Board Meeting: the proposed “speech and advocacy” policy

Cedric and Dot

Dissent 44

February 14, 2000

“IT’S A MESS,” SHE SAID—The special board meeting

By Chunk Wheeler [Roy Bauer]

Anthrax:

       February 7: As I neared Library 105, the distinctive smell of charred flesh filled the air. I stood by the locked door. The trustees were still in closed session, and, evidently, they were chowin’ down. Just then, a man sniffed skyward. “Smells good,” he said. I stared at a moldy brown Popsicle stick that lay on the ground.

       Campus cop Harry Parmer came by amid the pall to say hello. He spoke of biological weaponry. “This much anthrax,” he said while holding an imaginary beaker, “would take out Orange County.” Wow. Such talk soon led to stories about the JDL’s Irv Rubin and the squad of Frogue-supporting neo-Nazi wackos that once attended board meetings. “I’m sure glad that’s over,” said Harry. “Yeah,” said I. Harry seemed to like Irv, but he clearly disliked the Nazis.

That reminded me of a special union meeting of a week or two earlier. Joe R, in a moment of hyperbole, had rebuked the union Old Guard for, among other things, supporting “a Nazi,” whereupon Lee Walker pointed a finger at Joe and exclaimed, “That’s a hate crime! That’s a hate crime!” Joe regarded Lee for a moment and then said simply: “Yeah. I hate Nazis.”

As we waited, more people gathered, but not many. Someone told me that, earlier—before the board went into closed session—Peter Morrison (IVC Academic Senate president) and Armando Ruiz (IVC VP of SS) had had “words” about something. I smiled. A war of words between Peter and Armando? That’s like a wrestling match between a gorilla and a twig.

       Suddenly sensible of sustained stompage, we stared southward and espied Dot, who marched toward us at the opposite end of the hallway. Upon giving us—or just me—a dirty look, she opened the door to the Backroom and waddled in, causing meaty brown fumes to waft toward us like mustard gas. Someone choked, spilling a Coke on the ground, and we all regarded the foaming puddle of goo. In Hindi, “goo” means “shit.” I did not know that.

       Suddenly, the main door of Library 105 swung open with explosive and deadly force, owing to the labors of one Nancy Padberg, board president. They say that Dot is just a piker compared to Nancy when it comes to micromanagement. Door opening, apparently, is among Nancy’s new areas of oversight. She dispatched this particular door by herself and then proceeded quickly to the administration of other objects. Oddly, she whisked past the aforementioned Popsicle stick without advising administration how to deal with it.

       When it seemed safe, we entered 105, and, almost immediately, there was a roar of conversation, which made me sleepy. I looked over at the portion of the wall normally reserved for the display of trustee high school graduation photos. None was present, except the student trustee’s. A portent.

       I looked across the boardroom, through the door to the Backroom, where the trustees, et al., had been meeting in private for the last hour and a half. There, I saw a rumpled fellow in a cheap suit and cheap shoes with his hands in his pockets. “The Cheap Detective,” I muttered.

In fact, it was Alan Willian, one of the district’s bad lawyers. “I bet that guy gets five bucks an hour and he’s happy,” I announced. As I recall, in her written rulings, Judge Audrey Collins, who handled the student’s 1st Amendment suit against the district, referred to Willian as “that fool.” Maybe it was another phrase. Could be. 

The BP 8000 juggernaut:

       The meeting finally started at about 6:45. Item #1, of course, was the discussion of the proposed “speech and advocacy” policy (BP 8000), of which Mr. Willian is the chief author. That’s what I had come for.

       Vice Chancellor Hodge was asked to comment on the proposal. Then the trustees weighed in. Marcia Milchiker opined that the policy is much too long (32 pages!) and much too complicated. It contains contradictions and other errors and it engages in unnecessary “editorializing,” said she. Plus it gives “too much authority” to administrators. In general, it is “too prescriptive”—for instance, the business about how many inches students should stand away from doors and urinals and such. And how are bands supposed to thump, as they ought, when they are prohibited from using the “bass” settings on their amplifiers? Anyway, she concluded, a speech and advocacy policy oughta apply only to students.

       Someone awoke Cedric from his dogmatic snorage. He choked unpleasantly into consciousness and sputtered something about taking all this stuff down.

