“Effective shared governance is hard work.” That’s how a new article focusing on shared governance in this month’s Trusteeship magazine begins. This is no surprise to anyone familiar with the practice of shared governance, but it’s certainly nice to read the words and appreciate that others struggle with the practice too.

Shared governance is a common topic in our Resource Consulting work at the In Trust Center, with presidents and boards regularly grappling with how best to foster good governance and tend to their governance stakeholders. In Trust dedicated a special edition in 2016 to the issue, as does the Association of Governing Boards in the Summer 2018 issue of Trusteeship.

Shared governance is understood to mean that three groups have distinct roles in the governance process – the board, the faculty, and the administration (led by the president). Each of these groups has unique responsibilities in collaborative goal setting and problem solving. The whole enterprise requires trust, open discussion, accountability, transparency, and timely decision making. In practice, it's hard work.

The shared governance issue of Trusteeship suggests ground rules, dos, and don’ts in “Navigating Board-Faculty Collaboration.”

Information about engaging millennial faculty members, contingent faculty members, mid-level administrators, and staff in shared governance can be found in “Evolving Workforce Expectations.”

The full Summer 2018 issue of Trusteeship is online.

For more on this topic, see the following articles in the New Year 2016 issue of In Trust:  

• “The role of the faculty in shared governance”
• “Faculty representation on governing boards”
• “Who rules the school?”

And for more resources on shared governance, contact us at resources@intrust.org.