Universities are incubators of democracy. Ideally, they are spaces where each sector of the community—administrators, faculty, staff, students and alumni—feels like their input is acknowledged, valued and included in organizational decisions.
In practice, however, the involvement of all constituencies in strategic planning can vary. This varied involvement often results in a power imbalance. Campus-based news organizations like The Ithacan, which has reported on issues of academic freedom and educational quality at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, asserted that concentrating power erodes trust and engenders confusion. Stakeholders want their voices heard, but, in some cases, they may just find themselves without a seat at the planning table.
What can be done to ensure that democracy prevails in higher education?
A lot, actually:
Encouraging and facilitating the full participation of constituencies in organizational decision-making by granting equal authority to all stakeholders
Providing accessible spaces, physical or virtual, for community members to express their thoughts and feelings about proposed plans
Sharing crucial information with all stakeholders in an accessible manner
Balancing the interests of constituencies and their administration
Maintaining organized caucuses that represent each sector of the community
Aligning strategic planning with core institutional values and advancing those values through observable action
Each of these bullet points—paraphrased from a section of The Struggle for Democracy in Higher Education—boils down to what is known as shared governance.
Shared governance happens when each sector of the community has full and balanced participation in strategic planning; it involves the interweaving of stakeholders’ respective roles to design and implement change that, in turn, addresses the broader issues facing a university at any given time.
Fiscal crises like the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic tend to accelerate strategic planning. The result? Hurried organizational decision-making that disregards core institutional values and deteriorates shared governance.
During the pandemic, at least eight universities “flouted shared governance,” Inside Higher Ed reported, as administrations laid off faculty and staff members despite economic downturn. The move led some constituencies like the Ithaca College-based Open the Books Coalition to protest austerity measures, which are massive spending cuts enacted to counterbalance budget deficits.
With shared governance, stakeholders can make organizational decisions that evenly distribute power and consolidate community trust. Without it, disaster capitalism risks becoming the new religion of universities across the United States.
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