Shared Governance at the University of California: An Historical Review (original) (raw)

1998, Center For Studies in Higher Education

Two major features in the historical development of the University of California distinguish it from other major public research universities. The first is the university's unusual status as a constitutionally designated public trust − a designation shared by only five other major public universities. The second is the University of California's tradition of shared-governance: the concept that faculty should share in the responsibility for guiding the operation and management of the university, while preserving the authority of the university's governing board, the Regents, to ultimately set policy. Both of these organizational features of California's land-grant university, combined with a massive investment by tax payers to expand enrollment and academic programs, has resulted in a university enterprise of international distinction and vital service to the people of California. As with so many other aspects of the university's operation, the concept of shared governance has evolved over time, often in reaction to significant internal and external challenges, and revolving around the development of the Academic Senate. Reflecting the dynamics of decision-making within a growing and multi-campus university, the root of the contemporary notion of shared governance has emerged not only from the formal delegation of authority to the Senate, but also from informal modes of involving faculty in the management of the nation's largest land-grant university. The following briefly outlines four periods in the evolution of shared governance in the University of California. The intent is to provide context to the contemporary debate among faculty, Regents, students and administrators, regarding the role of faculty in university governance and management. Establishing a State University In 1850, California's first state constitution provided the legislature with the ability to create a state university. It was not until 1868, however, that California passed a statute establishing the University of California − just in time to benefit from the largesse of federal land-grants under the federal Morrill Act. California's charter, like all American universities and colleges, provided for a lay board that would have authority over the activities of faculty and students. The American innovation of the lay board provided a public authority that removed sectarian influences, linked the operation of the university with the community it served, and provided a means to both reward and garner benefactors. But the device of the lay board also created an organizational structure that promised tension: with the rise of a professional class of academicians, there would be long and continuing debate over the proper domain of faculty.