Evaluating Board Effectiveness for Advancing Autonomy: A Strategy for Newly Autonomous Universities in Kazakhstan

This paper presents an instrument for board evaluation specifically designed for the evolving context of higher education reform in Kazakhstan. It adopts a self-study approach, drawing on best practices in governance

An International Visitors Guide to Understanding University Governing Boards in the United States of America

This document describes the structure and forms of governing boards in the United States. It provides an overview of the related higher education context and then describes board structure, composition, leadership, and scope of work

Institutional Governance for a Shared Glocal Engagement Mission

Governing bodies can and should play essential roles in advancing a glocal agenda. Governance is essential because glocal work is strategic, includes an accountability dimension and relies on the talents and perspectives governance participants can bring to the university. Boards should leverage their traditional oversight and accountability functions and their strategic work. However, to be most useful in this work, boards should also add a leadership function, in which they make sense of a dynamic environment and raise key issues for the university to address

College Prices, Costs, and Outcomes: Who\u27s Minding the Gap Between Higher Education and the Public?

Tuition and fees at most public and independent colleges and universities have risen markedly over the last two decades, and although the rate of increase has slowed in most cases, college has become less affordable for a number of people, and the willingness and ability of students, parents, and the public to pay the price have declined. Most board members seem to understand this point, but only when it comes to other colleges and universities, according to a survey recently conducted by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) of more than 2,500 board members across the country. Board members think that higher education in general is too expensive, but the price is right at their own institution. And while almost half say that their institution could be doing more or needs to do much more to reduce expenses, the other half say it is already doing all it can

Why Governing is So Difficult: A Synthesis of the (Other) Literature

Governing boards have a history of underperformance. Yet, most attempted strategies address the recognized problems of inexperienced trustees, infrequent meetings, and trustees’ lack of understanding of higher education. They include steps such as clarifying board roles and responsibilities, better orientations, more information, and restructuring the board. Yet, these commonly advocated strategies yield few consistent results. This paper looks beyond the typical problems and solutions for underlying causes that might make governance difficult. It synthesizes literature from psychology, business, behavioral economics, group behavior, and related areas to develop propositions that help explain board behavior (or misbehavior) to suggest deeper causes of board misbehavior via a set of propositions. These propositions focus on the nature of high-powered groups, overconfidence, group information bias and group processes, all of which constrain board effectiveness. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations for practitioners and for researchers to further address what look like perennial governance problems

Redefining Competition Constructively: The Challenges of Privatisation, Competition and Market-Based State Policy in the United States

In the United States, the relationship between state governments and public colleges and universities is being redefined with new notions of autonomy and accountability, and with funding policies that are highly market-driven (often referred to as privatisation ) as the centerpieces. Situations and institutional strategies unthinkable only a few years ago are becoming increasingly commonplace. For instance, a few business and law schools at public institutions are moving toward privatisation, distancing themselves from both the states and their parent universities. While American higher education has traditionally been competitive and market driven, emerging state market-based policies, which will clearly benefit some types of institutions over others, are further intensifying the competition with a variety of effects at the institutional and sector levels. Entrepreneurial or commercial activities may provide the additional resources individual institutions need to fulfil their public purpose. However, when all institutions pursue the same set of competitive strategies, no one gains an advantage. Institutions run harder to stay in place. The cumulative effect of competition may also work against important social objectives such as affordability and access. This paper explores the challenges that the current competitive environment creates for institutional leaders in the United States. It acknowledges that the competitive environment will not abate and suggests that by competing in different ways, over different objectives, with different purposes, US higher education might better meet its social objectives of increased access, lower cost and enhanced quality

What Presidents Really Think About Their Boards

Takeaways Contrary to many recent headlines of tensions between presidents and boards, the clear majority of presidents report that their boards have a positive impact on the institution, they are satisfied overall with the baord, and they think boards are engaged at the right levels. Understanding higher education better may help to increase board engagement...as well as micromanaging if boards, board leaders, and presidents don\u27t have ongoing conversations about the appropriate role of the board. Presidents and boards must work together to get governance right. Such goals require effort, intentionality, and candor

Lessons Learned about Student Learning: Eight Test Cases

Takeaways The progress—and setbacks—of eight institutions that served as test cases have yielded a set of lessons about board oversight of educational quality from which others can benefit: 1 Ensure a sufficient institutional-assessment capacity. 2 Start with what you already have. 3 Make academic quality a priority of the boad and institutional leaders. 4 Attach the effort to other activities. 5 Educate the board on education. 6 Find the right focus. 7 Allow for targeted deeper dives. 8 Develop new board processes and use time differently. 9 Deepen the engagement of the board with faculty

Are They Singing from the Same Hymn Book?

A fact of academic life is that faculty and presidents primarily concern themselves with different institutional tasks, attend different institutional meetings, and pursue different institutional goals. In short, faculty do faculty things and presidents do presidential things. They have different perceptions of institutional life (Peterson and White 1992). Differing perspectives can easily lead to standoffs between the two powers in academe—those who teach and those who administer—and those standoffs happen quite frequently (American Council on Education & Pew Higher Education Roundtable 1996; Schuster et al. 1994). Faculty-administrator differences are not a new phenomenon; examples exist at Williams and Dartmouth Colleges from 100 years ago (Finkelstein 1984)

Assessing Change and Transformation in Higher Education: An Essential Task for Leaders

An important responsibility of metropolitan university leaders is to provide compelling evidence that their institutions have the ability to change and to articulate how much change has occurred. This paper examines how institutions can develop that capacity and determine the extent to which institutions are different. It defines transformation, describes types of evidence, presents a framework for determining evidence, suggests strategies for collecting evidence, and identifies challenges to determining progress