As a result, agendas tend to fill themselves. Immediate challenges crowd out longer‑term discussion. Issues arrive already framed as crises, narrowing the room for reframing or reprioritization. Risk increasingly originates outside the institution — in markets, regulation, politics, and technology — rather than within internal operations. However, the culture of academic governance, rooted in deliberate consensus‑building, remains largely unchanged. Boards are thus being asked to move faster, decide more often, and assume greater accountability, all while operating within governance structures built for a different era. The result: boards spend more time responding to what arrives than shaping what matters.
The issues landing on trustees’ tables are not incremental adjustments to a stable model; they are questions of mission, scale, and long‑term viability.
08 | Boards of Trustees in Higher Education
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