Shared Governance

Covenant, Contract, and the Politics of the Wisconsin Idea

For those concerned about the future of public higher education, the political shake-up in Wisconsin’s higher education system deserves our attention. In 2015, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker successfully delivered major budget cuts, ushered in governance changes, and eliminated tenure from state law.

The AAUP and the Idea of the University

As evidenced by the elaborate costumes of most commencement ceremonies, the century-long history of the American Association of University Professors is part of a much larger story, one that, as sociologist Elliot Krause argued in Death of the Guilds, extends back to medieval times.

The Role of the College of Pharmacy in the Development of Shared Governance at Western New England University

Between 2006 and 2015, the number of pharmacy schools in the United States rose from 87 to 132. This growth has provided additional opportunities for students, and it has also resulted in a sharp increase in the number of pharmacy faculty. The growth of pharmacy schools, like that of other professional schools, has altered the dynamics of the universities of which they are a part, including the operation of institutional governance.

State of the Profession: Taking Hostages in Kentucky

Kentucky governor Matt Bevin has been testing the limits of shared governance. On June 17, by executive order, the governor unilaterally abolished the University of Louisville’s full seventeen-member board of trustees and replaced it with a new thirteen-member board entirely of his own choosing. In an e-mail to the campus community the same day, the university’s embattled president, James Ramsey, announced that “after conversations with Governor Bevin” he had agreed to offer his resignation to the “newly appointed board” upon its “legal restructure.”

From the Editor: Academic Governance

The future of traditional academic governance is uncertain.

By traditional, I mean the type described in the jointly formulated 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, which asserts the necessity of “shared responsibility” and “joint effort” among an institution’s faculty, administration, and board and specifies the primary responsibilities of each.

Willamette University AAUP Chapter

Until 2015, Willamette University, a small liberal arts college in Salem, Oregon, had not had an active AAUP chapter in decades. Faculty at Willamette revived their chapter in response to increasing concerns about austerity measures imposed by the administration and a lack of transparency. In 2013 the administration abruptly closed the School of Education, which resulted in the dismissal of tenured and nontenured faculty as well as staff and left many dissatisfied with the lack of faculty involvement in institutional decision making.

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