Measuring Shared Governance on Black College Campuses
The interview that appears below relies on a survey instrument developed in response to concerns raised at the Association’s 2001 conference on shared governance. Jointly sponsored by the AAUP, the Howard University Faculty Senate, and the American Conference on Academic Deans, "Mission and Governance: Integrating a Shared Vision" featured a day of sessions on historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
The survey’s purpose is to provide an overview of the status of shared governance on individual HBCU campuses and to establish a factual basis for the anecdotal examples described by participants at the conference. Academe administered the survey to two faculty members at separate HBCUs to accompany the article by Ivory Phillips of Jackson State University that begins on page 50. Both faculty members lead AAUP collective bargaining units on their campuses.
Cadance Lowell is a professor of natural sciences, mathematics, and computer science at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. She has taught at CSU—Ohio’s only predominantly African American public institution of higher education—for thirteen years. In the mid-1990s the university experienced fiscal problems so serious that the state took over supervision of its finances. Half the faculty was dismissed, the remaining faculty members took a pay cut, and the university’s student body dropped from about 2,500 to 800. In the years since, the institution has stabilized its finances. It now has eighty-one faculty members, including department chairs, and more than 1,000 students. In April the state returned control over the university’s finances to the CSU administration.
Willie Williams is a professor of physics at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he has taught for twenty-seven years. Founded in 1854, the university lays claim to being "America’s first historically black university" and counts among its graduates the poet Langston Hughes and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The state-related institution has a faculty of 100 and a student body of about 2,000.
For details about the survey instrument and its uses, contact Muriel Poston in the AAUP’s Department of Organizing and Services. All the survey questions are printed below, even those that do not apply to the two respondents, so as to represent the instrument accurately.
1. In which category is your institution?
a. Private Baccalaureate
b. Public Baccalaureate
c. Private Comprehensive/Doctoral
d. Public Comprehensive/Doctoral
Lowell: Public Baccalaureate
Williams: Public Comprehensive
2. Does your institution have a faculty senate or similar body that represents the entire institution in faculty governance matters?
Lowell: Yes.
Williams: We have monthly meetings of all faculty members, over which the president presides. During the meetings, faculty are free to present their views.
3. If you answered yes to the previous question, which groups among the following are voting members of the body? Choose all that apply.
a. Faculty
b. Students
c. Deans
d. Provost
e. President
f. Other (Please specify)
Lowell: The faculty, department chairs, deans, librarians, the library director, and the vice president for academic affairs.
Williams: Every faculty member has a vote; the president votes only if there is a tie.
4. If you have a faculty senate or similar body, how are members selected?
a. By vote of the faculty
b. By administrative selection
c. By a combination of (a) and (b)
d. Other (Please specify)
Lowell: All faculty members serve on the senate.
Williams: All faculty members are eligible to participate in the monthly meetings.
5. If you do not have a faculty senate or similar body, how many times during the academic year does the faculty of the entire institution meet as a body?
a. 0
b. 1
c. 2
d. 3
e. 4 or more
6. Do the faculty at your institution engage in collective bargaining with the administration or governing board?
Lowell: Yes. We have bargained collectively since 1984.
Williams: Yes. We’ve had collective bargaining at our institution since the early 1970s.
7. If your answer to the previous question was yes, what is your relationship to the collective bargaining unit?
Lowell: I am president of the AAUP chapter, which is the collective bargaining agent for faculty on our campus.
Williams: I am president of the AAUP chapter, which is the collective bargaining agent for Lincoln’s faculty.
8. How often do the administration and governing board accept faculty recommendations in those areas in which, according to the AAUP’s 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, the faculty has primacy (i.e., curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of student life that relate to the educational process)?
a. Always
b. Most of the time
c. Occasionally
d. Never
e. Not applicable
Lowell: Most of the time. The administration tends to accept faculty recommendations related to academics, such as those having to do with student grades, the scheduling of classes, and so on. If, however, a recommendation requires expenditure of funds, the administration is much less likely to accept it. For example, if we recommend that new faculty be hired, we are likely to be turned down, especially since we’re under a hiring freeze right now.
Williams: Most of the time. We have twenty-one standing committees that address different aspects of the faculty’s role in governance. For example, we have committees on curriculum, educational policy, promotion and tenure, and so on. At each monthly meeting of our faculty, there are about five reports from committees. A committee will make a recommendation to the full faculty body, which will then decide whether or not to forward the recommendation to the president. But because the president is present at these meetings, he sometimes voices his opinions. As a result, the final recommendation often takes his view into account, making it more likely that he will accept the recommendation.
9. How are department heads chosen?
(a) They are elected by department faculty.
(b) All members of the department serve on a rotating basis.
(c) They are appointed by the administration after consultation with department faculty.
(d) They are appointed by the administration without consultation with department faculty.
Lowell: Departmental faculty recommend candidates, but the dean makes the final selection. It’s not a rubber stamp; the dean doesn’t always accept the faculty’s recommendation.
Williams: Each department selects a candidate, whose name is presented first to the dean, then to the vice president, and finally to the president. The faculty’s recommendation is not always taken. Often, the vice president’s opinion of a candidate will carry great weight with the president.
10. Does your institution award tenure?
Lowell: Yes.
Williams: Yes.
11. Does your faculty handbook include a grievance process for reappointment, tenure, or promotion decisions?
Lowell: Our faculty handbook does not include a grievance process; our contract covers that. The handbook deals with promotion and tenure but not grievances.
Williams: Our collective bargaining agreement and our faculty bylaws include grievance procedures. We are, however, talking about the need to develop a faculty handbook that further explains the nuts and bolts of different processes. Recently, the faculty expressed the view that the university administration overstepped boundaries when the vice president, relying on language in the faculty bylaws, instructed faculty members to report all the remunerated activities in which they engage off campus, even those they may do on weekends and that have no relation to their professional lives. The faculty sees this request as intrusive and wants to set limits on the kinds of activities that must be reported to the administration.
12. Can faculty members express dissenting views on governance without reprisal?
Lowell: Yes, for the most part. Tenured faculty certainly express their views freely, but untenured faculty tend to keep quiet until they receive tenure. Faculty usually arrange to present dissenting views through committees rather than individually so that no one person becomes a focus.
Williams: Yes and no. It has tended to depend on who is president. Our current president seems to be tolerant of different views, but there was sometimes a price to be paid for crossing our past president. When a faculty member who had disagreed with the president came up for promotion or tenure, for example, the person could encounter the consequences of voicing an opinion distasteful to the president. The effect of this history is that a few faculty members say what they believe, no matter what; a majority relay their views very judiciously; and the remainder stay silent.
13. Does the campus climate support a diversity of opinions, schools of thought, perspectives, and personal styles?
Lowell: Yes, I think so. One problem is an article in our contract that permits the administration to dismiss individuals for cause, but "cause" isn’t defined. In the past year, the administration has used this article to terminate the appointments of four faculty members. With one possible exception, however, the individuals would probably have been released even if "cause" were defined in the article.
Williams: Yes.
14. Overall, how would you rate the condition of shared governance on your campus? Why does it work—or not work—well?
Lowell: I would rate it as average. Our collective bargaining contract, which we are renegotiating this year, has been key to defending faculty rights at CSU, especially during the period in which our institution was struggling to overcome its financial problems. Without it, we would be much worse off.
Williams: Overall, we need to do some work. Too few faculty members are willing to discuss issues openly; they’re worried about the political consequences. Our chapter has held workshops to educate colleagues about the faculty’s rights as specified in our collective bargaining agreement, and that has helped people feel more comfortable about asserting those rights. But we need to keep working to foster a more active, involved faculty.
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