The Cost of Shared Governance with Brian Rosenberg, PhD

Sarah Holtan, PhD explores the complexities of college leadership with Brian Rosenberg, PhD, Visiting Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education, focusing on the pressures modern college presidents face. They discuss the need for transparent, honest, and authentic communication, especially in times of social media outrage.

Brian discusses the value of a clear mission and student-centric decision-making, while also challenging traditional tenure models. The conversation wraps with strategies for more inclusive shared governance and ways to stay calm and effective amidst chaos.

Episode Highlights:

03:19 - It's important to note that that model, even in its original document, is contingent upon an assumption that all parties will essentially be rolling in the same direction. All parties will have the good of the institution at the front of their mind and at least a general shared understanding of what that good is.

09:27 - The poor Chair of our Faculty Personnel Committee had to go out and just sometimes beg his colleagues to run for election because nobody wanted to make the time commitment.

12:11 - If I had to identify one group that is probably the most overlooked in shared governance, it would be Student Affairs staff. And it's ironic in the fact that students spend most of their time out of class and some of the most difficult work out on the

20:09 - One of the one of the problems that tenure has created is a dramatically inequitable system, within faculty teaching. So you have on one side of the divide tenured faculty, who generally have a lot of security. Depending upon the nature of the institution, they could be pretty well compensated and have a lot of autonomy and control. On the other side of the divide, you have non-tenure track or NTT faculty. They are often very poorly compensated, have no security at all, and have no voice in the say of the institution. For me, a more effective and equitable system would be to hire people, as is done in just about every other field, with multiyear contracts, with an established schedule of reviews, and the possibility for those contracts to be renewed and extended and maybe even lengthened.

Sarah Holtan, PhD

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Brian Rosenberg, PhD

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