The System and Culture of Academic Decision Making 49
convenience quickly lose an academic community’s respect. Similarly, administra-
tive officers who are unwilling to press legitimate claims of collegial authority are
perceived to be weak or ineffectual (Morrill 1990).
If, on the other hand, decisions are made unilaterally, they violate norms that
have ethical force. They threaten canons of legitimacy that have their roots in the
professional self-consciousness and self-respect of the faculty (cf. Bornstein 2003).
Those canons also have the symbolic force of tradition, and the legal and admin-
istrative weight of formal codification in bylaws and operating procedures. Any
member of the academic community who violates these norms does so at great
peril, for they invariably translate into sanctions of distrust, protest, and recrimi-
nation against those who are seen to have abused them. The unprecedented 2005
vote of no confidence in President Lawrence Summers by the Harvard Faculty of
Arts and Sciences—and in his subsequent resignation in 2006—focused on the
values of mutual respect and collegiality. Harvard professors complained bitterly
of Summers’s perceived lack of respect for their intellectual expertise and his
inability to appreciate the “basic civility” that is a moral and cultural norm of the
Harvard faculty and staff (Healy and Rimer 2005).
While academic leaders at all levels need to understand the criteria of ethical
legitimacy embodied in shared governance, they also come to learn the limits of
the process. As the 1996 Association of Governing Boards of Universities and
Colleges commission suggests, the system works tolerably well on many campuses
when leadership is effective and conditions are stable. Yet when pressures for
change begin to mount, fault lines quickly appear in the system. Then the fuzzi-
ness of the delineations of shared responsibility becomes glaringly visible and the
conflicts in values palpable, especially if significant changes in academic programs
themselves are at stake (cf. Benjamin and Carroll 1998; Duderstadt 2004; Keller
2004; Longin 2002).
Perhaps the most significant challenge of shared governance is its inability to
address systematically and coherently the deepest and most comprehensive strate-
gic challenges that confront an institution. Deep strategic questions of identity and
purpose are always systemic and integrated, while the faculty committee structure is
typically fragmented, complex, and cumbersome. Ironically and perilously, an aca-
demic decision-making system intended to give weight to the faculty’s voice actually
dissipates its influence through fragmentation and complexity. Those who hold for-
mal positions of academic authority are equally frustrated, because they do not have
effective vehicles to address the fundamental educational and organizational issues
that will define the institution’s future. We have come upon the fact that the motif
of strategic leadership is intimately related to the issue of strategic governance.
LEADERSHIP AND THE RECONCILIATION
OF THE CONFLICT IN VALUES
We have reflected on values to deepen our understanding of the decision-
making culture of colleges and universities and have done so for several reasons.