In April 2010, the New York State Board of Regents challenged the library community to rethink the State's vast array of library services to ensure that they are aligned with modern expectations and the expanded functions needed in today's society, operate with improved efficiency, and are prepared for the future as an essential and vibrant part…

In 2010, a comprehensive reform required Italian state universities to restructure their institutional governance by revising their statutes. This interpretative paper aims to evaluate whether the Italian reform is congruent with its declarations, examine the variations in the implementation within the same country of a unitary national regulation…

Successful colleges require effective leadership and governance. Effective governing boards are comprised of trustees who are committed to excellence in performing their duties. How do governing boards assure they are effective? One way is through ongoing board and trustee education and development, to provide the skills necessary to govern well.…

Prevailing research tends to narrow the starting view of most authors, including those who write about community colleges and their governing boards in common terms of organizational structure, management style, roles and responsibilities, personality issues, and so forth. But this essay focuses more on one particular topic: the unique…

DePaul University has grown in size and stature in the last decade. Chicago's "little school under the El," as DePaul was once known, is now the nation's largest Catholic university and the largest private, nonprofit university in the Midwest. DePaul University restructured its board, enabling it to play an important role in the…

The environment in which MOOCs and other forms of online education operate is changing virtually every day. Based upon a presentation given to the board of directors of AGB, this white paper is an effort to give board chairs, presidents, and others some context to help guide discussions on their own campuses. It provides a primer on MOOCs,…

Within the unique and complex settings of university hospitals, it is difficult to implement policy initiatives aimed at developing careers in and improving the quality of academic medical teaching because of the competing domains of medical research and patient care. Factors that influence faculty in making use of teaching policy incentives have…

The "Kobayashi Maru" is a training simulation that has its roots in the Star Trek series notable for its defining characteristic as a no-win scenario with no "correct" resolution and where the solution actually involves redefining the problem. Drawing upon these characteristics, we designed a board meeting simulation for an…

Australian government concern for improved governance in the higher education sector over recent years has driven the implementation of governance protocols. However, there has been little evidence of any evaluation of the impact of the governance structures on the performance of universities. This paper presents an analysis of the impact of the…

The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) 2020 Trustee Index is the third annual survey of governing board members regarding matters imperative to the higher education sector, as well as to the colleges, universities, and multicampus systems they hold in trust. This AGB survey, conducted in collaboration with Gallup,…

Board orientation provides a unique forum for an institution to help new board members understand the roles and responsibilities expected of them. It is a chance, too, to share essential information that the college or university thinks new trustees need to know. Moreover, it is an opportunity for the institution to bring new members up to date…

In this conceptual contribution to the study of university governance the authors will approach potential patterns of behavior of key decision-makers at central university level, i.e. roles of governance actors, as well as the set of factors that shape and constrain the governance actor's room of manoevre and provide avenues to explain varying…

"Further education" (FE) is a substantial sector in the education system in England. It has funding of approximately £8 billion annually and educates close to three million students. Within the sector are 231 FE colleges which provide a range of courses that are typically vocational/skills-based. They vary in scale and scope with the…

Since its opening in 1971, more than 2.1 million students have improved their lives through education and training obtained from Houston Community College. An open-admission public institution, HCC awards associate degrees and certificates in academic studies and career and technology programs. HCC is committed to meeting the needs of its diverse…

Purpose: Among the identified highly effective California community colleges, the purpose of the study was to ascertain the degree of importance for the six competencies of board effectiveness as determined by the Chait et al. (1993, 1996) Board Self-Assessment Questionnaire (BSAQ) as self-reported by board members. Methodology: The design for…