\n<\/p>\n
RST: <\/strong>You\u2019ve been telling the presidents I introduce you to that I\u2019m working you like a show pony. Wrong. I\u2019m trying to get you to be a dray horse and actually pull some weight for change. <\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> I do feel like a dray horse with you constantly shoving more stuff at me. Maybe I\u2019m more like a donkey. <\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> Don\u2019t you mean an ass? \ud83e\udd23<\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> Rachel, it is truly unkind to make fun of an octogenarian. You know that I am barely 5 feet 5 inches tall and have to sit at the kids\u2019 table for Thanksgiving. It is hard to project power when I am mistaken for Orville Redenbacher. That is the reason that you are the boss!<\/p>\n RST: <\/strong>I love that you call me Boss. And I\u2019m grateful you\u2019re so willing to pitch in and help the presidents I\u2019ve been introducing to you, offering practical advice and much-needed encouragement. However, I can\u2019t stop thinking about our conversation the other day when you told me you were in D.C. \u201cworking\u201d at your fancy-pants law firm and I said, \u201cOh, right, you just show up and look cute.\u201d And you said yes, and you\u2019re even cuter now that they had to bring in a pillow for you to sit on so you could reach the big desk. I am currently laughing my ass off. <\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> It\u2019s not funny. When I go to lunch I am constantly spilling stuff on me because I am sitting so low. That\u2019s one of the reasons I wear bow ties. <\/p>\n RST: <\/strong> [Taking a deep breath<\/em>] Now let\u2019s talk about shared governance. <\/p>\n EGG: <\/strong>Fine. I maintain that not only is tenure symbolic, but shared governance has been dormant for some time. Yes, we university presidents go diligently to our Faculty Senate meetings, listen carefully and then go back to our offices and scratch our heads about what planet we have just visited. Discussions in the Faculty Senate often have little to do with the functioning of the university. I find that distressing.<\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> Well, then. The reason for shared governance in the first place is because, and I hope we agree on this, we suppose disciplinary expertise on the part of the three legs of the stool: Faculty govern academic matters\u2014curriculum, hiring, promotion, academic standards\u2014administrators handle operations, finances and strategy; and boards hold fiduciary responsibility and ultimate authority. Yes?<\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> I agree with this as a macro delineation, but administrative leaders should also be intellectual leaders of the university. I would always get dismayed when faculty indicated that administrators had no \u201ctrue\u201d understanding of the academic functions of the institution. Higher education leadership should be among the most creative and intellectually lively people on the university campus and not simply be relegated to keeping the lights on and the campus safe. <\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> Okay, this has always befuddled me. I came late to a tenured faculty role; as an acquisitions editor I published scholarly books by people who later took on administrative roles. I never got the memo about how it\u2019s supposed to be us versus them. Never understood why colleagues referred to those who, let\u2019s face it, took harder and less fun jobs, as having gone over to the \u201cdark side.\u201d<\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> I joke that when I moved from being a dean to president, my friends stopped waving at me with all their fingers.<\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> I\u2019ve heard that one from you too many times, Gordon. You need new material. <\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> Old but true joke. This chasm between faculty and administrators is, unfortunately, rampant in many institutions. How can you have shared governance if one of the parties does not believe that there is a conversation among equals? <\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> Easy answer from Orwell: Some animals are more equal than others.<\/p>\n EGG: <\/strong>Sure. There are a number of administrators who do treat their faculty colleagues with arrogance and even disdain. <\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> And I can tell you, having worked in the \u201creal world,\u201d it\u2019s pretty great to come to a place where you don\u2019t really have a boss. <\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> This breakdown of shared governance has many mothers.<\/p>\n RST: <\/strong>Where it gets sticky is in practice. I sat in Faculty Senate before anyone ever thought to explain to me what shared governance was or how it was supposed to work. Even now, were we to ask a bunch of faculty members what it means and what it entails, I\u2019m not sure that even in one institution you\u2019d find a common definition.<\/p>\n EGG: <\/strong>The reason shared governance is dead is because only one party to the conversation wants to engage in shared responsibility. If you really want to have shared governance, then everyone needs to take responsibility for the whole and not be limited by their personal wants and needs. Every human instinct is for people to want to protect their jobs and turf, but until and unless the conversations can rise to a level in which faculty, and not just boards and administrators, are willing to make tough choices on behalf of the institution, shared governance will never be a factor in the forward movement of the university.