       Dot Fortune, erstwhile board president, affecting her idea of elder statesperson deportment, leaned back in her chair and sighed. But before issuing any profundities, she took a gratuitous swipe at one of her colleagues: “Unlike Marcia,” she said, I have provided comments “in writing.”

I watched Marcia, who glared. She seemed frozen in an eternal moment of hatred, the pen in her clenched fist writhing and twisting, the ink of the pen oozing, the steam in her head spouting outward.

Dot smiled while Padberg offered a supportive sibilation. Yes, said Dot, we must acknowledge that there are typos in the proposed policy. She went on to explain that this “speech and advocacy” business stems, ultimately, from a ’98 student lawsuit (against President Mathur). We thought, said she, that this matter was resolved in the spring of ‘99 with the adoption of board policy 5406, but no. That’s why this thing is so prescriptive, she said. We’re just responding to the federal judge! He wants all this stuff in the policy. So we can’t be less prescriptive. And what about playing that heavy metal music, which could go on for 6 hours? Gotta prevent that.

Dot leaned back, apparently weary from having delivered so magnificent and wise a riposte. The springs of her chair groaned salaciously. Willian, now in the audience, belched.

       OK. It was trustee Lang’s turn. He had various “serious concerns.” He worried about extending the policy, which originally applied only to students, to faculty and staff. He noted that the policy is unnecessarily long. He spoke of  the “word police.”

       Nancy P, anxiously clutching her gavel, sensed that she was losing control of the situation, so she insisted on speaking next. The policy is not prescriptive, said she; rather, it is “descriptive and clear.” It gives greater “latitude” than the earlier policy. We’re just responding to the last court hearing, she added. “I think it expands what you are able to do.”

       Mr. Frogue, who seemed more bewildered than usual, commended Alan Willian for his labors. “He’s done an excellent job here,” said Steve. (Meanwhile, Don, evidently writhing in some Wagnerian hell, quietly screwed up his face.) The Froguester declared that the policy is indeed “descriptive, not prescriptive.” The board, he added, has been “pilloried” (lovely image) for breaking the law—especially the Brown Act. When, he said, the trustees were alerted to those violations, they were “more than happy” to make corrections. (False.) So now the court has directed the board to amend the policy. Mr. Willian performed “Spartan labors” here, said Steve. We (the board) are an entity, he said, that is wondering which way the court will push us next! It’s one damn thing after another!

I got the feeling that Willian and Frogue are pals. As Frogue spoke, trustees generally cringed, but Willian nodded approvingly. At one point, in my imagination, as Frogue spoke, Willian shouted, “Good one, Uncle Steve!”

       Williams, a sneer on his Hitlerian visage, called for the question and snarled.

       But wait! Padberg was reminded to ask the student trustee, Jennifer Kalena, to comment on the proposed policy. “It’s a mess,” said Kalena. You say it is clear, but “I didn’t find it that way,” she added.

       I think I like this kid.

       Fortune groaned, then sighed a world-weary sigh, and everyone regarded her as one might regard a visiting bear. She reminded her colleagues that the proposed policy is “much more liberal” than the policy that was in place up through ’97. That one was very “paternalistic and controlling.” True, those rules were never enforced, “but they were there.” Anyhow, the district went over to UCI and took their new policy. “That [policy] was sued,” supposedly because it was too limiting. But with this new policy, “you can say anything”—as long as you’re not breaking the law. You can post anything; you can have meetings anywhere. The lawyers tell us, she added, that this policy is less restrictive than the ones at Stanford or at “Cal Berkeley.” She was referring, I guess, to the opinion of Mr. Willian, an apparent illiterate. (I’ve read the policy.)

       Ms. Padberg suddenly made an announcement for the benefit of governance groups, directing them to provide their input in written form. She seemed pleased. Of course, no governance groups were in the room.

       Ms. Milchiker objected to the policy’s assumption that religious events necessarily occur on Sunday. And these restrictions on roller-blading—what do they have to do with speech and advocacy?

       Someone called for the question. The item passed.

Scandal!

