By Holden Thorp and Buck Goldstein

The previous five principles are largely directed at university trustees, and the following are intended for consideration by campus leaders.  

Prioritize Board Education: Teaching a governing board the details of how higher education operates is real work. It’s no different than teaching general chemistry or a foreign language. If someone doesn’t know the jargon or the vocabulary, they need to be given the opportunity to acquire these with a patient teacher. In most cases, this falls to the chancellor themselves to be the professor of higher education policy.

Define Indispensable Principles: We believe the indispensable principles are tenure, academic freedom, shared governance, and the idea that knowledge is a public good. Different leaders could conceivably have a different menu, but we would submit that most of the irreconcilable differences come down to a failure of governing boards to understand that these are ‘quitting issues’ for most academic leaders.

Recognize the Importance of Identity Politics: The leader needs to understand how important identity politics are and that many trustees will not come to their roles with the same perspective as most folks on the campus. There will be differences that are very hard to traverse and that are ultimately irreconcilable, but at least by acknowledging this divide up front there is an opportunity to develop principles for collaboration. The chancellor should prepare the board for the fact that there will be times when the chancellor is rightfully unwilling to take a given measure to the campus.

Confront Political Realities: Leaders needs to understand that political realities are unavoidable. Public universities are funded by the government and it is unchangeable that elected bodies will have an enormous influence over the operations of the university. The politicization of higher education has not been a good thing for colleges and universities, and even as the level of state funding has decreased, the level of state engagement has not. So, accept this as a fixed reality and try to govern effectively. We believe that it is better to identify the disconnects early rather than hope they don’t reveal themselves.  

Conclusion

We continue to feel strongly that American higher education is the best in the world and its further weakening will lead to a loss of both competitiveness and engaged citizens.  Rising above this will require cool heads, compromise, and a willingness to put the public good ahead of ideology.

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Holden Thorp is a former Chancellor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Provost of Washington University in St. Louis. He is now Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine. Buck Goldstein is Professor of the Practice in the School of Education and University Entrepreneur In Residence at UNC Chapel Hill.