AGB Board of Directors’ Statement on Shared Governance
The AGB Board of Directors, consisting predominantly of members of college and university boards, acknowledges the challenges inherent in establishing and maintaining a healthy system of shared governance. But it also recognizes the value added to institutions, their decision making, and their culture when shared governance is broadly understood, affirmed, and nurtured. This Statement on Shared Governance , approved by the AGB Board of Directors in August 2017, provides principles to help guide boards and those who work with them to achieve and support healthy and high-functioning shared governance.
Principles
1. Boards should commit to ensuring a broad understanding of shared governance and the value it offers an institution or system. Shared governance is not easy. Too often it is situated in an environment of competing interests, tension, reduced resources, and even professional pride. For shared governance to work, board members, faculty, and presidents need a solid understanding of what shared governance is and what its history is at the institution. New board members, faculty members, and senior administrators should receive a grounding in the fiduciary responsibility of the board and the manner in which their particular board operates. Each person should also be informed about the nature of faculty work specific to the institution,
including governance roles and responsibilities. The board’s governance committee should develop board member orientation that emphasizes the traditions and the policies of shared governance within the institution or across the system. Governing boards need to understand that their participation in and commitment to shared governance will result in more than specific decisions; they can stimulate institutional progress by ensuring the inclusion of a range of voices and ideas in the formulation of goals, priorities, and strategies.
For shared governance to work,
board members, faculty, and presidents need a solid understanding of what shared governance is and what its history is at the institution.
agb.org
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