Faculty, Own Thyself

A vision of what might happen if a college got rid of its board of trustees and the faculty became voting partners in running the corporation.

By Werner G. Heim

Fred arrived at the campus at about 7 a.m., much as he had done on other campuses for the past twenty-seven years. He entered a building, walked upstairs to his new office, sat down in the large swivel chair, and thus enjoyed his first moment as president of Colwich College.

Five years ago, at his previous institution, the usual tensions and disagreements among the president and administration, the board of trustees, and the faculty had grown to the point where cooperation was difficult, the normal work of all three groups was hindered, and civility was reduced to a thin veneer. What had long been known but carefully concealed was that many of the interests and goals of the three groups simply did not coincide. There, among the tensions and hot rhetoric, Fred got his Big Idea.

What if there was no board of trustees composed mainly of outsiders? What if the president was chosen by and responsible to the faculty? What, in short, if the faculty owned the institution and thus itself? He devoted a few weeks of thought to these questions and developed the outline for a new kind of college. This college, probably a private liberal arts school, would be a partnership; the members of the faculty would be the partners. Each tenure-track assistant professor would be a junior partner, each associate professor a general partner, and each professor a senior partner. Partners in each category would be paid equally based on an accepted formula for the distribution of net income. The academic officers of the college, such as the president, would receive their usual share as faculty members plus a small extra sum. In lieu of a retirement plan with all its liabilities and costs, partners or their surviving spouses would retain their partnerships after retirement until the last of a couple died.

All partners would have one vote in academic and corporate affairs, including the election of a board of directors. That board, he proposed, would consist of fifteen people plus the president. Ten would be members of the college’s own faculty, and two would be elected annually for a five-year term. Each of the three classes of partners would have at least two members on the board. To get outside contributions, the board would choose three additional members from among active or retired faculty members at similar institutions, and the alumni organization would pick the last two. The board would elect the president after a search committee composed largely of faculty had narrowed the field of applicants. In most other respects, including hiring, promotion, and tenure, the institution would operate much like any other.

The college would have the usual operating structure with managers of divisions, such as physical plant, admissions, student housing, and so on. Nonacademic personnel would be hired as usual and would not participate in the partnership. Although some initial friction might develop between the academic partners and the nonacademic employees, Fred hoped that the clear delineation of duties and status would soon get everyone to settle down and work for the good of the institution. Faculty would realize that the employees at all levels were essential to the operation of the college. The employees would agree that the expertise of the faculty brought in the students and their tuition fees.

At his family’s Thanksgiving dinner, Fred brought up his Big Idea for the first time. As with most really new ideas, reaction was swift and diverse. His wife, Mary, a historian, pointed out that some early universities, particularly in Italy, had operated in a similar fashion. At first, professors had themselves collected fees from the students attending their lectures but later found it more convenient to hire someone who would collect the fees for them. Thus began the administrative tribe. Fred’s uncle, a lawyer, said that many large law firms operate in essentially the pattern Fred proposed; the partners receive their proportionate share of the income and run the firm. The disadvantage of this arrangement, his uncle pointed out, would be that the institution would probably have to operate on a “for profit” basis because the partners would be paid from the net income. As a result, donors could not deduct their gifts for income-tax purposes. But then his uncle proposed that a lawyer might be able to come up with a partnership structure that would still be tax-exempt or even technically nonprofit.

Fred’s father, the ever-practical CEO of a major corporation, asked where the money was to come from to start such an institution. Fred’s answer was twofold. First, he hoped that the board of trustees of some college would be willing to sell the institution to its faculty at a low but reasonable price. Second, he hoped that, to get the new partnership rolling, one or more foundations would contribute toward the purchase price.

Later that evening, having thought more about the proposal, Mary pointed out that Fred had not mentioned the two related items that seemed to bother him most at his current institution: first, the way in which the upper- and mid-level administrators seemed to think that faculty members worked for them, making them jump through all sorts of hoops and withholding information, and, second, the restricted notion of faculty involvement in so-called shared governance at the university. Indeed, he had often said that the notion of shared governance among administrators at that institution was to let the faculty play with course titles and descriptions in the academic sandbox. They perceived the real role of faculty as being good clerks behind the education store counter and bringing in the reputation and overhead dollars from research grants. The garden of budgets and priorities was clearly out of bounds.

Mary was right; these two areas were clearly the ones most needing change, but also the most important. The present situation certainly did not fit with Fred’s rather old-fashioned idea that a college was meant to assemble a group of scholars for mutual support in their scholarly work and to bring students to them to be educated. The rest of a college’s personnel was there only to assist students and faculty in their work.
“Yes,” he said, “but I have given some thought to these two matters. First, a president chosen by and serving at the pleasure of a board of directors consisting largely of members of the faculty, rather than outsiders from the business world, will put an entirely different spin on the attitudes of the managers.

“Second, we will not have ‘administrators’ but ‘managers.’ They will manage affairs put into their hands in accordance with the policies of the president and the board but they will not ‘administrate.’ Even specialists such as human resources people and the accountants will no longer be able to use their supposed expertise to control the faculty.

“Finally, the whole of governance would then be in the hands of the faculty. There is no sharing of power, authority, accountability, or responsibility. Scary, perhaps, but taking control, of your life or of your institution, is always scary.”

During the next four years, Fred spent much of his spare time actualizing the big idea. Mary was helpful, realizing that if everything worked out, she could write history not only as an intimate witness but also as a participant. Fred contacted several dozen colleges and found a few that would listen. Finally, the board of one college named a reasonable price. Fred was never certain whether that board wanted to see the idea tried or simply wanted to get out of having to run the college. After seemingly endless faculty meetings, the faculty voted overwhelmingly for the plan. Still, it took much work or, according to his father, begging, before he found three foundations that, together, put up about three-quarters of the purchase price, the rest coming from the faculty itself.

And so Colwich College became the first self-governing institution of higher education in the country. The faculty met once again, now as partners and owners rather than as employees, and elected its first board of directors. A month later, the board named Fred as president, and the faculty voted its unanimous approval.

The time for reverie was over. Many problems required solutions, and Fred started work.

Werner Heim is professor emeritus of biology at Colorado College.  

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