As a New Academic Year Begins, Is Higher Education Governance Keeping Pace with the Challenges Facing Universities and Colleges?

The start of a new session is always an important moment for universities. A new cohort of students arrives, campuses come fully back to life and staff turn their attention to the year ahead.

But for governing bodies, it is also a useful moment to step back from the immediate pressures and ask some of the bigger questions, including:

Is our governance keeping pace with the environment in which our institution now operates?

From the position I previously occupied as secretary to a university governing body (for quite a few years) I could see how quickly changes in the external environment impacted on governance agenda, relationships and operations. The issues facing universities today are increasingly interconnected, and that creates an even more demanding role for governing bodies.

Strategic clarity

The starting point is clarity in relation to strategy.

Having agreed the institutional strategy the governing body has to retain a clear line of sight on the core components. Do all governors have a sound understanding of the institution’s strategy and the assumptions underpinning it? Are members satisfied that those assumptions being tested regularly? Does the governing body have the data and background information it needs to ask the right questions – without straying into management?

Good governance isn’t about simply issuing more challenges to the executive or seeking more information. It is about asking the right questions at the right time. This is particularly important when institutions are operating in a rapidly changing and turbulent environment.

The big issues

Trying to find new ways to maintain international student numbers and looking to grow international partnerships, for example, may bring a range of additional governance considerations. Changes in government immigration policy, geopolitical relationships and international demand can have implications well beyond recruitment.

How exposed is the institution to particular markets? How are international partnerships being assessed, governed and monitored? Are the risks to student experience, academic quality and institutional reputation properly understood?

These are strategic questions which the governing body has to explore and assure itself on.

The wider context

There is also the increasingly complex relationship between higher education, government and the wider political environment.

Universities and colleges have an essential role to play at the heart of their local and regional economies and increasingly have to engage too with national policy priorities.

At the same time, issues such as freedom of speech and other regulatory interventions can leave institutions in difficult territory.

Governors need to be clear about the institution’s position, its responsibilities and who has authority to speak on its behalf.

Getting the balance right

A strong governing body should provide constructive challenge without seeking to get involved in managing the detail. Equally, an executive team needs sufficient space to lead while knowing that its assumptions will be thoroughly tested by people on the governing body bringing different perspectives and experience.

That balance becomes particularly important when an institution is under major pressure. Or if it is considering significant change – whether to its academic portfolio, partnerships, operating model, use of technology or relationship with its communities.

Some of the questions to ask

So, as a new academic year begins, perhaps the most useful governance questions are not simply

What are we doing?

but:

Why are we doing it?

What assumptions are we making?

What could we be missing?

What assurance do we have that we are doing the right things well?

And, perhaps most importantly –

Are we creating the conditions in which our leaders can make good decisions, while ensuring that those decisions receive the challenge they deserve?

The higher education environment will continue to change at ever greater pace. Effective governance cannot remove the uncertainties, but it can help universities and colleges respond to it with greater confidence, vision and resilience.

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