<\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> Well, when it comes to the curriculum, we\u2019re up against the problem that we all pledge allegiance to our disciplines, not to the institution that gives us a paycheck. I think that\u2019s a big problem, and I\u2019ve written about it. But because the mission of colleges and universities has gotten so blurry (I called it the smoothie-fication), you can\u2019t blame us for wanting to just keep doing what we were trained\u2014and rewarded\u2014to do. <\/p>\n EGG: <\/strong>I readily admit that there is the tyranny of the discipline. That is the reason I argue that we need to reinvent universities by eliminating departments and colleges and organize around ideas, concepts and working groups. Yes, we need people with deep disciplinary training, but not at the loss of the creative spark that comes from different ideas rubbing up against each other. Universities are about ideas and not preserving guilds. <\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> How are we going to be the Odd Couple if you keep saying things I agree with? <\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> Well, Rachel, as you know, I am a devout Mormon, and we believe in conversion. <\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> Dude! Too late. I\u2019ve been singing this hymn (is that what you call those things?) for a while: Majors are dumb. <\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> Majors are dumb.<\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> You\u2019ve said we could get rid of tenure and move to a system of renewal contracts. But were I to say in Academic Senate that I think our administration is kicking puppies, how could I be confident that it wouldn\u2019t keep me from getting a contract renewal? I served in Senate as an assistant professor and kept my big fat mouth shut because even I was not that<\/em> stupid. And it\u2019s not just fear of disagreeing with administrators. You know that our colleagues are the ones who either support us or don\u2019t, so to have an unpopular opinion can be unhealthy for one\u2019s career. <\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> NOW you are really getting me hot around the collar. First, I do not like dogs, so I would be afraid to kick one! <\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> I\u2019m rescinding my invitation to dinner at our house. <\/p>\n EGG:<\/strong> I will tolerate your dog because Toby is building a pizza oven and I want to visit. Rachel, let me say the word again: shared RESPONSIBILITY! How can we expect faculty to engage in any meaningful conversation if you are correct that senates and other like conversations are dominated by fear? I understand the fear of administrators from some faculty, but there is equal fear of not offending the crowd by a faculty member. <\/p>\n RST: <\/strong>Gordon, you do know that writing in ALL CAPS in a text is screaming, right? I never figured you for a screamer.<\/p>\n EGG: <\/strong>Some of the nonsense we tolerate in universities does bring out my hostility. In my 45 years, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times that a faculty senate has concurred that there is a significant problem that needs to be solved if it involves any type of potential negative impact on the faculty. And, of course, in individual conversations I would often have with faculty colleagues, they would immediately agree that we had worrisome issues, but it was always someone else\u2019s fault or they were afraid to speak up. <\/p>\n RST: <\/strong>That right there! I have heard this from so many presidents, and I think it is one of the most damning indictments of my colleagues. You talk about presidents not being brave enough (including, um, yourself), but colleagues stay silent in the face of faculty bullies even when they don\u2019t agree. That is why so many presidents want to throw the shared-governance baby out with the bubble bath. I hate to say it, but I do agree with you that in many institutions, shared governance is broken.<\/p>\n EGG: <\/strong>I do not think any president would be well served by having a Greek chorus, but the president and provost are not being fairly treated by the Senate or any other faculty group if there is not a willingness to engage in hard decisions and support change. In today\u2019s world, all of us need to understand that universities do not exist to make administrators or faculty feel comfortable; rather they exist to serve the people who support us through their tuition and tax dollars. And when it is perceived that we are ignoring our public advocates, we will spur legislative action, often not to our liking. <\/p>\n RST:<\/strong> Well, certainly not to my liking. You, old buddy, would probably be happy going back to the curriculum of the early days of the University of Bologna. And I bet you would look fetching in a suit of armor. (If they came in kids\u2019 sizes.)<\/p>\n Rachel Toor is a contributing editor at <\/em>Inside Higher Ed and the co-founder of The Sandbox. She is also a professor of creative writing. E. Gordon Gee has served as a university president for 45 years at five different universities\u2014two of them twice. He retired from the presidency July\u00a015, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RST: You\u2019ve been telling the presidents I introduce you to that I\u2019m working you like a show pony. Wrong. I\u2019m trying to get you to be a dray horse and actually pull some weight for change. EGG: I do feel like a dray horse with you constantly shoving more stuff at me. Maybe I\u2019m more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2306,4480,19647,14069],"class_list":{"0":"post-48041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-couple","9":"tag-governance","10":"tag-odd","11":"tag-shared"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}