The "Times Higher Education Supplement" of 9 February 2006 briefly reported that the Privy Council, tasked with approving the statutes of universities, was now going to leave their internal arrangements in their own hands. These underlying policy directions need to be set in the context of the important change of emphasis from…

Malick makes recommendations for local boards based on a recent VCCS survey which sought to determine how the State Governing Board could assist and support the members of the local boards in their role as advisors to their presidents and institutions.

This study examines how a state system of higher education, located in the Rocky Mountains area of the United States, allowed faculty members from the state's public institutions of higher education to control the design and implementation of a pilot assessment of statewide general education courses. One of the primary reasons faculty were allowed…

A survey of the academic program review and approval activity of state-wide postsecondary coordinating and governing boards was concluded in 2006. This study is the latest in a series of survey/studies of state level program review and approval begun roughly thirty years ago by this author and colleagues. The boards selected for this survey were…

This report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) presents results from the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) in mathematics. Representative samples of between 1,800 and 4,300 fourth- and eighth-grade public school students from 18 urban districts participated in the 2009 assessment. Eleven of the districts also…

Faculty workload can be separated into two distinct areas: instructional workload (i.e. in-class workload) and out-of-classroom activities. This indicates that at the universities, the state college, and the community colleges the role of full-time faculty extends well beyond classroom instruction. To varying degrees, faculty workload is impacted…

The "Science Assessment and Item Specifications for the 2009 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress)" (the "Specifications") translates the "Science Framework for the 2009 NAEP" (the "Framework") into guidelines for developing items and for developing the assessment as a whole. The primary purpose of the "Specifications" is to provide…

This paper presents the highlights of a national survey of governing boards and board members of Canadian universities. A total of 45 of the country's 59 provincially-supported university boards responded to the survey, which was followed up by a survey of the individual board members of the 45 responding institutions, which received 583 responses…

The 28 Florida community colleges have made significant accomplishments in the areas of removing barriers to education, student outcomes, curriculum development, and financial support for students. These accomplishments have resulted from the state's Master Plan for community colleges developed from 1955 to 1957 under legislation that established…

Despite the recent attention to shared decision making, there has been little research investigating the process. This paper presents and compares three case studies describing the leadership and decision making of three shared-decision-making teams over 4 years. The teams--from one primary, one middle, and one high school--were set in one school…

Shared governance is an educational philosophy that offers local school personnel the opportunity to share in decision making and improve educational quality through local control. Gwinnett County (Georgia) is currently implementing school-improvement councils that will operate according to the principles of shared governance. This paper presents…

This booklet is a guide to the planning process for members of governing boards of institutions of higher education. Generally, it sees the role of the board in planning as ensuring that planning takes place and insisting that plans are used regularly for decision making. The publication discusses the following five specific tasks related to this…

This booklet for trustees of institutions of higher education offers guidelines for strategic financial decisions required in light of the financial challenges higher education faces in the 1990s and beyond. "Strategic response" is defined as a decision that requires changing a major policy, program, or practice and involves some risk. Five…

This booklet, intended for trustees of institutions of higher education, offers some instruction on the principles of risk management. Introductory information provides a definition of risk management, which is seen as a planning and strategic function, not solely as a financial or safety assessment. Individual sections then address the following…

Local community leaders should examine the principles involved in making committees an effective and efficient tool in group operations. A committee assists the parent organization in developing programs, carrying out business, establishing policies, executing affairs, and evaluating an organization's effectiveness. Committees have many social,…