AAUP Report Defends Shared Governance Amid Political Attacks

In a report released Tuesday, the American Association of University Professors outlines its case for shared governance at colleges and universities as state legislatures increasingly seek to constrain public faculty senates. 

The Indiana, Ohio and Utah legislatures recently passed laws that curtail faculty governing bodies’ decision-making power and make them advisory only. In Texas, a Senate bill gave control of faculty senates to institution presidents and declared that they “may not be delegated the final decision-making authority on any matter.” These efforts make it easier for politicians to interfere in curricular decisions, the AAUP argues. 

“Without an independent and sufficiently representative faculty body to oversee the curriculum and faculty status, an institution may fragment or fall victim to the latest fashionable notion proposed by a centralized administration or, worse, by a politicized board or legislature,” the authors write. 

The AAUP has formally supported shared governance since 1966, when it co-wrote, with the American Council on Education and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, which states that faculty should have primary authority over “curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process.” 

To keep faculty senates strong, the AAUP recommends working with faculty unions and responding proactively to legislative threats. 

“Too many institutions—and too many faculty senates—have been forced into silence and compromise out of concern for their institution’s [financial] well-being or for individuals’ careers. Oth­ers are all too willing to defer to external authorities and thereby cede their responsibilities to others. But if there is a message to be heeded in the legislative assault on governance bodies, it is that the enemies of higher education, nonetheless, still fear faculty author­ity,” the authors write. “Why else would they be so insistent on silencing faculty members?”