Fall 2006 Newsletter of the NC-AAUP

What We Can Learn from Harvard

If we can agree why it happened, there may be a lesson to learn from the current crisis at Harvard University which resulted in the untimely and controversial resignation of Lawrence Summers as its president.  There are multiple explanations for Harvard’s problem.  Trying to explain Summers’ demise, the news media has focused mostly on his impolitic comments to African-American Professor Cornell West and his rather strange public commentary about possible innate differences between men and women regarding aptitude for careers in science.  A second explanation comes from many of Summers’ outspoken supporters who have placed the blame on his detractors -- faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences characterized as a bunch of self-satisfied, overpaid, lazy professors who shun students and refuse to teach undergraduate courses -- saying that they went after Summers because he threatened the status quo by trying to institute needed academic reforms.     

Of course, a very difference explanation came from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.  Summers was hired by the Harvard’s board five years ago to make major changes at Harvard, including a revamping of its undergraduate curriculum.  He undertook these changes without proper consultation with the faculty.   The primary responsibility for the health and integrity of the curriculum belongs to the faculty and not to the governing board or the administration.   While other factors may have played a role in the demise of Summers,   a failure to adhere to the canons of good university governance is the most plausible explanation.  Summers lost the support of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences because he chose to ignore the time-tested  tenets of shared university governance which guarantee thoughtful and deliberate changes in academic programs. 

Now, I’ve always been a bit reluctant to compare either the achievements or the problems of our Alabama colleges and universities to those of elite American educational/research institutions, such as Princeton, Yale and Harvard.  I recall a 1992 Chronicle of Higher Education article by the divisive Auburn Trustee Bobby Lowder which described his critics on the Auburn faculty as those “who want desperately for Auburn to become a Harvard of the South.”  He went on to say that “some at Auburn apparently wish to see Auburn compete academically with Vanderbilt or Emory rather than serve the traditional land-grant functions that Auburn has historically undertaken.”  At the time, I thought Lowder’s assertions were embarrassing, insulting and dead wrong.  I think that most all faculty at Auburn and other Alabama institutions fully understand that the missions of our institutions, while important, are difference from Ivy-league schools.  Harvard is not one of our peer institutions.  Nevertheless, I do believe that Alabama institutions could learn an important lesson from Harvard about what happens when there is a breakdown in good university governance.  

In recent years, Alabama institutions certainly have experienced more than their share of woes due to a lack of good university governance.  A couple of years ago Auburn and the University of West Alabama were placed on probation by SACS, the regional accrediting agency, because of violations of its governance standards.  SACS found that the governing boards of these institutions were micro-managing their universities, including their academic programs.  Over the years, I have heard stories about governance problems at a number of other institutions in the state.

Thanks to the 1966 Joint Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, formulated by the AAUP, the American Council on Education (ACE) and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), there is a standard for university governance.  (A copy of the statement can be found at www.aaup.org/statements/Redbook/Govern.htm.) The statement supports a joint effort by the governing board, the administration and the faculty, and notes that each has primary responsibility for decision-making for certain aspects of the university based primarily on their competence to deal with the issues.   The governing board defines the overall role of the university, ensures that the institution has needed financial resources and entrusts administrative decisions to the administration and the academic program to the faculty.  The president provides institutional leadership and serves as the chief operating officer.  The faculty has primary responsibility for curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research and faculty status.  If the guidelines of the 1966 Joint Statement were followed, most of the campus problems would disappear.

Of course, for shared governance to work, faculty members must be willing to devote time and attention to the task.  They must be willing to participate in their faculty senate and serve on relevant committees.  At institutions where only research and teaching are rewarded, many faculty shy away from participation in governance.  However, if the integrity of the academic program and academic freedom are to be protected, faculty must be willing to dedicate a significant portion of their time to governance.

If a breakdown in shared university governance can occur at Harvard, it can certainly happen at our Alabama colleges and universities.  As faculty, we have a professional obligation to continually compare our institutions’ governance systems with the standard, and work to bring them into compliance.  We must work to make certain that the integrity of our academic programs is protected.