Governing Boards and Faculty Members: A Critical Partnership

Governing boards, presidents, and faculty members all play important roles in ensuring their higher education institutions fulfill their missions and purposes. In the current context, when higher education institutions are under extreme pressure from the government and are increasingly being used as tools in partisan struggle,¹ the partnership between governing boards, presidents, and the faculty is more essential than ever to institutional effectiveness, success, and resilience. Presidents and boards are typically in frequent contact and must collaborate well, and boards are often well-attuned to their relationship with presidents and other senior administrative leaders, but the faculty are also indispensable institutional stakeholders.² Faculty members and board members may sometimes feel remote to one another and may not actively understand themselves to be partners. In this article, we highlight the importance of the relationship between boards and the faculty, explore their respective responsibilities, and encourage commitment to mutual respect, collaboration, and partnership.

Colleges and universities are organized around knowledge. They also engage in many practical activities, such as preparing students for the workplace, contributing to economic development, and running athletics programs. However, it is its fundamental commitment to knowledge that makes higher education distinct from other social and economic sectors. As Christopher P. Long, provost at the University of Oregon, explains, higher education’s commitment to knowledge “invites us to imagine what it might mean to situate the search for truth and the love of wisdom at the very heart of civic life so that … citizens might cultivate the habits of dialogue and discovery that enrich our relationships with one another and deepen our understanding of the world we share.”³

This invitation to exploration and discovery is central to higher education. It also implies special responsibilities. One set of responsibilities is about what colleges and universities should do to fulfill their missions. They must keep knowledge central to their core missions of teaching, research, and outreach and engagement. While the relative emphasis on and mix of each of these aspects of the mission is determined by institutional type, history, and identity, higher education generates, preserves, transmits, and applies knowledge.

Another set of responsibilities is about how colleges and universities must operate in the fulfillment of their missions. The invitation to exploration and discovery through higher education should be extended to everyone, which means that colleges and universities must encourage and cultivate an environment that values curiosity, tolerance, respectful debate, and the ability to listen to and examine ideas different from one’s own.⁴ This responsibility extends to preparing students for their lives in the fullest sense—as citizens, community and family members, and employees—by developing values of listening, examining and exchanging ideas, and developing perspectives and positions on the basis of evidence.

Higher education’s role as scholarly teaching and learning knowledge organizations dates to at least 1088 with the establishment of the University of Bologna, when a group of students hired scholars to lecture them and confer formal qualifications to recognize their learning. The research mission blossomed in the 19th century after the University of Berlin was founded as a research-intensive university. The outreach mission took hold with the development of land-grant colleges and universities in the United States. Today, higher education’s vibrant social role is under intense pressure from technological and economic forces, and from populist politics that are hostile to established knowledge.⁵

Since the first medieval universities, faculty and the academic profession have been at the core of higher education. Faculty are indispensable in delivering on college and university missions and are at the center of fulfilling higher education’s responsibilities. Contemporary colleges and universities are complex organizations led by academic executives and governed by lay-boards. The pressures bearing down on higher education today can make decisive action feel urgent. Boards and presidents may feel tempted to take quick and decisive action to meet the challenges they face. Sometimes decisive action, such as the move to bring instruction online during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, is necessary and appropriate. However, most often, academic leaders are best able to create conditions that support institutional mission fulfillment when governance processes and decision-making are thoughtful, distributive, and collaborative.⁶

We believe that it is imperative for college and university boards (as well as their presidents) to actively collaborate with the faculty in making important decisions and ensuring that their institutions can withstand current pressures and thrive in the future. Faculty, in turn, have an obligation to be active citizens of their institutions and to engage with academic leaders within terms of mutual goodwill. In what follows, we address both board members and faculty members, offering a set of perspectives on the responsibilities of each group that are informed by our work as experienced professors and higher education scholars. We keep in mind higher education’s core responsibilities to discover, create, and advance knowledge in advancing these perspectives.

Responsibilities of Boards in Relation to the Faculty

Given these purposes of the university, what are the responsibilities of governing boards with regard to the faculty of their institutions? We believe that this question is especially urgent in the current climate. Recognizing the full purview of the responsibilities of academic governing boards, we see four primary duties for boards to fulfill regarding their support for the work of the faculty.