       Next, the “board from Hell” discussed item #2: “final distribution of net litigation proceeds…from [the] Orange County bankruptcy.” Essentially, the district has an opportunity to recover over $600,000 of its investment, if it files by a certain date.

       Amazingly, Mr. Frogue sought to prevent the filing, for he was “very concerned” about an apparent cover-up. He alluded to grand jury testimony regarding the bankruptcy, which, he implied, has not been made public and should be “released”—something, he seemed to think, the board was somehow in a position to cause. Thus we should “withhold judgment” until we have an opportunity to look into ways to force officials to release the testimony. This matter, he said, “goes to the very heart of government.” (Willian nodded approvingly; Wagner’s eyes widened.) Frogue declared that he would not vote for approval until he gets “some answers.”

       John “Brown Boy” Williams took the opportunity to tell one of his favorite canards: that the bankruptcy caused the district to slip onto the state chancellor’s fiscal watch list! He smiled, which, as I recall, caused his ears to become pointy and devilish. The audience recoiled. Someone whispered, “Look! He looks like Hitler!” Everyone nodded. (Maybe they were talking about Wagner; it’s hard to say.)

         Lang opposed delaying the district’s receiving these monies. We need to act promptly, he said. Milchiker agreed, saying that it would be “irresponsible” to do otherwise.

         Frogue then launched into a familiar harangue: that decision-makers need good information, but, damn it, information is withheld from them by sneaky and disloyal underlings. For instance, said he, administrators at SOCCCD failed to inform trustees that we were on the watch list until we were placed even higher (lower?) on the list! “We need information,” he added. Information, information, information! Referring to the bankruptcy, he said, dramatically, that it was a “scandal!”

       Padberg became pragmatic; she suggested that they take the money and run--while simultaneously persuing this “information” thang. Doing the former does not preclude doing the latter, she said. With that, the item passed unanimously. Whew!

IVC’s “burgeoning administrative structure”:

       Item #4 was an “academic personnel action”: “authorization to establish and announce [an] assistant dean position” for IVC. Essentially, Raghu P. Mathur wants to create another administrative position as a ploy to remove Bill H, a Mathur critic, from a quasi-administrative position and to expand his army of goose-stepping Goosters. Earlier that day, Peter Morrison presented the board a financial analysis that demonstrated that the new dean would cost the district $96,000. Ruiz had tried to blow him off. So Peter repeated his point and Armando got hissy and defensive.

Now, Mathur and Ruiz, furiously ignoring the money issue, argued that Bill’s position is essentially administrative, and thus it should be filled by an administrator, not a faculty member. Ruiz explained that he was “particularly troubled” that Bill, a member of the faculty, was evaluating other faculty. (He failed to mention that, during the days of the IVC “chair model,” faculty routinely evaluated faculty, and the sky refrained from falling.)

Mathur and Ruiz insisted that they had solicited “input” from all of the governance groups and that this input was duly “considered.”

When, at long last, trustee Lang spoke, he blew Mathur’s proposal totally out of the water. He said that, in the past, the board has recognized the folly of making ad hoc changes in the administrative structure without regard to the overall structure; it was precisely this sort of change that was being proposed in this case. Second, he said, with the addition of this administrator, IVC will have more administrators than Saddleback, despite being half Saddleback’s size! At IVC, he said, there is a “burgeoning administrative structure.” (Duh!) He also noted that the proposed position has not yet received approval from the state chancellor’s office. Finally, he explained that, in fact, the new position was “rejected by every single shared governance group” at IVC!

Whoa! Good trusteeage, Dave!

Dot opted to ignore Dave’s points. “I believe,” she said idiotically, “that a teacher’s place is in the classroom.” Her chair again groaned, and so did the audience.

Williams, in an effort to silence Lang and Milchiker, who sought to address the matter further, called for the question, but that failed. Padberg snippily ignored Milchiker and Lang and asked Wagner to speak. Wagner asked Mathur if it is true that all of the governance groups reject the proposed position. “It is not true,” said Mathur. How it was “not true” was not made clear.

Eventually, Lang was allowed to speak. If Bill is replaced, said he, the district would still have to pay his salary. Thus the new dean would mean new costs. Marcia reiterated that, since IVC has more administrators than Saddleback, it makes little sense to add more of them.

