AGB in the News

When Penn State University’s trustees gather for official meetings, they tend to spend only a sliver of their time discussing their views or asking questions before a vote, if they speak at all.

People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill—they want a quarter-inch hole, the Harvard University marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously said. The point he creatively made is that it’s the job the customer wants done that matters, not the device. Higher education doesn’t give enough intentional attention to the variety of jobs of faculty governance.

Cal State San Bernardino hosted “Growing Philanthropy in Support of Your College,” a regional workshop designed to empower community college leaders and foundation board members to build sustainable philanthropic support for their institutions and communities. The event, held on Nov. 1 at the CSUSB Alumni Center, was organized by the CSUSB Philanthropic Foundation, in partnership with the Association of Governing Boards (AGB).

GENESEE COUNTY, MI — Mott Community College will interview three national search firms to find the college’s next permanent president. Trustees Andy Everman and Jeffrey Swanson voted in an ad hoc committee meeting on Monday, Nov. 4, to bring three search firms – Academic Search, AGB Search and Greenwood/Asher & Associates – to the full board to select one on Nov. 18. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.

At its Oct. 22 meeting, the Colorado Mountain College Board of Trustees voted to add two new at-large trustee seats to its board as permitted under C.R.S. § 23-71-110. Currently, the CMC board consists of seven elected trustees who represent the following school districts: Eagle County, Lake County, Aspen, Steamboat Springs, Summit, Salida, Roaring Fork RE-1, Garfield District 16 and Garfield RE-2. Since 2020, a non-voting trustee liaison has represented Salida on the CMC board.

Ilya Nemenman, an Emory University physics professor, seethed as summer break neared its end. The problem was that the president had not received the University Senate’s approval first. “This is not just a corporation,” Dr. Nemenman chided the president, Gregory L. Fenves, during an Aug. 28 meeting, according to interviews and contemporaneous notes that summarized the discussion.

Like much of America, higher education is consumed with uncertainty over Tuesday’s presidential election.

Editor’s note: This guest column was written by the leaders of the employee councils, the shared governance groups at CSU. Shared governance in higher education is widely recognized as “essential to the health, vitality, and future of America’s colleges and universities” (Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges White Paper, March 2017). Colorado State University has utilized a shared governance model for more than a century.

“There’s a lot of levers and tools that will get their attention day one,” Steve Scalise, the second-highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, said at a meeting with a lobbying group early this month while discussing ways to punish universities for alleged civil rights violations.

Only at the nation’s richest university can a billion-plus-dollar fundraising haul equal disappointment.

More than a year after the school’s current president announced his retirement, Madison College is starting over in a search for its next leader. Three finalists were scheduled to attend forums this week and next week in Madison, where employees, students and community members could provide input.

Brandeis University stands apart in the higher education world with its combination of an intimate, liberal arts feel and powerhouse research operation that produces scientific breakthroughs and wins Nobel Prizes.