First, board members must be fully knowledgeable and supportive of the historically grounded purposes of higher education institutions and committed to articulating and emphasizing those purposes publicly. They need to be adept at explaining the essential role of the university in creating knowledge, which involves asking difficult questions, challenging accepted assumptions, seeking and pursuing evidence and its implications, and following opportunities to apply the knowledge created, even if those questions and evidence are unaligned with popular or partisan viewpoints. Board members must also recognize that a core element of the university’s role in advancing knowledge is to create opportunities for vigorous debate around contested ideas—and in fact to teach learners how to frame questions, engage in such debate, and develop the skills of analysis, argument, and critical thinking needed by participants in a robust democracy.

While all colleges and universities are fundamentally oriented to the advancement of knowledge, they do not (and should not) fulfill their purposes in the same ways. Related to their role in advancing the core purposes of higher education, board members should cultivate a well-honed understanding of the particular history, mission, culture, and purposes of their specific institution. A public research university and a private religiously affiliated institution, for example, will have different historical contexts that guide specific aspects of their missions, and board members have the responsibility to protect and advance those specific priorities.

Second, closely related to this responsibility to articulate and advance the core mission and purposes of higher education and the specific mission of their institution is the responsibility to advocate for resources to enable the institutional mission to be pursued and advanced. Board members should be well-attuned to their fiduciary role, but their commitments should extend beyond legal obligations. This responsibility is especially pertinent at the current time, given the range of factors undermining fiscal stability and security at many institutions. Application trends and related tuition resources are creating considerable challenges at many institutions, as are shifts in workplace needs and growing public skepticism about the necessity of higher education for ensuring employment opportunities. The volatility in federal grant resources are challenging research-oriented universities, and changes in student aid resources and international student visa conditions are of wide concern. Board members have an obligation to encourage financial support from external stakeholders, and to clearly and transparently communicate fiscal realities to the faculty through messages that help to build a mutual understanding of the opportunities and challenges that an institution faces.

Third, boards of trustees do not only have the responsibility to advance the core mission and purposes of the institution and ensure fiscal resources are available to accomplish that work. They also must recognize faculty as the institution’s key resource in accomplishing those purposes. This recognition does not diminish appreciation for the indispensable work of institutional administrative leaders nor commitment to the central role of students in institutional activities. However, the faculty are essential to addressing the core mission of creating, advancing, and applying knowledge. Since the faculty are integral to fulfilling the purpose of higher education, decision-making habits that regularly overlook or even exclude the faculty could result in an institution that is unable to fulfill its promise to students and society.⁷ Thus, a key responsibility of boards of trustees is to interact with faculty members as respected partners in carrying out the purposes and work of the institution.

Productive interaction with faculty as essential and respected partners in fulfilling the mission and purposes of the institution requires board-faculty relationships characterized by mutual respect, transparency in decision-making processes, and involvement of faculty in decision-making about institutional matters. Such a respectful partnership requires more than abstract, philosophical acknowledgement. It requires creating opportunities for regular dialogue and conveying messages that faculty voices are invited into and valued in considerations of institutional directions and priorities. Such respect might also take shape, for example, in board efforts to preserve programs that faculty have initiated and believe important to fulfilling institutional priorities. Overall, proactive effort by a board to demonstrate interest in and respect for the perspectives of the faculty signals recognition that the well-being of the institution rests on the mutual efforts and dedication of the full community. Fostering a relationship based on shared commitments provides a strong foundation for making challenging decisions that the current context often requires of the boards of higher education institutions.

A fourth board responsibility as it pertains to working with faculty deserves particular emphasis in today’s context: boards must protect the responsibility of the university or college to fulfill its purposes in the face of challenges from external and political pressures that may strive to diminish or undermine its work. Higher education researchers have recently described this responsibility by suggesting that governing boards must act as intuitional umbrellas that provide “strategic cover for their institutions as they navigate uncertain policy terrain.”⁸ This responsibility involves protecting academic freedom and open debate about contested and difficult questions. Certainly boards, as well as presidents, must be attentive to politicians and the public; however, they must also guard against simply capitulating to public and political demands when those demands are antithetical to academic freedom and threaten higher education’s commitment to knowledge. Instances of institutional dismissal of faculty whose teaching content is not aligned with specific political views or of sanctions on assigned readings relevant to course subject-matter but highlighting topics unpopular with specific societal or political groups raise grave worries about possible undermining of the tradition and protection of academic freedom. Enacting the missions of higher education to advance knowledge and create spaces for vigorous debate in pursuit of new insights requires faculty to have the academic freedom to discuss, teach, and debate the full range of ideas relevant to their areas of expertise—even when, and especially when, those ideas are not shared by the full population. Determining the long-term viability of ideas requires debate, questioning, and efforts to determine if supporting evidence is robust. To do their work of pushing boundaries of knowledge, challenging assumptions that may constrain new discoveries and understandings, and guiding learners to develop powerful thinking skills for their own use as citizens, employees, and active members of their communities requires academic freedom within the academy. Faculty members expect their boards of trustees, and their presidents, to defend academic freedom as a core and essential element for higher education institutions to fulfill their roles in society.

