Faculty, Student, and Staff Participation on Institutional Boards for Oregon Universities
14 March 2013
SB 270 and HB 2149 create the means for Portland State University to establish its own local governing board. These bills propose 11-15 member boards for each institution, appointed by the governor.
NEW AMENDMENTS EXPLICITLY BAR FACULTY AND STAFF FROM BOARD MEMBERSHIP AND BREAK WITH THE OREGON UNIVERSITY SYSTEM BOARD COMPOSITION AS A MODEL
SB 270-1 sec 1 (1) e “Except for the president of the university and the student member of the governing board, no member of the board may be an employee of the university.” sec 6 (5) “Are similar to the Oregon Health and Science University Board of Directors in composition, constitution and transparency.”
Politics
The board appointment process makes institutional boards political and subject to the changing partisan fortunes in Salem. This volatility requires the balance and continuity offered by faculty, staff, and student participants on any such board.
Conflict of Interest
Nationally, the most common shared governing board policy concerns conflict of interest, especially where business and corporate entities are involved. Faculty, staff, and student members help keep the focus on quality in the classroom and on the public mission of the university.
Academic Freedom and Quality
The university’s mission is teaching, research, and service. Faculty are central stakeholders and experts in the professional standards of academic freedom and excellence that undergird all these domains of activity.
Authenticity
Historically, the Oregon University System board has included faculty appointments. For individual institutional boards to operate responsively to their campuses, faculty, students, and staff offer irreplaceable day-to-day, on-the-ground perspectives.
High profile recent crises in university governance, like at the University of Virginia and Florida State University, as well as recent attention to administrative bloat in higher education covered by the Wall Street Journal highlight the pitfalls of out-of-touch campus leadership. The lack of definitive “best practices” and this new, untested form of university governance in Oregon underscore the value that faculty, student, and staff experience can offer to a new board. The bills require “clear evidence of support for an institutional board by the university community.”
PSU-AAUP opposes SB 270 unless amended to provide for university faculty participation on the board.