Over the past few years, I have on occasion (see here and here) emphasized the need for institutions to practice “rapid collegiality”: that is, to find ways of making decisions more rapidly without sacrificing the notion that in a shared governance system, decision-making responsibilities have to be broadly inclusive. The challenge is not only that we have more or less come to equate collegiality with unanimity (or at least provided an awful lot of people with an awful lot of veto points), but also that we have also come to assume that the only way to express collegial governance is through Senates (or Academic Faculty Councils, or whatever they are called in your neck of the woods) and their unwieldy committee apparatuses.
This, folks, is nonsense. A product of deeply stay-inside-the-box thinking if ever there was one.
There are a number of problems with Senates and their associated committee structures. They often meet infrequently. They are designed to deal with a lot of small-ball quality assurance and procedural matters which, as important as they may be, are in the grand scheme of things fairly picayune. Very few of them are set up to take the pulse of the community on large strategic matters, like, for instance, how to absorb sudden losses of income, or how to get budget models right or how to deal with artificial intelligence. Indeed, not only are they not set up to think about big issues, they often shy away from it when given the chance: one President told us earlier this year that when they tried to interest their Senate in thinking about “big issues”, they were told effectively “that’s not our job”. (Yes, really).
So, Senate probably isn’t the best place to establish rapid collegiality. But then, what other body can be used? Université de Montréal splits its academic governance into a “Commission on Studies” (in theory, the picayune stuff), and a “University Assembly” (in theory, the big stuff), but I am told it does not work very well in practice. I suspect part of the problem is its permanence. Once you make any body like that permanent, factions will vie for control (particularly if elections are involved) and in such cases, the struggle for control of a body will tend to trump the need for that body to provide sober, timely advice (see also “institutional forums” in South African universities).
We have been thinking about this problem a lot at HESA Towers lately: how can university communities have productive discussions on big issues which can lead to rapid action? Here are some conclusions we’ve come to:
- Collegiality Requires Time. You can’t have the kinds of fruitful discussions necessary in an afternoon Senate meeting, especially with other things on the agenda. To make big directional calls on things like AI or budget models, you probably need hours of chat. Maybe in some cases it could be concentrated into a weekend retreat, or in other cases a set of multiple full-afternoon discussions. You can’t spread it out too much, because that would defeat the purpose of “rapid” collegiality. But you do need to set aside time.
- Collegiality Requires Multiple Perspectives. Senates’ advantage is that their composition is fairly inclusive by design. Part of the issue with not having Senates deal with the big problems is that decisions get left either to management or, less often, to a union/management committee, neither of which benefit from much in the way of inclusion. So, whatever body you choose needs to mimic Senates in their breadth of perspective at least to some extent.
- Good Decision Making Requires Expertise and Judgement. While breadth of membership is important, it’s probably more important that the right people are in the room. Expertise matters: who is right for the room will vary across issue areas. But in addition to expertise, you also need some people who are seen as moral leaders on campus either because of their age, experience, or scholarly stature. Many of these people choose not to be in Senate precisely because of the way it feels picayune, but they do care deeply about their institutions and will show up to make a contribution if their time is being used in a focused way.
- Good Decision-Making Requires Research. You can’t make good decisions without having done your homework. A focused discussion requires adequate, focused briefing materials. One of the reasons Senates can’t do that is because Senate secretariats are set up to process committee work rather than do independent research.
To simplify: what institutions need to tackle “big” issues is a focused, time-limited body that mixes breadth of perspective with expertise and is sent on its journey with some in-depth, balanced research. What comes out of it won’t be specific policies, exactly: the wordsmithing required to make Senate- and Board-worthy policies isn’t the job for a committee like this. But, what can emerge from this kind of gathering is a strong, detailed institutional approach to issues that provide a base from which institutional leaders can create policy, secure in the notion that they understand what a broad, informed, representative cross-section of their institution actually thinks about this issue. In a perfect world, you could probably get this whole process of selecting the body’s members, getting them briefed up, holding the necessary meeting(s) in about a month (though in the real world, two months is probably more realistic).
And that, folks, is the path to Rapid Collegiality.
If anyone is thinking about giving this a try, we at HESA Towers would very much like to hear what’s happening at your institution and what big issues are on your minds. We can help you select the deliberative body, set up and facilitate the meeting(s), provide all the background needed, and write the output document for you. You pick the topic, and we’ll get you through the process quickly and productively. If you’d like to explore what this could uniquely look like at your institution, just drop me a line at president@higheredstrategy.com, and we can arrange a chat. We will be arranging sessions all through 2027.
