March-April 2001

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State of the Profession: Shadow Governance

By Martin D. Snyder

Appearances can be deceiving. A glance at a representative sample of faculty handbooks suggests that shared governance is alive and well at our colleges and universities. At most institutions the mechanisms for faculty participation in decision making seem to be in place: a faculty senate, numerous faculty committees, and faculty representation in key areas of institutional life. Most handbooks concede to the faculty, at least on paper, primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, and faculty status. If things look so good, why are so many of our colleagues unhappy with the state of collegial governance at their institutions?

Sometimes faculty dissatisfaction arises from an incomplete or naïve understanding of the nature of shared governance, or from an unwillingness to acknowledge that the ultimate legal authority for all aspects of institutional life rests with the board of trustees. In such instances, faculty and Association leaders must do a better job in educating their colleagues. On the other hand, some faculty work under intolerable conditions in institutions where administrations flagrantly ignore published policies and procedures. In these circumstances, the Association must employ its local and national resources to do whatever it can to ameliorate the situation. More frequently, however, faculty disaffection with shared governance stems from subtler sources.

Administrations, sometimes with the best of intentions, sometimes with more devious strategies in mind, develop mechanisms for decision making that evade established modes of governance. In effect, they create a system of shadow governance, and faculty find themselves unwitting or unwilling collaborators. In the more "corporate" environment of today’s colleges and universities, the justification cited for the creation of shadow governance is the need for rapid, flexible decision making. The effect of shadow governance, however, is the disenfranchisement of the faculty.

Shadow governance can take many forms, but the most common vehicles are advisory councils, task forces, and ad hoc committees. Of these, the advisory council seems the most benign. An administrator assembles an informal body of campus leaders—faculty, students, staff, and senior administrators—and meets with them periodically to gain a sense of the campus climate and to test reactions to proposed initiatives.

Advisory councils create serious problems. From their very beginning, they engender the suspicion that "the chosen few" will become an actual shadow cabinet supplanting in reality, if not form, the normal mechanisms of governance. Sometimes that fear becomes justified, and the voice of the few effectively replaces sounder forms of representativeness.

The task force is the darling of the new, high-powered administrator. Often focused on "big ticket" concerns, it is a splashy way for administrators to make their presence felt. Task force members are usually not elected by their colleagues, but appointed for some special expertise. (Unfortunately, the expertise sought is often a pattern of compliance with administration desires.)

Even the most scrupulous faculty member, swept away by the enthusiasm of the task force, may fail to make regular progress reports to faculty colleagues. Of course, effective communication is often impeded by the fact that task forces seem to have an uncanny need to carry on their deliberations during the summer, when the campus community is dispersed.

Finally, there is the ad hoc committee, which one might define cynically as a committee appointed to do the work of some other committee whose chair or members are out of favor with the current administration. Yes, occasions arise when a special committee may legitimately be formed to grapple with a particular issue that does not fall within the purview of an established governance vehicle. Such committees should be the exception, not the rule. Heavy reliance on ad hoc committees, especially if they are appointed by the administration and usurp the role of elected bodies, creates destructive tensions within the faculty and undermines the credibility of collegial governance.

The best way to address the problem of shadow governance is simply to discourage it whenever and wherever possible. If current governance structures are genuinely ineffectual, improve them. When administrations insist on creating extragovernmental bodies, regain some measure of accountability by folding these bodies into established governance structures. Because shadow governance has the appearance of real shared governance, it is particularly insidious. Faculty vigilance is necessary if genuine shared governance is to survive.