Shared Governance, Junior Faculty, and HBCUs

Academe, Nov/Dec 2006 by Guy-Sheftall, Beverly

Athough there is a large body of scholarship on historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), their governance practices have been underresearched. What little research we have on the topic points to campus climates that are "president-centric" and hierarchical structures that do not encourage faculty governance. Yet my own institution, Spelman College-founded in 1881 and one of only two historically black colleges for women-has made much progress in faculty governance over the past twenty years. For the past eight years, I have served on the college's faculty council (the equivalent to a faculty senate), first as a member, then as president. During my service, we have probed the barriers or resistance on campus to greater faculty involvement in institutional decision making, and we have created opportunities for more candid dialogue about shared governance. We are also helping to foster a campus culture that encourages junior and senior faculty alike to become more active in their roles as academic leaders. It hasn't always been easy, and it's still a work in progress, but faculty members, with support from the administration, are exploring more effective, long-term strategies for institutionalizing a new model of shared governance that we hope will he replicated on other campuses of our size, especially at HBCUs.

Although HBCU presidents have traditionally shared less power than their counterparts at many predominantly white institutions, perhaps there has been some justification for that. As James Minor, an HBCU alumnus and higher education scholar at Michigan State University, pointed out in the May-June 2005 issue of Academe, the less robust governance structures at HBCUs relate to the fact that "strong presidential leadership ... is partly responsible for the survival and progress of some campuses" in a national climate that has often been hostile to the values HBCUs represent. Faculty governance advocates at HBCUs, myself included, negotiate a difficult terrain in which we respect the best traditions of our institutions and at the same time push to develop more democratic forms of governance, especially those that incorporate junior faculty memhers into the governance process as early as possible.

On a personal note, I faced a difficult choice in 1976, when I decided, as an untenured faculty member, to join senior faculty members in a protest against the board of trustees over its appointment of another male president of the college. (During the April meeting of the board following the announcement of the new president, several hundred students and a few faculty members kept trustees locked in their board room for more than twenty hours in an effort to persuade them to reconsider the appointment.) The absence of formal faculty governance structures at that point in Spelman's history made the decision to participate in the protest more daunting and risky for junior faculty members; however, faculty were not punished for their actions. This helped to create a climate, I believe, where junior faculty, in particular, could feel more comfortable about challenging the status quo.

Power Sharing

One of the most unusual aspects of the history of shared governance at Spelman is that Johnnetta B. Cole, shortly after she assumed the presidency in 1987, actually encouraged faculty to pursue the establishment of formal governance structures. Given her own history as an outspoken faculty member at the universities at which she had worked previously, especially with the establishment of black studies, and given her experience with faculty governance, I am convinced that she believed that Spelman would be a stronger institution if junior and senior faculty became more involved in important decision making on campus. Her commitment to sharing power with her senior staff and faculty provided an important catalyst for institutional change that would distinguish Spelman from other HBCUs in the 1990s.

Cole appointed a committee of senior and junior faculty members to explore shared governance, and a faculty council was initiated in 1994. Several other changes, such as the appointment of strong provosts, the rotation of department chairs, greater involvement of faculty in departmental matters, faculty input into the capital campaign, and faculty involvement in significant curriculum transformation, also contributed to the evolution of the college.

As a result of these initiatives, Spelman has been moving from a more president-centric culture to one in which shared decision making about important academic matters-tenure and promotion policies, faculty hiring, the faculty handbook, curriculum review, faculty grievances, and, most recently, program development and review-is more normative. Since the arrival of President Beverly Daniel Tatum in 2002, the faculty council has worked more closely with senior administrators as the shared governance process continues to evolve.

An important recent development has been the formation of a junior faculty caucus, which emerged in 2003 after a faculty member in the English department expressed frustration during her third-year review about insufficient mentoring. She took action by forming a caucus that assumed responsibility for mentoring junior faculty. In addition to functioning as a support group and organizing forums, the caucus has enabled junior faculty to become more involved on campus, although some still feel marginalized in the governance process.