Shared governance is the set of practices under which college faculty and staff participate in significant decisions about the operation of their institutions. Colleges and universities are special types of institutions with a unique mission--the creation and dissemination of ideas. For that reason, they have created particular arrangements to best serve that mission. For example, academic tenure protects the status, academic freedom and independent voice of scholars and teachers. Shared governance, in turn, arose out of a recognition that:

• academic decision-making should be largely independent of short-term managerial and political considerations;
  
• faculty and professional staff are in the best position to shape and implement curriculum and research policy, to select academic colleagues and judge their work; and
  
• the perspective of all frontline personnel is invaluable in making sound decisions about allocating resources, setting goals, choosing top officers and guiding student life.

Broad participation in decision-making clearly increases the level of employee investment in the institution’s success. As a result, organizational theorists for many years have recommended shared decision-making as central to improving productivity in all kinds of organizations. In higher education, there is a high turnover rate among top administrators; this means that faculty and staff are often more knowledgeable about the institutional history that is so valuable to institutional planning. Without that institutional history, institutions are apt to repeat past failures.

The AFT thus believes that shared governance should be structured to incorporate the views of faculty and staff at all levels of decision-making. The institution’s administrators must provide participants with the time, encouragement and information necessary to be effective.

Shared governance is vital to the academic integrity of our colleges and universities, to prevent the pressures of commercialization from distorting the institution’s educational mission or eroding standards and quality, and to uphold the ideals of academic freedom and democratic practice. Strengthening shared governance is the responsibility of all colleges and universities--and a priority of our union.