Responsibilities of Faculty in Relation to Boards

Just as governing boards have responsibilities to the faculty, so too do the faculty have responsibilities to their institutions and the boards that govern them. Gaining understanding of their responsibilities as faculty members begins in graduate school, where those wanting to develop the tools of inquiry, analysis, and thinking associated with their disciplines and the overall academic profession are guided by experienced scholars.⁹ Thus, being a member of a discipline or field is a critical element of how faculty construct their identity and of how faculty members understand and engage in their work. In addition to gaining disciplinary knowledge, a key element of graduate school socialization is immersion in the overarching norms and values of academe, which have roots going back centuries, but which also were refined in relation to contemporary higher education during the second half of the last century.¹⁰ Some of the core values associated with academic work, across disciplines, are rigor, peer review, adherence to the criteria that define excellence in one’s field, and especially, autonomy and academic freedom.

The norm of autonomy is essential for protecting the right and privilege of faculty members to decide what is important to study, what topics and questions deserve their time, and how to pursue the questions they identify. The value of academic freedom protects the right of faculty members to study what they deem important and then to speak publicly on issues upon which they have expertise, regardless of whether those ideas are widely popular or are spurned by some in the public sphere. In the current context, threats to academic freedom appear in the form of pressures on faculty and their institutions from political leaders, state legislative bodies, and public statements in the press or other forums attracting wide attention. As we argued above, defending the rights of the faculty to enjoy autonomy and academic freedom and to use historically established processes such as peer review to determine quality, impact, and merit falls on institutional leaders and governing boards. At the same time, however, faculty members must recognize the responsibilities that accompany the privileges accorded them through the traditions and norms of academic freedom and autonomy. We delineate these responsibilities here.

First, all faculty members have the responsibility to understand and commit to the purposes of higher education institutions and understand their roles as faculty members in fulfilling those purposes. Within the overall mission of knowledge creation and advancement, faculty members have the responsibility to engage in the scholarly work of their fields, to identify critically important questions that deserve attention, and to organize their time to address those questions in systematic ways that produce evidence-based answers or (in the arts) that provide fresh creations that stir new insights. At virtually all institutions, faculty have the responsibility to teach learners, either undergraduate students in courses that introduce the basic premises and insights of a field, those taking their first steps as “majors” to go deeper into the questions, assumptions, methodologies, and traditions of the field, or those choosing to pursue graduate work that enables them to become active members of the discipline or field themselves. Faculty also have responsibility for knowledge or artistic creation, with the degree of emphasis on this role dependent on institutional type. In addition to teaching and advancing knowledge in their fields, some faculty members also actively engage in working with broader communities to identify problems, frame questions, and seek answers; they become adept at translating the approaches and discoveries of their fields in ways that directly address society’s problems and challenges.

While the particular form and relative balance of these activities depend on the faculty member’s discipline or field, institutional context, and individual proclivities, board members should be able to rely on the institution’s faculty members to fulfill these core functions of their appointments. Faculty members have the responsibility to strive for high quality and excellence in their teaching and research; to show commitment to norms of scholarly integrity, including accuracy in reporting research, data, and findings; to participate in processes of community self-regulation, including peer review and support for standards of intellectual rigor as understood in specific disciplines; and to engage with other scholars to maintain and advance the vehicles through which scholarship is supported and assessed, such as review panels for grants, journals, and promotion decisions.

Second, faculty members have the responsibility to be active members of their employing institution and its community, partnering with others (including other faculty, administrators, and staff) to fulfill society’s expectations of higher education. While the academic profession carries with it privileges of autonomy and academic freedom, these long-established rights do not mean faculty members are solely independent agents without obligations to the academic community. Rather, faculty members have explicit responsibilities that accompany membership in the institutional community of their employing institution.

