Community College Faculty Conceptualizations of Shared Governance: Shared Understandings of a Sociopolitical Reality

Abstract

Objective: This study seeks to deepen understanding of faculty leaders’ perceptions of the concept of shared governance. Moving beyond descriptive considerations of faculty perceptions of efficacy of good or bad governance and the discourse focused on declining faculty involvement and conflict paradigms, I consider governance a co-constructed sociopolitical phenomenon in a neoliberal environment. Method: Qualitative analysis of interviews with 27 faculty from nine community colleges in five states was deconstructed to uncover common themes and understandings. Results: Themes of the importance of the faculty voice, trust and transparency, apathy and disengagement emerged. The findings support recent research which suggests that social and cultural aspects of soft governance are key variables in how faculty conceptualize shared governance. Contributions: The study addresses a gap in the literature in understanding how faculty conceptualize shared governance, and supports findings of recent research that suggest the importance of communication and trust in governance. In addition, the study suggests the need for further research in understanding how faculty are socialized into governance roles.

Keywords

shared governance faculty neoliberalism faculty socialization

Faculty roles throughout higher education are changing in what Kezar and Maxey (2015) posit as “the ‘unraveling’ of the American professoriate” (p. 5). Role alteration stems from financial and liberal market policies. An increasingly contingent workforce, corporatization, shifting technologies, unbundling instructional responsibilities, and increasingly diverse student populations have altered faculty work. Public support for higher education as a public good has shifted as well, taking aim at tenure, teaching versus research, and questioning the rising cost of higher education with emphasis on the student debt crisis (Kezar & Maxey, 2015; Zemsky, 2013). The deprofessionalization of the faculty is undermining the practice, and has been suggested as a precursor to the end of shared governance (Birnbaum, 2004; Gerber, 2014).

As a pillar of the faculty professional role, the concept of shared governance is both revered and imprecise. The American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) statements on governance, from which the concept originated, have been described as “collaborative in intention and even innocuous in implication” (Burgan, 2006, p. 104). There is a renewed interest in governance related to pressures for transformational change in higher education, impeded by century-old governance mores and practice (Bowen & Tobin, 2015). However, the discourse on governance is primarily focused on university faculty (Bowen & Tobin, 2015; Burgan, 2006; Ehrenberg, 2004; Gerber, 2014; Kezar & Maxey, 2015; Tierney, 2004). As Hardy (1996) posits, “Universities would seem ideal places in which to study the ebb and flow of organizational politics. There are many different groups . . . that influence university decisions—each with different world views, objectives, and interests” (pp. 7-8). The current research expands our understandings of how community college faculty conceptualize shared governance by considering how neoliberal philosophies, fueling increased corporatization, and market-driven behaviors in community colleges may have crowded out space for social activism and collegiality as well as the service role of governance leadership. The research also takes a perspective of shared governance as a co-constructed, sociopolitical process, with faculty and administrators requiring relationships built on trust and mutual respect (Hardy, 1996; Kezar, 2004).

Governance considerations include constantly changing processes, politics, participants, and variables internal and external to the institution that are reflected in institutional decision making (Hardy, 1996; Hines, 2000). There are internal and external, horizontal and vertical constructs and processes as part of governance research, as there are wide variations in statewide, regional, and local governance, and differences in union and nonunion environments (Alfred, 1998, 2008; Hines, 2000; Kisker & Kater, 2013; Lechuga, 2004; Levin, 2001; Tierney, 2004; Tollefson, 2009). The focus of this research is on shared governance: “The ideal and an operational reality that pertains to ways in which policy decisions are made in colleges and universities” (Hines, 2000, p. 142). More specifically, the organizational space in public community colleges where faculty and administration are involved in institutional decision making.

The concept of shared governance emanated from the 1996 AAUP, American Council on Education (ACE), and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges’ (AGB) Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities (AAUP, n.d.) which was “directed to governing board members, administrators, faculty members, students and other persons in the belief that the colleges and universities of the United States have reached a stage calling for appropriately shared responsibility and cooperative actions . . .” Gerber (2014) suggests that it was an earlier “statement of government principles” from AAUP in 1962 that provided the foundation for the often-cited statement. It is noteworthy that more recently AGB revised its stance in the 1998 Statement on Institutional Governance, with support for more corporate ideologies, including “greater emphasis on the need for speed in decision making and the importance of executive authority” (Gerber, 2014, p. 157). More research is needed to better understand how the historical framework of shared governance is translated in the community college.