Frogue, referring to Lang, said that his “facts are wrong.” Not all governance groups opposed the position, said he. We ought to take the advice of the college president, he added.

Suddenly, Padberg remarked that the board needed to proceed to other business. Fortune called for the question, but the motion again failed. Frogue questioned Padberg’s understanding of Roberts Rules of Order. Then Wagner explained that, though he was worried about the number of administrators at IVC, this was not the time to deal with that problem. He worried that, by allowing faculty to evaluate faculty, there would be litigation.

Williams opined, nastily, that the board shouldn’t “second guess the president.” Eventually, the motion passed, 5/2.

Unauthorized plaquage:

       Item 7 had been added at the last minute. According to the agenda, someone (the chancellor?) was recommending the belated ratification of memorials “to Dr. Edward A. Hart and Sean J. Sheridan on the IVC Campus.” But wait! Those plaques were installed many years ago! What gives?

Evidently, the board was attempting to address unauthorized plaquage and namage. (Only the board is authorized to name stuff.) No doubt this action has something to do with Mathur’s plan to fire an instructor on the grounds of his alleged refusal to honor the “namage” policy in the case of the “Terry Burgess Garden.” It now appears that, in the past, college officials have often violated that policy.

Curiously, item 7 failed to mention other unauthorized plaques at IVC, including the one that graces the “Dan Larios Garden.” (Apparently, Mathur now plans to quietly remove that plaque. Payback time!)

Marcia asked why this action was being proposed now. Why, she asked, are we dealing with plaques put up 10 years ago?

According to the chancellor, the board has a “new administration in place.” As things come up, they are dealt with. This came up. We discovered the existence of these plaques, he said.

Frogue seemed lost. He thought they were discussing item 6. No, said everybody, we’re on item 7. Oh.

The discussion became raucous. Frogue became unpleasant and coughed up a hairball. Frogue and Milchiker butted heads. At one point, Marcia actually put her hands up by her head and made an infantile gesture at the Froguester. That stopped the meeting cold for about 20 seconds.

Item 7 was rammed through on a 6/1/1 vote.

Beanie Baby:

After the meeting, cat-lover Sharon Macmillan said she had something for me: a book about organic cat care or something. Someone else gave me a “Beanie Baby,” whatever the hell that is. I stuffed it in my pocket, where it could observe the proceedings. It was some kind of rodent, I think. As I shook a trustee’s hand, it seemed to glare with disapproval. The trustee stared back at the Beanie Baby and then left the building.

And that was about it.  —CW

Dawn of the Dodo Deans (the trustees mess with dean requirements)

Dissent 43

February 7, 2000

DAWN OF THE DODO DEANS!

Chunk Wheeler [Roy Bauer]

The union's MacMillan

       Silly us. We (faculty) of the School of Humanities and Languages (at IVC) feel that our dean should know something about the Humanities and Languages! So when the president of IVC—Raghu “Poinsettia” Mathur—composed and imposed a job description for the new H&L dean position that did not even require a BA, we complained.

Somehow, our complaint was heard, or so we thought, and, early in the Fall, a committee was created and given the task of writing a more adequate description. Essentially, we adopted one that had just been used in the Saddleback Liberal Arts dean search. It required an M.A. in one of the relevant academic areas. What could be more reasonable? We were told that the president would take our recommendation seriously. Then we were told that our advice was accepted! Hooray!

       No. At the last board meeting—despite protests from the Academic Senate presidents—the Board Majority, urged on by Mathur, accepted the chancellor’s recommendation according to which area expertise is no longer required!

       Soon, economists will be evaluating philosophers and chemists will be evaluating coaches. It’s wonderfully absurd.

Relax!

       But why stop with administrators? Why not apply the model to instructors? Let’s have coaches teaching chemistry and anthropologists teaching writing! Why the hell not!

       Once again, we have Curt and Sherry and Lee and the rest of the Old Guard gang to thank, for they spent many tens of thousands of our union dollars to give us this “Board from Hell.”

       At a recent union meeting, I noted this fact. The Old Guard responded by explaining that the job of the union is a simple one: to support those trustee candidates who will support the contract. “Yeah, but what if these ‘pro-contract’ candidates are anti-union (Padberg/Wagner)? What if they’re Holocaust deniers (Frogue)? What if they’re enemies of shared governance (Williams/Fortune/Frogue/Padberg/Wagner)?”

