The Faculty Consultative Committee, the executive committee of the Faculty Senate at the University of Minnesota, has read the draft AGB Statement on Institutional Governance and offers the following comments.

The missions of a university are instruction, research, and service, or the conservation, production, and transmission of knowledge. No matter what words one chooses, the inescapable fact is that those missions are carried out almost exclusively by the faculty or under the supervision and guidance of the faculty, and institutional reputation rests on the quality of the faculty. Therefore, any statement on the governance of universities which does not recognize that fundamental faculty role will be both incomplete and flawed.

The faculty of the University of Minnesota recently experienced a crisis brought on by corporate notions of hierarchical structure and top-down management. We know now where that road leads. There was little consultation, the University began to lose faculty, research funding leveled out, and the quality and future of the institution was in considerable danger. Virtually all of the "stakeholders" in Minnesota advised the Board of Regents that this was not an appropriate way to run a university.

We believe that the primary lesson both the faculty and the Board of Regents took from that crisis was that cooperation and shared authority and responsibility were critical to a healthy university. We have spent the last year rebuilding relationships and reaffirming the joint responsibilities we have in conducting the affairs of the University. The faculty do not wish to pre-empt the proper role of the regents or administrative officers, nor do we oppose appropriate participation of the many constituencies noted by the AGB; we do seek appropriate recognition of the unique and powerful faculty role in achieving the missions of the institution.

We believe the term "stakeholders" is imprecise and obscures the reality of the university. Because of the role that the faculty must play if the university is to function, we believe the AGB report stumbles when it seeks to stretch the umbrella of governance to include others such as staff and students on a par with faculty, administration, and trustees. Faculty bear primary responsibility for curriculum, instruction, research and scientific advances, faculty status, and educational aspects of student life. Faculty set requirements for degrees, determine when they have been met, and authorize the president and trustees to grant those degrees. Instead of recognizing that role, however, the AGB report seems to perpetuate the image of the faculty as the obstacle to accomplishment rather than the experts essential to it. Administrators and trustees cannot perform faculty tasks, but when they do their own jobs well, they create the environment within which those tasks can be carried out and the institution made great. This collaboration is what we mean when we refer to shared responsibility and decision-making.

We recognize, and indeed we share, the frustrations of many trustees with the lack of timeliness in creating and implementing academic policies and change. We agree with the AGB that timelines for decision-making are necessary and desirable.  We would point out, however, that such delays also occur in administrative decision-making and even in board deliberation.  (We note in our own recent crisis, for example, that when the faculty were asked to produce, they did so with dispatch.) If timelines are set for decision-making, they must give reasonable opportunity to all participants in the process to participate meaningfully.

Academic freedom, essential to the free flow of innovative ideas, only exist only when governance is shared. Shared governance provides the kind of participation that our common enterprise requires. Shared governance gives trustees the kind of information that they need to make truly informed decisions.