Copyright © 2005 Bruce W. Hauptli
Collegial governance structures are the democratic institutions through which an institution’s faculty, as an academic community, governs itself. At the most global of levels, an institution’s Faculty Senate is the representative body which serves as the decision and policy-making body determining the institution’s policies on academic matters ranging from admission standards to the requirements for the awarding of degrees. At FIU the Faculty Senate expresses the faculty’s will on matters of curriculum policy and curricular structure; degree requirements; policies regarding the recruitment, admission, and retention of students; the development and reorganization of academic programs; grading standards; and other matters of traditional academic concern.
Faculty Senates, and all other collegial governance structures, are part of the faculty’s collective exercise of their academic citizenship, and Aristotle’s classic definition of a democratic citizen is relevant here:
…there is a rule…which is exercised over freemen and equals…a constitutional rule, which the ruler must learn by obeying, as he would learn the duties of a general of cavalry by being under the orders of a general of infantry, and by having had the command of a regiment, and of a company. It has been well said that ‘he who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander’. The two are not the same, but the good citizen ought to be capable of both; he should know how to govern like a freeman and how to obey like a freeman—these are the virtues of a citizen. And, although the temperance and justice of a ruler are distinct from those of a subject, the virtue of a good man will include both; for the virtue of the good man who is free and also a subject, e.g.; his justice, will not be one but will comprise distinct kinds, the one qualifying him to rule, the other to obey….1
As Aristotle clearly recognized, there are many different governance structures possible (minimally: rule by one, by a few, and by the many), and each form has its virtuous and vicious forms. Within a democratic community, however, the rulers and the ruled are the same individuals, and this is what the phrase “collegial governance” is meant to connote: governance of colleagues by colleagues.
Within contemporary American higher education there is a clearly visible tension between the “collegial” and the “top-down” governance structures. College and University Presidents and Provosts often proclaim that collegial governance is extremely important, and they sometimes even work hard to foster such governance.2 Usually, however, it is the faculty which calls most loudly for such a governance model. The difference between the two governance models is easily conceptualized by focusing attention on the departmental level:
in an academic department the top-down governance structure treats the departmental leader as an administrator, in Aristotle’s terms: a ruler who is not a subject; while the collegial governance model treats the departmental leader along the lines suggested by Aristotle above—as one who is both a ruler and a subject. While the departmental leader might be called a “chairperson” on either governance model, where the top-down model predominates the title is often changed to that of “director.”
The same difference in governance models is observable at the other levels of academic leadership (the levels of the deans, provost, and, even that of president). While a “dean” or “academic vice president” could led collegially, by the time an institution is renaming some of its deans “Executive Deans” and its academic vice presidents “Executive Vice Presidents,” the connotations are, surely, top-down rather than collegial.
Given that in contemporary American higher education it is the faculty which calls out most strongly for the collegial model of governance, and given that it is the presidents who seem most frequently to take the alternative model as preferable, it is imperative for an institution’s faculty senate to designate its leader as a “chairperson” insofar as that term more clearly carries the connotation of the sort of governance Aristotle characterizes as “democratic” in character. It is, of course, the responsibility of those who hold such office to fulfill the responsibilities which Aristotle suggests in his remarks (responsibilities, I might add, which Plato—a proponent of the “top-down” management style with a strong dislike for democracy—did not allow him to fulfill in the Academy).
Thus it is that it is important that we adhere, here at FIU, to the authorized title for the Faculty Senate’s leader: “Chairperson.”
Notes:
1 Aristotle, Politics, trans. Benjamin Jowett, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (N.Y.: Random House, 1941) Bk. III, Ch. 5, 1277b 7-20. Back
2 See my statement “On the Relation of Academic Administration and Collegial Governance” for more on my views here. Back
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Last revised: 07/31/2005.