      --None of that matters, you silly person.

Thursday, January 27, 2000

College district relaxes requirements for deans (LA Times)

Sampson

Trustees decide that new administrators will not need academic experience in the discipline they supervise.

By RENEE MOILANEN.  

     Deans at Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges no longer will need experience in the academic disciplines they oversee, a policy change opposed by nearly every staff, faculty and administrative group in the South Orange County Community College District.

     The district’s board of trustees decided this week that deans should not be required to have a master’s degree or certificate in the academic disciplines they supervise. Instead, future deans can have a master’s degree in any subject.

     Chancellor Cedric Sampson said he recommended the change to enlarge the pool of dean applicants and to emphasize administrative, rather than academic, experience.

     “It meets the needs of the board’s direction in the management structure of the district,” he said.

     Sampson’s recommendation defies nearly every major interest group at the two campuses. The faculty senates and Chancellor’s Cabinet, which represents faculty, staff and administrators, voted in November to oppose the change.

     “It makes an enormous difference,” said Anne Cox, Saddleback’s senate president. “The various disciplines have their own language. You don’t bring in the CEO of Coca-Cola to run a hospital.”

     Proponents argued that academic experience is largely irrelevant because some departments include up to 50 widely varying disciplines.

     Saddleback’s division of advanced technology and applied sciences houses everything from computer technology to cosmetology, a result of the district’s restructuring in 1997.

     “The point here is that if a candidate for dean of technology at Saddleback College has an M.A. in landscape design, one of the 47 programs offered, is he better qualified than someone with an M.A. in physics or computer programming or even administration of higher education?” said trustee Dorothy Fortune.

     She also pointed to a district report that said “few” past dean positions required a specific academic background. The report listed 21 dean positions advertised since 1985. Of those, eight required discipline experience and 13 did not.

     That district report is almost identical in wording to an informal survey prepared by Fortune to bolster her case against stricter academic requirements.

     Trustees Marcia Milchiker and Dave Lang sided with faculty groups to oppose the change. 

     “I’m not interested in having the biggest pool of candidates,” Lang said. “I’m interested in having the biggest pool of qualified candidates.”  

Shared governance under siege

Dissent 42

January 27, 2000

SHARED GOVERNANCE UNDER SIEGE

 By Chunk Wheeler [Roy Bauer] 

     Obviously, shared governance has been under siege in the SOCCCD for about three years; in recent months, matters have only grown worse. We at the Dissent would like to provide some context for this issue. Toward that end, we have provided three articles: (1) the entry entitled “shared governance” from The Dissenter’s Dictionary; (2) a 2-year old article on shared governance—as a national issue—by Courtney Leatherman of the Chronicle of Higher Education; and (3) a very recent article by the same writer and in the same journal concerning the phenomenon of increased reliance on part-timers, a related issue.

SHARED GOVERNANCE

    In American universities, the notion that professors (and students) should play a role in the governance of their institutions—which traces back to the American Association of University Professor’s widely-embraced 1966 “Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities”—has been a “cherished tradition,” but, by the 80s, it was under attack by trustees and presidents and was otherwise threatened, owing to political pressures, increasing competition, and increasing reliance on adjunct professors, who, typically, have played no role in governance. By 1991, the assault became so serious that the AAUP began a “blacklist” of institutions that violated shared governance—e.g., those in which the board or the president made unilateral decisions concerning tenure or curriculum.

     In the 80s, Californians finally legislated shared governance for the community colleges there (AB 1725), but this did not prevent the system from suffering the same tensions between partisans of faculty empowerment, on the one hand, and those who wished to run colleges like corporations with obedient “employees,” on the other.  By late 1997, SOCCCD became the poster child of the system’s shared governance wars, though, in many ways, the problems of the district were unique. Indeed, they were bizarre—what with its Holocaust-denying trustee (Frogue), an illiterate and brazenly autocratic college president (Mathur), and its gay-bashing union (the Faculty Association). Adding another bizarre twist, in late ’98, owing to support from the faculty union PAC, two trustees joined the board who were affiliated with Education Alliance, a Religious Right group whose leader, Mark Bucher, was the chief advocate and author of Proposition 226, the 1998 initiative that sought to remove unions as players in California politics.

