The belief that university faculty own the curriculum is held widely throughout American institutions of higher education, both public and private. The 1990s saw the first significant challenge to that belief. Using the Marxist and Foucualtian understanding of power and using a paradigm for understanding the functions of faculty senates in the…

Explores how community colleges, through their curriculum and interactions among students, faculty, and staff, can model the best of citizenship education and engaged community life. Discusses how shared governance can promote engagement, and some features of community college culture that work against shared governance. (EV)

While some social constructionists are unprepared to confront the role of ethics in the process of communication, the fact must be faced that as a person constructs reality, he or she makes judgments about that reality. Here are four situational perceptions that affect how decisions are socially constructed as ethical or not ethical within…

This paper offers a legal examination of shared governance in higher education. It discusses what shared governance is; the legal character of faculty senates; faculty handbooks as enforceable contracts for governance provisions; faculty enforcement of statutory shared governance protections (the California experience); shared governance, "no…

A study revealed that many faculty and administrators believe most decisions are made in informal meetings that occur at times other than in the formally convened and formally conducted business meetings. The concept of meeting is expanded to include any gathering of members of an organization who assemble together informally and deliberately in…

Explores negative effects on academic expertise and the academic freedom of faculty when governing boards and administrators look to the corporate world for organizational models. (EV)

The faculty parliamentarian is becoming more important as concern for proper procedure and due process is growing on college campuses. The role of the parliamentarian is entirely advisory. This person should work closely with the presiding officer, be available to members and committees for consulting, and give opinions only when called upon or to…

Edited versions of two conference papers are presented. The first paper, "The Debate Over Academic Unions and Faculty Governance," by Irwin H. Polishook, discusses why the concept of collective bargaining continues to be a significant issue in academe and is considered to be incompatible with faculty governance. It examines the union…

Discusses how, despite recent legislation that promises them a bigger role in the state's two-year colleges (often referred to as AB1725), California faculty continue to face obstacles to shared governance, such as the recent trend toward corporate models in college governance. (EV)

Explores how faculty power continues to stall at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), threatening to turn engines of opportunity into "training plantations." Includes a sidebar presenting a survey of two faculty members at HBCUs concerning shared governance. (EV)

The roles of academic senates in university organization are discussed. Three symbolic purposes that academic senates may fill are considered first: they may symbolize institutional membership in the higher education system, collective and individual faculty commitment to professional values, and joint faculty-administration acceptance of existing…

A study was undertaken to analyze the group processes in academic committee meetings, focusing on committee member perceptions of the processes and their effectiveness. Such committees are traditional in higher education, and have long been considered the most efficient and democratic decision-making method. However, they have been criticized as…

Academic senates remain an important feature of higher education governance even though they have been criticized as being ineffective. Senates are examined from the perspective of alternative organizational models, and it is suggested that the functions of the senate are best understood by considering colleges as symbolic systems. (Author/MLW)

This guide to the policy-making functions of community colleges' boards of trustees is based on a 3-year operational review conducted by Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario (Canada). The guide begins by outlining the purposes and processes of Cambrian's governance self-study. Next, differences among Canadian colleges that affect the role of their…

This study examined institutional analysis reports of sixteen teacher education institutions in West Virginia to see how two sections of the state standards affected the governance of the institutions. The standards required that: (1) the institutions provide an organizational structure that ensures cooperative program planning in all disciplines;…