographic shifts in students and learners, and the new demands technology places on educational delivery. Yesterday’s innovation will ensure that our institution can continue to thrive and create tomorrow’s innovators.

Keith Faller is the chair of the Butler University Board of Trustees