     Generally, in public, the “Board Majority” has claimed to embrace shared governance—while claiming also that faculty fail to understand their role within it. On occasion, however, Board Majoritarians have explicitly expressed their rejection of shared governance. For instance, during the May ’97 Board meeting, Mr. Frogue, then president of the Board, distributed a brief essay of his entitled “Comments on Shared Governance” in which he asserted that shared governance is “dysfunctional” and does not “work.” He noted that 200,000 voters cast ballots for the four victorious trustee candidates in November (of ’96) and that the Academic Senate presidents were chosen by a handful of faculty. He seemed to suggest that, as a consequence, the Academic Senate presidents should have only a minor role in district and college governance.

     In fact, starting in December of ’96, the BM-dominated Board ceased even pretending to consider the advice of faculty as expressed through its agents, the faculty senates, though it seemed often to do the bidding of the union Old Guard, whose members were sometimes appointed as administrators and whose “enemies” among administrators were removed or otherwise encouraged to seek employment elsewhere.

     Meanwhile, the district’s “Shared Governance Leadership Handbook” (of Fall ’96) stated, “The Saddleback Community College District Board of Trustees fully supports AB 1725 and the spirit of shared governance. Implementation of shared governance in the SCCD is through a structure of councils and governance units designed to ensure all entities the right to participate effectively in district and college policy making.”

     Central to the Board’s support of shared governance is its adherence to Board Policy 2100.1—”Delegation of Authority to the Academic Senate”—which, in response to Title 5 of the California Code of Regulations, mandates that “the governing board delegates to the college academic senates responsibility for and authority over academic and professional matters.” As of this writing (1/20/00), that policy is still in effect. Nevertheless, in recent years, the board has failed to delegate authority to the senates, illustrated by its apparent determination to foist upon Saddleback College a soccer program—a curriculum matter—despite the faculty recommendation to the contrary, and the Board’s repeated failure to explain in writing its failure to accept Academic Senate recommendations (on matters over which the body is given authority by 2100.1), as per the board policy.

     Perhaps the nadir of SG has now occurred (early 2000), with the initiative to modify BP 2100.1. “The board,” said Sampson, “felt it delegated too much authority to the faculties and it needs to clarify and correct some of the policies” (Times, 11/27/99). Hence, Sampson expressed his intention to recommend changing the faculty senates’ role from “authority over” academic and professional matters to “responsibility for advising the board” concerning them.

     During the December ’99 board meeting, Sampson was asked whether the board was able unilaterally to change the policy in this fashion. His answer: “Yes.” In fact, however, BP 2100.1 states that “This policy is a mutual agreement between the governing board and the academic senates and may be modified upon mutual consent of the parties.” Nonetheless, it now appears inevitable that the Board will act to change the policy without the consent of the faculty senates.

 * * *

From the Chronicle of Higher Education

January 30, 1998

‘Shared Governance’ Under Siege: Is It Time to Revive It or Get Rid of It? 

Professors feel shut out of decision making, and unsure about how to regain their influence

By COURTNEY LEATHERMAN

     If you want to draw a crowd to a faculty senate meeting, talk about pay, parking, or ousting the president. Anything else plays to an empty house.

            But lack of interest among faculty members is just one of the problems plaguing “shared governance” on campuses these days. The concept of professors’ playing a role in running their institutions is a cherished idea, but it’s under siege, threatened by overreaching trustees, ineffectual presidents, and professors themselves.

            Faculty members at many institutions feel they have been sidelined lately as others have decided big issues. They’re tired of the situation and are angling to be players once more. Professors are battling their governing boards over admissions policies in California, tenure codes in Minnesota, and conference topics in New York.

            Amid the turmoil, however, a lot of people are beginning to rethink the whole notion of shared governance.

            For faculty members, that means reviving it. “I find there is a consistent call from professors asking, ‘How do we get back into the game?’” says Joe Flynn, a distinguished-service professor at the State University of New York. As the co-founder of the National Network of Faculty Senates, which gives governance workshops around the country, Mr. Flynn says he senses “a new point of evolution” in the idea of governance.

