Shared Governance: The Musical

A one-act aspirational celebration of faculty shared governance cobbled together out of songs performed by Louis Epstein at college-wide faculty meetings between 2021 and 2023, while he chaired the Faculty Governance Committee at St. Olaf College. An article about the musical, "Singing the Praises of Shared Governance," appeared in Academe.

Lights up on a dozen downtrodden-looking faculty members in dark doctoral robes (mostly Berkeley and Chicago robes; University of Washington, CUNY, and MIT are okay; avoid Maryland, Harvard, Princeton, and UNC). All shuffle about aimlessly. 

One more faculty member enters, this one wearing a bright yellow doctoral robe (preferably from the Georgia Institute of Technology or Johns Hopkins) with a smiley-face emoji on the back. She sings.

Opening Number

In higher ed times are tough
We share a common plight
Mental health keeps cratering 
And finances are tight

As if these problems
Weren’t a heavy lift
In 2026 we’ll have 
A demographic cliff

If you’re feeling tense
If your dread is immense
It might defy all common sense
But here’s the hero; our defense is

Shared governance, it’s here to stay
Shared governance, to save the day
Please feel free to disagree 
Cause surely that’s the true esprit of
Shared governance
We’ll argue our cares away

The faculty are reenergized, but their euphoria is short-lived. The college president enters. She announces that cuts are imminent and faculty are likely to lose their jobs—that is, unless the faculty can agree on a utopian set of policy changes that will both solve all their problems and avoid undermining the educational tenets they hold dearest. The orchestra plays a few iconic cliffhanger-signaling chords: DUN DUN DUN!!!! (Blackout.)

Scene change: Four lonesome members of the Faculty Governance Committee (a.k.a. FGC) meet in a small room. They argue about how or whether they can accomplish what the president asks. Several point out that they’re too few in number because faculty have been too overburdened, underpaid, and burnt out to participate actively in shared governance. The committee chair, Louise Louis, announces that they’ll have to fill out the committee structure, stat, by holding an election. “But how will we convince our colleagues to participate in the election?” one asks. “Most people try to avoid service at any cost.” “We’ll try something new,” Louis responds. “We’ll exhort them to greatness through song.” They sing. 

Stand for Election

Stand for election
Your time to serve is nigh
Stand for election
There’s no need to be shy

Your college wants you
Yes win or lose we’ll cheer
So stand for election
Please say you’ll volunteer

Scene change: The committee meets, now in a larger room and with four new members. They debate vigorously with no consensus in sight. Suddenly, the chair stands up and says something along the lines of, “We’ve lost our way. We need to remember who we are and why we’re here.” She sings.

FGC (Faculty Governance Committee) Theme Song

FGC 
We are poets of policy
Promoting progress and equity
From Steensland to Kittlesby

The rest of the committee joins in for a rousing anthem: 

FGC
The divine comedy of writing by committee
Faculty serving faculty
Serving you and me

“I feel a strong sense of solidarity with my fellow committee members now,” says one committee member. “But I’m still tired, and I have a lot of grading to do, and I would just rather not take on a big revision of the faculty manual right now.” More argument ensues. The committee chair leads the committee in a call-and-response-song. (Yes, more singing, even though she knows that this particular tactic is getting repetitive and might be alienating to people who don’t like singing.)

Status Quo

When you’re feeling tired and slow (When you’re feeling tired and slow)
When you hit an endless plateau (When you hit an endless plateau)
When you feel the stale status quo (When you feel the stale status quo)
Then you know (Then you know)
Something’s gotta change (Something’s gotta change)

Let’s change the faculty manual (Let’s change the faculty manual)
Let’s change the faculty manual (Let’s change the faculty manual)
If you want a change (If you want a change)
You gotta change (You gotta change)
The faculty manual (The faculty manual)

Scene change: At a poorly attended faculty meeting. The committee convenes at the front of the room, but before members can present their ideas, the president announces that all the committee’s brilliant work is for naught because there are too few faculty present to vote on any new policies. The committee sings about their predicament.

A Quorum

Faculty meetings are a forum
To discuss all our rules and our norms
But you can’t make the rules or reform ’em
Without meeting a threshold: it’s called a quorum

A quorum, oh, a quorum,
You don’t need a clicker, a lunch, or decorum
Faculty meetings, don’t have to adore ’em
They might beget boredom
You wish they were more fun
But you can’t ignore ’em 
We need a quorum!

Please come to the faculty meeting this Thursday at 11:30 a.m. in the ballrooms.

The committee sprints out of the room and into a montage in which various members check in with Kathee Hanscom (the dean’s chief of staff) and are sent to find faculty in their offices, at the local coffee shop, home with sick kids, at the gym, presenting internationally at conferences, on archaeological digs, and so on. While the montage is underway, committee members take turns singing individual lines in praise of Kathee Hanscom.

Ode to Kathee Hanscom

She’s more efficient than some
You gotta get the plan from
Kathee Hanscom
Kathee Hanscom

She makes a memorandum
The object of fandom
Kathee Hanscom
Kathee Hanscom

Nothing she does is random
She’s worth her weight in gold paid bimonthly per annum
Kathee Hanscom
Kathee Hanscom

Scene change: At the faculty meeting once again, this time with a quorum. The committee presents its first resolution, and faculty debate vigorously, mostly raising objections about the process moving too quickly and the committee not having done enough due diligence. The conversation devolves into a free-for-all, interrupted by the committee singing:

Excessive Indiscriminate Thoroughness

Excessive indiscriminate thoroughness
It’s a problem we all understand
It’s exhausting, it’s wrong
We’ve done it too long
So let’s end it
But not too thoroughly

Order is restored as the rest of the faculty are transfixed by the committee’s angelic admonition. Still, a curmudgeon stands up and says that no matter what the committee proposes, he refuses to go along with the plan because he hates the committee chair’s guts and hates changing the Faculty Manual even more. The committee chair rallies the faculty to sing:

Faculty Manual Revisions

They’re super tough and totally clutch
Faculty manual revisions
They’re never enough and they’re always too much
Faculty manual revisions

Are we getting to consensus or just getting contentious?
Sharing your two cents is fine but please be conscientious!
Faculty manual revisions
Let’s make some today! Yeah!

