When the Board Portal Becomes the Bottleneck: Rethinking Digital Governance in Higher Education

Are you happy with your board portal?

More and more higher education board professionals are answering no.

Emails, shared drives, and even long-standing third-party board portals are still doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes, filling gaps that technology was supposed to eliminate. The result is more manual work, inconsistent trustee engagement, and uncertainty about what truly constitutes the official board record.

Despite these frustrations, many teams delay change for one reason: concern about trustee adoption.

In this candid, governance-focused session, an AGB OnBoard governance expert will walk through patterns we consistently see across higher education board teams and why “adoption risk” is often misunderstood. Based on experience supporting boards, the session will explore:

• The common pitfalls of outdated board portals and workaround-driven processes
• The moments and pressures that typically trigger teams to reconsider their current tools
• What reduces friction for long-tenured trustees during change
• What board teams most often say after making a change from their previous provider