            Professors on various campuses are calling in governance pros like Mr. Flynn to help them work with their administrations. Faculty governing bodies — typically called senates — are reviewing their governance documents in search of improvements. And national faculty groups are cranking up the rhetoric to rally interest in the sacred tenet.

            Trustees, on the other hand, want to revamp the whole notion of shared governance — and they’ve hired a consultant to do just that.

            “It’s almost gotten to the point that people don’t want to use the term ‘shared governance’ anymore, because it implies something that may not exist,” says John D. Walda, president of Indiana University’s Board of Trustees and a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

            Shared governance is an idea developed by higher-education groups and disseminated by the American Association of University Professors in its 1966 “Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities.”

            The proposal lays out the roles that trustees, administrators, professors, and even students should play in their “shared responsibility and cooperative action” for running institutions. The statement says, for example, that professors should have primary authority over curriculum, research, and faculty status, and that their decisions should be overruled by the president or governing board “only in exceptional circumstance.”

            At the time, higher-education groups, including the governing- boards association, “recognized” and “commended” the statement as a step forward in delineating governance roles, but did not “endorse” it – a fact that the A.A.U.P. sometimes forgets, says Tom Ingram, president of the governing-boards group.

            He and many trustees want to make professors mindful that higher education has changed significantly in three decades: Institutions have become bigger and more complex and have come under increased pressure from outsiders like corporations and lawmakers. In the current environment, many trustees argue, there is a need for speed, and the traditional concept of shared governance has not kept up.

            “Faculty involvement in institutional governance is not going well at all,” Mr. Ingram says.

            He believes that most faculty senates are “dysfunctional.” He argues, as many others do, that they are notoriously slow to act, reluctant to make hard decisions, and eschewed by the top scholars on the faculty.

            Trustees bear a share of the blame, he concedes, pointing to “activist trustees” who have meddled in affairs that are clearly academic.

            Last year, the governing-boards association put out a report that called for strengthening the power of the presidency. Now the group wants to develop a new statement, specifying “what role the faculty should and should not presume to have” in running institutions, Mr. Ingram says.

            The group has hired a consultant — Robert H. Atwell, a past president of the American Council on Education — to develop a statement of principles for institutional decision making. It expects Mr. Atwell to act within the year. He plans to consult with scholars, trustees, and administrators, but says he’s not looking for a stamp of approval from any other organizations — including faculty groups.

            Moreover, the governing-boards association hopes to avoid even using the term “shared governance” in its statement.

            Faculty leaders, predictably, are bristling at the idea.

            “I’m trying to think of governance without the sharing,” says Mary Burgan, head of the A.A.U.P. “I guess that’s the monarchy.”

            She hopes to have her association put out its own booklet this year to give faculty members guidance on governing. (She recommends setting strict time limits on faculty meetings, for example.)

            She and others admit to weaknesses in faculty governance. But get rid of it, they warn, and you lose many of the values that separate academe from industry.

            And faculty members may do more than balk at being taken out of the decision-making loop, some say. They may walk — a picket line. The threat of unionization has become an increasingly popular weapon in the governance wars.

            Over all, Dr. Burgan believes that the 1966 statement still stands. The A.A.U.P. made that clear in 1991: It started a blacklist of institutions that violated the principles of shared governance. Last year, Francis Marion University became the third and latest addition (joining Lindenwood and Elmira Colleges), after its president was found to have made unilateral decisions on matters involving the curriculum and tenure procedures. The case, Dr. Burgan says, reveals an institution “that really wants the faculty to go away and have no opinions at all.” Francis Marion officials have since abolished its Faculty Senate.

            Elsewhere, however, some professors believe that faculty senates are simply dying on the vine.

            In the November/December issue of Academe, the A.A.U.P.’s magazine, Joanna Vecchiarelli Scott writes, “If the faculty-governance patient is dying, the wounds are partially self-inflicted. Death by inattention is probably the fairest verdict.”

            In an interview, Dr. Scott, a political scientist at Eastern Michigan University, elaborates: “I’m trying to say that faculty should take a more active role. Otherwise, governance is going to be defined for them.”