As the committee chair prepares to introduce the first resolution of the day, she reminds the faculty that this one isn’t related to the current crisis but rather a holdover from the previous year’s review of reviews. The committee sings, with back-up “oohs” from the faculty.

Review of Reviews

Review of reviews
We’re making some changes
Review of reviews
It might take us ages

But when we’re all done
We’ll have a new and improved form of evaluation
Review of reviews
Brought to you by FGC

The first resolution is brought to the floor. It proposes to revise the rules around peer review of teaching related to the tenure and promotion process. A junior faculty member stands to support the resolution and sings.

Peer Review of Teaching

Talking with your friends on the tenure clock
You expect uniformity, but then you get a shock
They’ll get three class visitors while you’ll have five to eight inquisitors
Something about this might seem ad hoc

’Cause department to department practices vary
Some are quite humane while others can be hairy
Our pretense to excellence depends on excellent evidence
So standardizing practices might be necessary

Faculty manual revisions—let’s make some today! Yeah! 

The faculty approves the resolution. The committee chair brings the next resolution, to eliminate the word visiting in non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty titles after faculty have spent more than four years at the college. A tenured colleague stands up to support the resolution, pointing out that “NTT” is a terrible acronym that might as well stand for “not true term” when it comes to so-called visiting faculty who have been at the college longer than many of the tenure-track faculty. He calls for greater solidarity with non-tenure-track faculty of all stripes and sings about other possible backronyms for “NTT.”

NTT

NTT means Nimble Teaching Techniques
Yeah and Nice To Trees, Nailing all The Tasks
NTT stands for Never Tires of Thoughtfulness
And NTT means sharp as Neon Thumb Tacks

Naturally Terrific Types
Nearby Think Tank
Nurturing Tender Thoughts and
We Need To Thank

NTT we need to thank
NTT we need to thank
NTT

The president interjects, pointing out that while non-tenure-track faculty certainly deserve more respect, higher pay, and greater job security, time is running short before the cuts will be imposed. Will the faculty agree to the needed policy revisions in time? Murmurs of terror and despair ripple through the crowd. The committee chair sings.

Shared Governance Montage

Are you ready for some politics?
Here are resolutions, 2022–23/3, 4, 5, and 6
And another one just for kicks

Since our time is short
I’ll defer on delivering my regularly scheduled chair’s report
The ball is in your court 

Are we gonna feel foolish?
Is this too long a to-do list?
No! Sure as my name’s Louis
We’ll get through this pile.

And we’ll do it in style! 

What we really need is the quick succession of scenes they show in movies to get through content quickly—

Shared governance montage
It’s a veritable barrage
Of highfalutin resolutions
Some get the boot, and some are shoo-ins
Cause we’re doing shared governance montage!

All the resolutions pass in a montage during the song, and at the end the faculty burst into cheers. But then the entire board of regents enters—surprise!!!—and announces that none of the recently passed resolutions are valid because they conflict with the college bylaws. Pandemonium ensues, with faculty literally hanging from the rafters in despair. Against the backdrop of general chaos, the committee huddles briefly, then sings:

Sweet Harmony

The bylaws
And the faculty manual
We go together like the birds and bees

And when we 
Find ourselves arguing
Well then we risk a rift in our family

Like any family we need counseling
A chance to work out all the words that sting
The bylaws
And the faculty manual
We go much better when we sing
In sweet harmony 

The committee proposes a fix to the bylaws, which the regents accept. [Ed.: Sure, this is pure fantasy that requires complete suspension of disbelief, but that’s what musical theater is all about.] Impressed with the agility and nimbleness and strategic acuity of the faculty, the regents announce a new era of cooperation and shared power. From now on, the regent-faculty relationship will be defined not just by “shared governance” but by “shared leadership.” The regents sing a reprise of the opening number:

Opening Number Reprise

Shared leadership, it’s all the rage
Shared leadership, let’s turn the page
We can’t wait can’t hesitate
To innovate, remake our fate through 
Shared leadership, we’ll brainstorm our cares away!

The committee chair congratulates her colleagues on achieving the impossible. They saved the college! She sings, singling out several staff and administrators whose thoughtful, compassionate collaboration with the faculty made a profound difference.

Thank You/The Star Is You (Closing Number)

Thank you Kathee Hanscom and Tracy and Jason and Marci and David too
Thank you to committee chairs for getting all that policy through
Thank you to committees for all the hard work that you do
In the show of shared governance you are the writers, cast, and crew

But there’s one other person to whom the deepest gratitude is due
In the show of shared governance the star is you

All join in, pointing at the audience as if to remind them that ultimately shared governance only works if faculty commit their energy, expertise, good faith, and highest collegiality to the process.

The star is you
The star is you
The star is you
In the show of shared governance the star is you

Curtain, blackout, then spotlight stage right on a group of people we haven’t seen before. They are listening through a door that features a sign that reads, “Faculty Meeting.” They wear T-shirts on which the words “Admissions,” “Marketing,” “Development,” “Student Life,” and “Athletics” are clearly visible. One of them says:

“Shared governance? What’s that?”

Fin.