Category Archives: Governance

Inside Higher Ed: A More Deliberative Democracy

Some educators think they’ve found the perfect metaphor for political deadlock in Washington: university governance.

“Universities are renowned for deliberations that take a long, long time,” pointed out Bruce Mallory, provost of the University of New Hampshire. Committees, task forces, the student government, the faculty senate, the board of trustees: Academe is full of representative bodies with mandates that sometimes conflict and competing interests that can lead to contentious disputes, bitter debates and long, drawn-out proceedings.

Mallory and others believe that divisive, adversarial politics are also being played out on the national stage, at an unprecedented level of intensity. He is a proponent of what is being called “deliberative democracy,” a process of informed and civil political discourse that ideally leads to a greater consensus and more rational collective decisions.

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Houston Chronicle: New TSU board meets as lawmakers debate its future

Texas Southern University’s new governing board started the process of rebuilding the troubled school Tuesday while state lawmakers remained at odds over how to proceed.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Roger Bowen to Consult for Governing-Boards Group After He Leaves AAUP

Roger W. Bowen — who as general secretary of the American Association of University Professors has represented the interests of faculty members for the last three years — will jump the fence this fall, when he becomes a part-time consultant for the Association of Governing Boards, which represents trustees and campus chief executives.

Mr. Bowen says he’ll visit colleges that are having governance problems with the hope of “making peace.” Will it be hard to bat for the opposite team? “My approach is and always has been rather more communitarian,” he says. “Governing boards, administrators, and faculty have to be able to work together to have effective governance.”

Mr. Bowen is due to step down from his AAUP post on June 30. The consulting post will allow him to live full time at his second home, on the coast of Maine, where he’ll work on writing a book on academic freedom and on a cold-war spy novel. —Robin Wilson
Posted on Monday May 14, 2007 | Permalink

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Tallahassee Democrat: FAMU board member steps down

A fourth FAMU Board of Trustees member who voted against James H. Ammons for president of FAMU stepped down Thursday. And she may not be the last.

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Houston Chronicle: Texas: Perry signals he wants top TSU official impeached

Gov. Rick Perry moved to impeach the chairwoman of Texas Southern University’s governing board Friday after she refused to resign immediately and defiantly scheduled a meeting of regents.

For the first time in six years as governor, Perry initiated the impeachment process by formally notifying the state Senate of his desire to remove Belinda Griffin from the post he gave her in 2003.

The decision came on the same day two Houston lawmakers introduced bills that would allow the governor to replace a university’s board of regents in times of crisis with a smaller, reform-minded board for up to one year. That proposal is intended as a compromise with Perry, who two weeks ago asked lawmakers to grant him the power to appoint a sole conservator in charge of TSU.

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Houston Chronicle: Minority legislators resist TSU czar plan

Gov. Rick Perry’s desire to put Texas Southern University under conservatorship is meeting stiff resistance from minority lawmakers wary of placing the fate of the historically black institution in one person’s hands.

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Huntington News: WVU Faculty Senate Votes ‘No Confidence’ in Garrison, Endorses Nellis for WVU Presidency

In an unprecedented move, the WVU Faculty Senate met in an emergency session late Wednesday afternoon, April 11, 2007, on campus to debate, deliberate, and ultimately vote overwhelmingly to express ‘No Confidence’ in WVU Presidential Finalist Mike Garrison.

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Houston Chronicle: TSU report blasts governing board

A blue-ribbon committee offered a stinging assessment of Texas Southern University on Monday and called for a reshaping of the governing board, more state oversight and funding to help turn around the chronically troubled school.

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Dallas Morning News: SMU pressed to fight Bush’s secrecy

Archivists and historians are urging Southern Methodist University to reject the Bush presidential library unless the administration reverses an executive order that gives former presidents and their heirs the right to keep White House papers secret in perpetuity.

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The Chronicle News Blog
Some 170 professors at Southern Methodist University have signed a petition asking for a full-faculty vote on whether it would be acceptable for the campus to be the site of a partisan Bush Institute, faculty leaders announced on Thursday. The institute would be part of a proposed George W. Bush Presidential Library complex, for which Southern Methodist is the final contender as host institution.

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Inside Higher Ed

The faculty of the University of Oxford has given a final rejection to a plan to overhaul the university’s governance and give more control to outsiders similar to boards of trustees in the United States. Oxford administrators have been pushing for such a change, saying that it is needed to provide the university with sound management. But dons have protested that their role would be diminished and academic values would be compromised. At a November faculty meeting, 62 percent voted down the plan, but Oxford administrators exercised their right to have a mail ballot of all professors. In that vote, 61 percent of professors opposed the plan. Oxford announced the results Tuesday. John Hood, the vice chancellor (the top position) at the university and a leading proponent of the rejected reform plan, issued a statement saying that “the priority now is for the university to come together in order to advance Oxford’s standing as a pre-eminent democratic and scholarly community.”

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Iowa City Press-Citizen: Prez search starts over; faculty upset

After stopping and starting again, the search for a new University of Iowa president is back to the drawing board — again.

After rejecting four finalists for the post recommended by a search committee, the Iowa state Board of Regents agreed — at the behest of Gov. Tom Vilsack and the University of Iowa community — to reconsider the four finalists.

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