A reciprocal relationship between institution and faculty member means that, while the faculty members assume the roles of carrying out the mission and purposes of the institution, autonomy and academic freedom are protected by institutional leaders and policies.¹¹ That is, within the institutional context, faculty members are partners with the other faculty, administrators, and staff and with the institution’s board to support and enact the mission and purposes of that specific institution. The notion of different stakeholder groups acting as partners to carry out the missions of the institution is a counter-vision to the notion sometimes popularized among faculty of the necessity of adversarial relationships between faculty and boards. While occasions may arise when the views of faculty, administrators, and boards may differ on specific issues and thus require substantive debate, the responsibility for the institution still resides across all three stakeholder groups. That is, fulfilling the work of the institution rests on the engagement, commitment, and respective roles of faculty, administrative leaders, and board members working in partnership and with a sense of mutual respect. Thus, we urge faculty members to understand themselves as essential members of a partnership of stakeholders whose collaboration advances the work of the institution. Being part of this collaborative partnership requires all involved to express curiosity and respect, assume mutual goodwill and commitment to the good of the institution, and listen to and respect an array of ideas and perspectives.

Third, in addition to understanding their overall roles as partners in their institutions, we urge faculty members to consider the specific requirements of their roles as institutional citizens. Of course, institutional responsibility includes teaching, engaging in research, and contributing to the community, in ways aligned with institutional type and mission. But it also means engaging in the ongoing tasks needed to run a university or college. Without a doubt, many faculty and staff members feel the burden of high workloads and the strain of compensation that too often fails to keep up with the growing cost of living.¹² Under such circumstances, it is understandable that some faculty may want to limit involvement in what can feel like uncompensated work. Nevertheless, a secure academic position, whether a position in the tenure-system or a term appointment with similar protections, is a privilege that carries obligations. The conditions of autonomy and academic freedom, accompanied by employment protection and security, require day-to-day dedication and effort, carried out by the faculty as institutional citizens, to maintain that environment and ensure the continuation of those privileges.

What does the responsibility of institutional citizenship look like for faculty members? We argue that faculty members, as institutional citizens, have a responsibility to learn the meaning of shared governance, with its roles for the different stakeholder partners. They also have a responsibility to learn how a university or college works in terms of decision-making processes, the management of fiscal issues, and hiring, evaluation, and promotion processes.

Another element of effective institutional citizenship is understanding and respecting the different but complementary roles and responsibilities of faculty members, administrative leaders, and board members, and learning how faculty can effectively and productively engage in idea exchange about institutional directions, difficult fiscal decisions, and institutional priorities among competing possibilities. Faculty members who see themselves as partners and institutional citizens also agree to take on their share of the many duties of running a department, college, and institution. Leading a committee, participating in a task force, or agreeing to serve as a department chair or governance committee leader is, for many faculty members, less intrinsically exciting than delving into their research or teaching. Nevertheless, this institutional work is essential for accomplishing the overall mission and purposes of higher education institutions. Thus, an essential responsibility for faculty members is becoming involved in the working processes of their institutions and approaching such work as a partnership between faculty, administrative leaders, and board members, all recognized and respected for their dedication to the institution and its mission.

Concluding Thoughts

In the face of criticisms and sometimes intense pressures to abandon the values and norms that have ensured excellence in knowledge discovery, application, and transmission, higher education institutions can best meet the demands and challenges of the times we are facing by re-committing to their missions and purposes. Such re-commitment, however, does not mean avoiding or resisting adaptation or proactive change. Rather, the path forward requires understanding the norms and values that have ensured excellence and quality in the work of higher education institutions, while also recognizing areas for improvement, innovation, and change. Creating the path forward depends on the collaborative work of all stakeholders within academe, including governing boards, administrative leaders, and the faculty. We especially urge governing boards to consider how they can effectively support faculty who do the core work of fulfilling the institutional missions through their teaching, research, and engagement and protect the conditions of autonomy and academic freedom so necessary for the success of that work. At the same time, we urge faculty members to recognize their roles as institutional citizens and to understand and engage in the partnership across stakeholders that is essential to the success of a higher education institution.

Ann E. Austin, PhD, is a university distinguished professor at Michigan State University, where she is a faculty member in the College of Education’s graduate program in higher, adult, and lifelong education. She also has served in several senior leadership roles in the College of Education and at the university level. She is also a member of the Principia Board of Trustees, which includes Principia College and Principia School.

Brendan Cantwell, PhD, is a professor of higher, adult, and lifelong education at Michigan State University, where he also serves as the director of the Center for Higher and Adult Education.

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