Today, a few random observations about University and College Boards of Governors, based on some thinking prompted by a class talk I gave at OISE last week and some noodling about Bill 12 in Nova Scotia. I have three thoughts and three propositions.

 1) Boards of Governors Have Complicated Job Descriptions

 Formally, the role of Boards is pretty clear. They choose institutional leadership, set (or at least approve) institutional priorities and—this one is the most important—they oversee institutional finances to make sure they are on the level and being used to serve the public interest. The reason we have lay members on Boards is because they are a surrogate for the public that isn’t government. 

However, there are also two unofficial roles that Board members play, and if they are not exactly in conflict with each other, then they are a source of a delicate balancing act. The first is that Boards are expected to act as a conduit of information fromthe community to the university. They aren’t just surrogate oversight for the government on financial matters, they are the voice of the community on the Board, a way in which a broad swathe of community input can be fed directly into institutional decision-making. The second is that they are meant to act as institutional ambassadors fromthe university tothe community, particularly with respect to fundraising.

 Doing all of this well, simultaneously, takes dexterity. Not everyone can be expected to possess it. The universe of potential Board members who can do all all of this well is pretty small. 

2) Universities and colleges have become a lot harder to run in the past couple of decades

 It’s not just that institutions are becoming bigger and more complicated, requiring more sophisticated financial, property and human resource strategies to keep everything afloat. It’s not simply that as institutions have been increasingly exposed to the market (a deliberate government policy almost everywhere in Canada), institutional risk exposure is increased; or that higher rates of labour militancy have meant that university Boards are constantly involved in complex labour negotiations (something that hospital Boards, for instance, do not need to worry about). It is that amongst all this change, Board positions and support for Board training and decision-making haven’t changed much at all. That’s a recipe for trouble.

3) Boards of governors are extremely part-time, volunteer jobs. 

 Board membership is nothing close to a full-time job. It’s maybe the equivalent of five to ten eight-hour days a year. For free. Yes, I know this is the way most non-corporate Boards work: hospital Boards, for instance, are run on more or less the same basis, though as noted above, hospital Boards don’t have to deal with labour issues the same way, and also they are much clearer about roles in the sense that they are much more “fundraisers” than “voices of the community.” But maybe—given the complicated nature of university and college operations—their Boards need something different in order to work effectively. Especially when lay members—while chosen to some degree for their affinity to the institution—almost by definition don’t necessarily have a strong grasp on the institution’s overall operating environment. 

In a nutshell, those are the big structural challenges facing Boards. And this is the point in the blog where I pivot to talk about solutions. You’re probably expecting me to talk about the importance of Board training and Board support because that is indeed very important (and we at HESA are soon to announce some major work in this area in conjunction with an external partner—come meet up with me at the Canadian University Boards Association meeting in Halifax in early May if you want to know more). But I also think maybe the country needs to discuss some more radical ideas for structural change. And I have three in particular which I think merit consideration.

 First, Boards on the whole need to be smaller than they are. In Canada boards of 25 and larger are not uncommon and I know of a couple which are over 40. We do this partially because we expect Boards to play three roles: “oversight and governance,” “listening to the community,” and “cheerleading for the university.” But if we want strong governance in particular, maybe it would be a good idea to split up these roles.

 In Alberta and Saskatchewan, universities have “Senates” made up of alumni (not to be confused with the academic bodies of the same name at eastern universities, which in AB/BC go under names like “General Faculties Council”); Queen’s has a “University Council” that serves more or less the same purpose. To some degree, these bodies take some of the pressure off Boards with respect to both the fundraising and the listening roles. At other institutions, the fundraising role is effectively kept separate from governance by the President inviting the financial heavy-hitters on a “campaign cabinet” separate from the Board. More institutions could and probably should experiment with bodies like these or other things like it. For instance, why not create something like “Community Councils” which would act as a permanent way to interact with local interests and take some of that burden off Boards? Increasing the number of bodies to deal with issues would enable smaller, more focused and probably more effective governing boards. 

Second, separating the community representation and fundraising, raises the possibility of upgrading the Board’s skills level, particularly if the institution goes outside its own alumni base to select Board members. It would probably be a great idea for more Boards to have former university Presidents (from other universities, obviously) to provide an external perspective on quality. In some countries, it is a rule that top universities have higher education experts from other countries on their boards to make sure that the institution has a sense of whether it is up to snuff with global practice. Having more people with experience dealing with government, or in running complex non-governmental organizations (especially hospitals) would probably benefit a lot of Boards as well.  

And third: maybe we should consider paying Board members. I know, I know, voluntarism is a core principle of non-profit Board governance. It’s not something we should throw away lightly. But the complexity of modern universities and colleges—large ones, anyway—requires governing boards to have a lot of highly talented lay people working long hours in a field that is not their own in a role that carries some serious fiduciary responsibility. Maybe, just maybe, to get people to acquire the skills and put in more hours, some remuneration might not go amiss. Nothing huge, but enough to respect people’s time and skills.

 Food for thought, anyway.