Board Professionals Navigate Tumultuous Times with Practical Wisdom

The AGB Council of Board Professionals began its October meeting with members sharing their collective thoughts on the challenges facing higher education institutions during this fall academic term. The discussion encompassed a wide variety of both new and more-established themes in higher education, including:

• Dealing with student activism and public protests in response to global challenges and conflicts;
• Experiencing consequential changes to the nation’s political landscape;
• Responding to multiple natural disasters damaging and destroying campus property;
• Understanding and managing First Amendment rights;
• Advancing democracy;
• Negotiating collective bargaining agreements; and
• Navigating presidential searches, transitions, and succession planning.

Yet while many institutions and foundations are facing extraordinarily difficult circumstances, their boards and presidents/chief executives know that they have experienced, visionary, and confident board professionals as partners in handling such issues and achieving their missions. Board professionals serve with a spirit of collaboration and determination—they support chief executives and boards by engaging in thoughtful and strategic discussions, managing a wide variety of administrative tasks, and coordinating with various internal and external stakeholders.

Finding Solutions

Cristin Toutsi Grigos, senior vice president and chief content & program officer at AGB, explained that board professionals have opportunities to find solutions that can be applied to their institutions or foundations by seeking guidance from their peers who have faced similar challenges and from the resources that AGB offers.

Fortunately, the members of the online BP Community are strongly connected and supportive of one another, sharing ideas and recommendations for tackling tough challenges. This vibrant network continues to grow and provides not only a place of respite but also invaluable, productive, and dynamic approaches to complex issues that cut across a wide variety of institutional types. The experiences shared among members of this group include perspectives from public and independent institutions, systems, historically black colleges and universities, minority serving institutions, two-year, four-year, and religiously affiliated institutions, foundations, and more. Board professionals can be counted upon to assist their campuses through difficult times with steely determination and a keen sense of the culture of their institutions.

AGB’s Knowledge Center also has an extensive library of content with curated solutions for board professionals. Council members discussed various AGB resources that they have found helpful in addressing issues at their institutions, notably campus protests; freedom of speech and diversity, equity, and inclusion; and AGB’s Top Strategic Issues for Boards.

Supporting Campus Leaders

Equipped with insights from the BP Community and well-developed resources in AGB’s Knowledge Center, board professionals are offering practical wisdom to their leadership teams. As the AGB Survey of Board Professionals (2020) showed, these professionals have responsibilities unlike anyone else on their campuses. Many are engaging in informal listening sessions and revisiting existing policies and procedures with their board chairs and presidents as they assess the currency of their institution’s mission, vision, and value statements. Such efforts help campus leaders interpret how their institutions can remain grounded and well-governed yet also responsive to ever-changing times.

Council members also noted that board professionals are implementing many strategies to support their boards and chief executives, such as:

• Examining board meeting schedules to ensure sufficient time for public comments (as appropriate);
• Listening to students, faculty, staff, and the community to understand the issues on those stakeholders’ minds and how board agendas can best address them;
• Honoring the moments of past tragic incidents and the impacts on the campus’ climate;
• Planning ahead to help leaders understand the institution’s duty to protect First Amendment rights and align their responses to student protests and encampments;
• Considering how their board can best oversee the migration from one regional or national accrediting body to another and the board’s role in that process; and
• Engaging in long-term planning for board and executive leadership transitions that ensure institutional continuity and prioritize consequential governance.

The Bottom Line: Board Professionals are Pivotal to Good Governance

Board professionals perform many different duties, and in collaboration with their institutions’ board and chief executive, they are vital partners in ensuring effective higher education governance.

AGB’s President and CEO Fram Virjee shared his perspective on the role of board professionals when he observed at the meeting, “At AGB, we say that board governance is the beginning and the end of a good institution. If you have good board governance—if you stick to strong board governance and trustees following their fiduciary obligations and independence—your university is bound to succeed. The reciprocal is also true: Without board governance, institutions often fail. Good board governance starts and ends often with the board professional.”

Lynnette M. Heard is a senior fellow and senior consultant at AGB and a council ambassador.