Restructuring shared governance in higher education

de William G. Tierney, Vicente M. Lechuga

Shared governance has been a hallmark of higher education in the United States since the early twentieth century. Since its inception, faculty, administrators, trustees, and other interested parties have either bemoaned or celebrated the idea. We offer a variety of viewpoints that bring to light various ways to think of shared governance. The intent is to foment dialogue and debate about the shape of shared governance for the future. Our assumption is that many challenges are at academe's doorstep that may require significant changes. If those of us who work in colleges and university are not well organized to deal with those challenges, the solutions that we develop will be love's labors lost. Governance is the means to implementing ideas that either respond to problems or provide new strategies. If academic governance is ineffective, then it needs to be reformed. The shape of those reforms is what the authors of this volume consider.