Shared Governance

Doing the business of a university requires us to think differently in this day and time. Many faculty complain about the rising cadre of administrators on campus and the increased application of business models in an academic environment. While sometimes motivated by fear of altering the status quo, such critiques also have real resonance. Work that faculty once accomplished via "service" now gets done professionally and by people often pulling down significant salaries. And faculty, tenured or tenure-track, focus instead on scholarship/research or teaching while non-tenured faculty increase in numbers and handle much of the undergraduate lower level teaching and do not hold any service expectations.

Shared governance suffers. Administrators often do not include faculty in discussions of policy and many faculty show great reluctance to stand for election to any office or serve on the committees required to make shared governance a reality. Moreover, when on 9-month contracts, faculty often miss out on a good deal of what happens in terms of setting policies simply by not being on a campus.

Here in North Carolina, the General Assembly convened last week and will ideally produce a budget before June 30th. That schedule means most faculty have scattered while decisions that will have a direct impact on our future are being made. Potential cuts and furloughs, for instance, are all on the table. And where are the bodies that should be helping shape how we think about these items? Scattered.

If we want to have a voice on our campuses, we need to open lines of communication with top leadership and create new patterns of interaction. We must show ourselves to be capable partners and creative thinkers in meeting the challenges. That means education in how our systems work and why things are done as they are so that we can speak directly to the issues without needing to be "schooled." We must raise our junior colleagues into the mindset that service matters. And we need to generate structures to work on these issues year round.

Shared governance requires work and presence. If we leave the arena, we cannot participate meaningfully.