Higher education in the 21st century is challenged by transformational changes resulting from factors influencing the educational landscape. The impact to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), where the pressures between trustee boards and administrations continue to escalate, is more pronounced than some other institutions. The…

While academic governance does not produce teaching and research, it provides the conditions that enable them to take place. The principal academic governance body within universities, the academic board (also known as the academic senate or faculty senate), therefore plays a key role in enabling universities to conduct their core business.…

Too often, boards spend too little time discussing student learning, student outcomes, and student success. As stewards of the whole of the institution, the oversight of educational quality is a primary obligation of governing boards. AGB--with support from the Teagle Foundation, an advisory committee, and teams from eight diverse…

In April, the "New England Journal of Higher Education ("NEJHE") launched its "New Directions for Higher Education" series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. In this installment, Philip DiSalvio interviews Richard Legon, president of the…

Jeremiah Stevens, director of alumni relations at Lake Forest Academy in suburban Chicago, contends with a bit of an unusual challenge. He must manage and motivate not one but two alumni boards. While alumni professionals may not share Stevens' particular circumstances, they certainly can relate to a struggle to jumpstart a languishing board and…

The paper presents in brief the need and importance of effective, imaginative and responsible governing boards in colleges and universities, so as to ensure educational quality. BOG should engage fruitfully with the principal and activities in college/ university. UGC, AICTE have now prescribed creation of effective boards for both government and…

The selection of a president is a governing board's most important responsibility, and the search process is the board's best opportunity to help guide its institution into a successful new era. This guide outlines the leadership roles during a search (those of the board, the board chair, the search committee, and others), briefs board…

Controversies over higher education governance are in the news these days. The most recent occurred this summer when several members of the board of the University of Virginia asked the president, Teresa A. Sullivan, to resign, only to be forced to reinstate her after protests from students, faculty, donors, alumni, and others. That situation…

The real danger with a successful president and a complacent board is that the board will no longer have the benefit of a "marketplace of ideas" when making critical decisions. Boards that rely on an experienced president as the major source of their information are just as likely as a student's single-source paper to arrive at…

While cost and completion are important issues, they are not the fundamental problems that have put higher learning in crisis. What calls for urgent attention is low "value"--a critical deficit in the quality and quantity of learning in college. To state it as plainly as possible: Most students graduate without learning enough. There is no longer…

In a time of transformation in higher education, "Leading Change: How Boards and Presidents Build Exceptional Institutions" fills a significant void in leadership literature and focuses on the changing level of board engagement. This book examines 18 institutions, across the spectrum of higher education, at which the board played a…

The forty-something presidents are arriving, and not just at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. New chiefs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dartmouth College, Virginia Commonwealth University, and West Virginia University can't get their AARP cards yet. More are on the way. Fully 90 percent of presidents are at least 50 years old,…

This "Statement on Board Responsibility for the Oversight of Educational Quality," approved by the Board of Directors of the Association of Governing Boards (AGB) in March 2011, urges institutional administrators and governing boards to engage fully in this area of board responsibility. The seven principles in this statement offer suggestions to…

With all the trials and tribulations, the job of a university president is one of the most rewarding. Yet, like every other aspect of society, the academic presidency has changed over the last several decades. A surprise turn of events gave the author an opportunity to reflect on the "then and now" question. Having served as president of…

All college presidents technically hold employment contracts. But whether the terms of those contracts are spelled out clearly is a different story. This article reports that in a survey of 165 public universities where such documents are considered public information, one-third of public university chiefs do not have formal written agreements.…