            Some people believe that the Faculty Senate at the University of Minnesota was caught off guard when the trustees there tried to overhaul the tenure system two years ago. These critics say it was the faculty’s threat to unionize, and not the strength of the senate, that forced the trustees to withdraw their plan.

            Faculty leaders at Minnesota take exception to that characterization, and they take credit for getting the trustees to pull back. “I think it was the shining hour of faculty governance,” says Virginia Gray, a political-science professor and head of the senate.

            Even so, faculty leaders appointed a Task Force on Faculty Consultation to reconsider the university’s governance structure. After talking to a variety of people on the campus, the task force concluded that all university decisions require some participation by the faculty.

            At the California State University System, professors complain that most of them learned of a plan to form a corporation with four big technology companies only as the deal was about to be finalized last month.

            “There seems to be a policy where the less we know, the better off we are,” says Benjamin P. Bowser, a sociology professor on C.S.U.’s Hayward campus. “So faculty are caught in the position where we have to react after the fact.”

            They reacted with protests, and administrators have postponed a decision on the technology plan until March.

            Dr. Bowser notes that it becomes especially difficult for professors to keep an eye on governance issues when their institutions hire more and more part-time professors. Adjuncts, typically, do not play a role in governing. That duty, then, falls to the minority of full-timers on a campus.

            In the power struggle at C.S.U., time and confidentiality were important factors: Officials there said that the plan was a good deal for the university, but that they had to keep it quiet until all of the companies were on board.

            Ken P. Mortimer, the president of the University of Hawaii System, who has written extensively on shared governance, argues that quick decisions can be made with the faculty’s blessing — if officials have laid the groundwork beforehand. “The basic argument against consulting is that you don’t have the time,” he says. “Our argument has been if you consult and advise routinely, in the few cases where you have to move quickly, a system of trust will have been built up to allow you to move.”

            Theodore J. Marchese, vice-president of the American Association for Higher Education, acknowledges “the built-in tension between what the market wants and the values that are prized by shared governance.”

            He suggests: “Let’s ask how the enactment of shared governance can be more responsive.”

            James J. Duderstadt has been considering ways to revise shared governance since stepping down as president of the University of Michigan last year. He worries that faculties will turn to unionizing more often if universities can’t make their governance procedures work more smoothly. He recommends “the corporate model” for governance.

            There’s nothing hierarchical about his plan, though. He recommends putting professors on governing boards. A seat at the table would give them authority along with accountability, he says; faculty representatives could hire and fire presidents, and, in turn, could be sued, just like other board members.

            Mr. Duderstadt, who is president emeritus and university professor of science and engineering at Michigan, suspects that trustees won’t like his idea. But, he argues, “the real governance does not occur in the senate, but in the governance body.”

            Devin Thornburg can attest to that. A past chairman of the Faculty Senate at Adelphi University, he notes that Adelphi’s senate structure was, in theory, a model of good governance. But it turned out to be a paper tiger. The administration and the Board of Trustees refused to deal with the senate. “We were dismissed,” he says.

            But Dr. Thornburg, an education professor, and others at Adelphi did attract the attention of the New York State Board of Regents, which replaced all but one of the university’s trustees last year for insufficient oversight of the compensation and lavish spending of the president, Peter Diamandopoulos.

            Now the institution is trying to reconfigure the idea of governance. Dr. Thornburg, for his part, recommends “shared governance at an earlier point. “We need to bring faculty and administrators together at an earlier stage of the problem, rather than the old model of the administration acting and the faculty reacting,” he says.

            Senates are important, he says, but he’s also in favor of creating “subordinate groupings,” like task forces reporting to presidents or trustees, to get even more professors involved in governance.

            Faculty members, he says, “need to share the authority, but also the accountability.”

            He’s got his share of accountability these days. Dr. Thornburg this month became associate provost. He is just one of three professors who led the charge to oust President Diamandopoulos and who have now moved into administrative posts at Adelphi. The union’s former leader on the campus now serves as dean of arts and sciences, and a former senate leader sits as provost.

            The irony is not lost on the current provost — or the former one.

            “It’s unusual that you have an institution that is completely run by the faculty,” says Igor Webb, the former provost, who was forced to step down last year but remains on the faculty. “Adelphi now is as close to that as you’re going to get.”