2010 Policies, Practices, and Composition of Higher Education Coordinating Boards and Commissions

Coordinating boards and commissions have long been members of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), but we have never attempted to systematically collect data about how they are structured internally or about the citizens who serve on them. This report does that. It provides us considerable information about the citizens who serve on these boards and commissions (a demographic profile), as well as some of the internal policies and operations of such boards and their members.

This report delves much deeper than a November 2008 report, Public Higher Education Governing and Coordinating Boards: Composition, Characteristics, and Structure. In addition to the information in that report, this report provides data on basic board and committee structures, as well as the frequency and number of board meetings and the time commitment required of board members. One interesting finding in this report, for example, is that coordinating boards meet, on average, eight times a year and spend just over 10 days in full board meetings (some additional time is spent in standing and ad hoc committee meetings). This may be sufficient time for the challenges facing states and their higher education systems, and is only slightly less than the time spent by public governing boards. Or is it sufficient? Do today’s challenges require more of these boards and their members; and, indeed, of all higher education boards?