Leadership during a Budget Crisis and Its Impact on Academic Programs, Teaching, and Research

Abstract:

This mixed methods study investigated how faculty members at a Midwestern university perceived shared governance in decision-making as it relates to budgetary distribution and its impact on academic programs, teaching, and research. A survey administered yielded a 31.1 percent response rate of tenured and tenure-track faculty, who participated in the study by answering twenty-one quantitative and qualitative survey questions. For the findings, most of participating faculty reported that university leaders did not practice shared governance properly. This resulted in a greater faculty workload, a less flexible course schedule, and less trust by faculty of university leaders and their decisions. Qualitative data analysis found two recurring themes; “lack of shared governance” and “outcomes of lack of shared governance.”  Both quantitative and qualitative data analyses revealed that faculty considered the university leadership to be unfair and believed that the administration mismanaged faculty input into shared decision-making, particularly with respect to budget distribution and academic program changes.

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