As U.S. higher education enters one of the most perilous times in its history, an internal threat makes it even more vulnerable—the ever-widening chasm between administrators and faculty. In the last three decades, budget pressures at larger universities have led administrators to shift faculty ranks toward contingent appointments with near-poverty wages, no benefits and little opportunity for advancement.
At research universities, the remaining tenure-track faculty positions have become hypercompetitive, with faculty having to publish far more than they did in the 1980s to obtain tenure and promotion. Pressure on these faculty to obtain large grants continues to mount in a funding environment that is now uncertain and even chaotic. At other universities, faculty ranks in general have shrunk, leading to increased workloads and larger class sizes, alongside shifts to more online offerings to meet student demand.
On the administrative side, the tenure of senior leaders is also shrinking, leading to increased leadership turnover. New leaders come in with change agendas to fix some prior unaddressed issue or manage significant budget deficits or other operational inefficiencies. In this environment, faculty disillusionment is high, as is disengagement. It is all too easy for administrators to treat faculty as expendable resources, forgetting that there is a human component to leadership and fostering distrust between these two critical groups of campus leaders.
But as external threats come to campuses, a divided campus will not be well prepared to fend off attacks aimed at weakening institutional autonomy. Administrators on many campuses find themselves unable to speak openly about their objections to current federal or state policies due to institutional neutrality stances or concerns about political blowback; at the same time, we have seen faculty organizations and unions step out in front to defend academic freedom and institutional autonomy. In this context, how can these two groups come together to restore trust, re-engage all stakeholders and build productive working relationships?
We write this from the perspectives of a longtime faculty leader and faculty champion who has published on the problems of deprofessionalizing the faculty and a longtime administrator who started as a faculty member and moved up the ranks to a chancellor position by working with faculty to solve campus challenges. We have worked together over the years from our respective vantage points, publishing tools and resources that are geared toward fostering clarity, communication and collaboration in the face of a rapidly changing environment. We know that the faculty/administrative divides will not serve the academy in this current crisis. But we have seen examples of ways that both groups can come together.
Here we offer some suggestions for leaders—faculty and administrative—from our experiences working with hundreds of campuses. We call for administrators to take the first step in reaching out, repairing and rebuilding where trust and relationships have been broken. But we also call on faculty to ask what they can do in response or how they might “lead up.” If one group extends an olive branch, and if there is to be hope for a different future, the other must accept it. Both parties must also hold one another accountable as relationships are renewed, trust is rebuilt and bridges across the chasm are constructed.
- Empower and support faculty leadership. Studies have shown that administrators can help support faculty in having a voice and assuming an active leadership role. Mentoring faculty on how the institution operates, sending faculty to leadership development opportunities, rewarding faculty who step into significant leadership or shared governance roles, providing summer stipends to work on projects, and offering course releases for active faculty leadership can all empower faculty to play a greater leadership role on campus.
- Strengthen shared governance structures. Over the last three decades, shared governance has been hollowed out on many campuses. Rebuilding it will require examining processes, policies and structures that enable faculty to contribute meaningfully to campus decision and policymaking. A strong shared governance system is a way to ensure that external groups are less able to divide and conquer, to commandeer the curriculum, the student experience and other key areas of campus work. And ensuring that faculty have avenues to exert their leadership with governing boards can help ensure that board members hear from and understand faculty perspectives and concerns.
- Clearly delineate administrative and faculty roles and responsibilities with respect to decision-making, authority and accountability. Strengthening shared governance means including faculty in more than advisory capacities when budgets, organizational structures or operations that affect them are slated for major changes. Put more decisions back in faculty hands, explain situations and ask for input, and include faculty in more important and strategic decisions on campus. Viewpoints may be at odds, and boards and administrators do have important fiduciary responsibilities, but these do not preclude engaging stakeholders in the decision-making process.
- Establish and grow your own leadership programs aimed at faculty. One of the best ways to ensure that faculty can play a leadership role on campus and off is to offer an annual leadership program for faculty. Costs can be relatively low for grow-your-own programs that rely on more senior and experienced faculty to serve as facilitators and trainers. Empowering senior faculty to train newer faculty on the campus operations and broader higher education landscape can lead to more proactive succession planning for key campus committees and leadership roles.
- Consider using a shared leadership approach to clearly involve multiple people and perspectives in decision-making. Beyond leadership development, consider using more formal structures associated with collaborative or shared leadership. This may help campuses create more inclusive and transparent processes for decision-making, especially when a variety of constituents are involved in or impacted by the changes.
- Have regular sessions for faculty and administrators to interact outside shared governance. Occasional lemonade or iced tea gatherings, Zoom social hours, annual community forums and the like can ensure that faculty and administrators get to know each other as people, not just positions. It may also be helpful to have periodic focused workshops or retreats for faculty and administrators on key change issues. These events can be led by external expert facilitators who can help create space for difficult dialogue.
- Acknowledge the wrongs and correct the course. When trust is broken, administrators should listen to concerns and be prepared to make adjustments and change course to address those concerns, and faculty should take the opportunity to collaboratively engage. That doesn’t necessarily mean going backward, but going forward in ways that involve a two-way dialogue to address concerns. For example, administrators need to be open about the need to strengthen faculty job security, pay and autonomy, while faculty need to recognize the competing pressures administrators are facing. Ensuring a strong faculty is a key component of a robust system of higher education, which is what is needed to ward off external threats. Somewhere in between lies the solution.
While these may seem like long-term strategies in the midst of a crisis, this crisis is going to last years, so investing in and empowering the faculty will pay off. Faculty have critical voices that can productively shape the change agenda, if given the opportunity to use them.
