Diversifying the Governing Board

This project is a follow-up to AGB’s most recent board composition survey, Policies, Practices, and Composition of Governing Boards of Colleges, Universities, and Institutionally Related Foundations 2021(https://agb.org/product/policies-practices-composition-2021/). In that survey, conducted in late 2020, 97.6 percent of institutionally related foundations, 95.1 percent of independent institutions, and 50.0 percent of public institutions reported that their boards were attempting to diversify their composition. (Many of the latter respondents explained they did not have direct control over appointed or elected board members.)

Among those respondents who were attempting to diversify their board composition and were able to do so, the two most popular choices from a list of potential options were candidates’ self-identified race/ethnicity and professional background (with the goal of diversifying occupations, skill sets, and/or experiences represented by the board as a whole). Gender was the third-most common choice by independent institutions, and it tied with professional background for public institutions and foundations.

These quantitative findings led to a collaboration between AGB’s director of research, Lesley McBain, PhD, and University of California Riverside scholars Raquel Rall, PhD, and Valeria Dominguez, PhD, to research the qualitative aspects of governing boards’ current attempts to diversify their composition through in-depth interviews with a sample of volunteer respondents to the 2020 survey.

Board diversification is a governance issue. The unprecedented number and complexity of crises presently facing higher education means that boards need to bring as many perspectives as possible to bear on them. That means—as shown by the 2020 survey results—that diversifying the types of lived experiences, insights, and professional backgrounds on governing boards is crucial. The initial pool of volunteers who indicated on the 2020 survey that they would like to be interviewed included both institutional leaders (presidents/foundation CEOs) and board professionals. Due to schedule limitations, the final interview sample was predominantly composed of board professionals who work closely with their trustees and institution/foundation leaders and thus have considerable insight into the topic. Some requested they include other administrators in their interviews, which provided additional perspectives.

Key findings:

• Interviewees were interested in diversifying boards and wanted to learn about concrete steps for doing so, as well as about promising practices…