Shared Governance and Academic Freedom at the University of Virginia
The single most important responsibility of college trustees is picking the college president. The task is difficult because so few people measure up to the job. And it is all the more difficult because so many people have an interest in the outcome.
The University of Virginia is offering a textbook case. The resignation of President Jim Ryan summoned the wrath of the UVA Faculty Senate—or if not its wrath, at least its “resolutions,” of which there have been two. One purports to instruct the Board of Visitors on how to select an interim president, and the other informs the Board of its “obligations and conduct.”
The latter reaches the preposterous conclusion that “shared governance” requires the Board of Visitors to make sure the search committee is “comprised of at least 75% UVA employees.” That “at least” is a nice touch. This is essentially a demand that the governing board give up and go home. The Faculty Senate will take care of things.
That won’t happen, and for good reason. Colleges and universities in the United States have a particular form of governance that goes all the way back to Dartmouth College v. Woodward, a Supreme Court case in 1819 that established that college trustees were the principal agents to guarantee that the college operated in the public interest. Not the faculty. Not the students.
That Dartmouth decision was amplified over the years in a series of other Supreme Court decisions that set the pattern for the rest of American higher education, though it plainly didn’t satisfy everyone. Faculty for many years lamented their relative lack of power on these matters. Led by the American Association of University Professors in 1966, several organizations drafted a statement that favored what came to be called the doctrine of “shared governance.” It said “joint effort” must be made in choosing a new college president, in which the governing board works with the faculty and takes “into consideration the opinions of others who are appropriately interested.”
That mild phrasing was meant to reassure that this was not simply a power grab by a self-interested faction. Surely listening to what others have to say is wise policy – until they demand a 75 percent share of the vote. At that point, “shared governance” means something closer to “I’m the captain now.”
In truth, the Board of Visitors bears the responsibility for identifying and recruiting candidates for the presidency and appointing the best person it can find to bring reform to the University of Virginia. In doing so, it must be guided solely by the public interest, not the wishes of the Faculty Senate, which typically represents a more activist fringe of the faculty at large. Because the UVA faculty are an important part of the public, the Board needs to canvass their views. That part of “shared governance” makes sense, but it has its limits.
Higher education depends on a partnership between the public and academic institutions. The people of Virginia have a vested interest in developing the intellectual talents of each new generation. As Thomas Jefferson put it in one of UVA’s founding documents, a partnership built on these principles forms citizens “to habits of reflection, and correct action, rendering them examples of virtue to others & of happiness within themselves” as well as forming “the statesmen, legislators & judges, on whom public prosperity, & individual happiness are so much to depend.”
The Faculty Senate’s resolutions reflect a radical turn among a faction that has little interest in the general good of the institution, which it conflates with its own agenda. The Faculty Senate wants not only to control the presidency but to gain access to confidential legal and personnel information regarding an ongoing Department of Justice investigation. This invites what amounts to mob rule.
The Faculty Senate is incensed that Jim Ryan stepped down under pressure. It blames the Board for not protecting Ryan’s “academic freedom.” It isn’t clear that the Board could protect Ryan from the consequences of his knowingly defying the law, but be that as it may, the Board is comprised of appointees of both Governor Youngkin and former Governor Northam. They represent the whole state, and the chair at the time of Ryan’s resignation was a Northam appointee. They remain true to the mission of one of the nation’s great public universities. Virginians should back them as they stand up to the posturing of the UVA Faculty Senate.