The Community College Context for Shared Governance

Community college faculty, just as the institutions they work for, have unique identities and characteristics, yet are often described collectively. Approximately, 29% of all higher education full-time faculty are community college faculty (Levin, 2013). Although community college faculty are the most unionized sector of higher education, the majority, 70%, work part-time (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2014), with implications for collective bargaining. Not only is there a need to disaggregate full-time from part-time faculty, but there are differences in occupational areas; faculty who teach in transfer disciplines versus occupational programs, for instance (Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011). There are important differences in context of the over 1,100 institutions as well, resulting in 14 different Carnegie classifications of associate’s degree granting institutions (Carnegie, 2016). The diversity of institution types has implications for governance, as Kisker and Kater (2013) note,

U.S. community colleges, while often analyzed as a group or sector, encompass very small institutions serving relatively insulated communities, large, multi-campus behemoths that provide education and occupational training for a wide variety of students, and everything in between. Furthermore, community colleges vary widely in relation to their roles and functions within state systems, and depending on the ways in which power and authority are distributed within community college governance structures. (p. 153)

Community colleges have diversified but more so have their students. Malcom (2013) suggests that community colleges have evolved to a “de facto minority-serving educational sector” (p. 20). Almost half (45%) of all postsecondary students in the United States are enrolled at a community college, including 41% of the first-time college freshmen (American Association of Community Colleges [AACC], 2016), and they are more diverse in terms of ethnic background, socioeconomic status, gender, and age than students across the university sector (Malcom, 2013). In the fall of 2014, 62% of community college students were Native American, 57% Hispanic, and 52% Black (AACC, 2016).

In addition to being differentiated institutions, community colleges are reactive and adaptive institutions to local, state, and regional needs, yet also influenced by national and international forces. Community colleges are particularly subject to state governmental policy and funding behaviors (Palmer, 2013). State governments, responding to global economic pressures, have considerable impact on community college operations. Community colleges are engaged in economizing behaviors as a result of global forces, and these economizing behaviors are affecting governance structures (Kater, 2003; Levin, 2001). This is not unique to community colleges, as Hardy (1996) found that “as governments become more preoccupied about funding and businesses become more involved in providing financial support, their influence on university decision-making increases” (p. 8).

Baldridge, Curtis, Ecker, and Riley (1978) have noted the “subtle mix of bureaucratic factors, collegial and professional influences, and political dynamics” (p. 70) which is constantly in flux in academic organizations. As a result, “Governance systems evolve as unique reflections of institutional history, values, and accidental interactions” (Birnbaum, 1992, p. 178). Because governance structures and processes adapt to changing environmental conditions, the current research provides a perspective on internal governance in the community college in a neoliberal environment.

Community college faculty, whose position in the hierarchy of academia suggests a tenuous professional status (Clark, 1987), are responding to new fiscal realities and liberal market policies and face consequences of the neoliberal environments in which they work (Levin, 2013; Levin, Montero-Hernandez, & Yoshikawa, 2011). Community colleges are evolving from the nation’s democracy’s colleges to completion colleges. For decades, the institution has had a complex mission, “part transfer institution, economic development engine, social welfare agency, entrepreneurial institute, and baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate college” (Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011, p. 134). But, now, with a new focus on completion, faculty roles are becoming more closely linked to the pressures of the market and the broader neoliberal philosophy which is dominating higher education. As might be expected, there are consequences for the faculty role in shared governance (Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011; Rhoades, 1998).

The scaffolding of the faculty professional identity in academia does not bode well for community college faculty and shared governance. In addition to the overwhelming number of part-time faculty who are marginalized in governance processes, neoliberal policies favoring corporate ethos of efficiency and effectiveness over social goals have pushed community colleges to more business-like models of productivity (Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011) The corporatization of higher education has implications across institutional types but community colleges, with limited ability to generate their own resources via patents and intellectual property agreements, are more susceptible to and reliant on external influences. As a result, community colleges are adopting more entrepreneurial and business-oriented processes, including streamlined decision making, and the time-consuming nature (real or perceived) of shared governance has been criticized (Bowen & Tobin, 2015).

The complexity of governance constructs contributes to a lack of shared understandings. “Governance is a widely debated topic in higher education” (Levin, 2000, p. 89). The term may be interpreted succinctly as “the decision-making authority for an organization” (Lovell & Trouth, 2002, p. 91) or may be considered conceptually requiring more complex analysis; is governance decision-making, policy-making, regulation enforcement, legal authority, or a combination of concepts and regulations? Research on shared governance considers different stakeholders, structures (e.g., union vs. nonunion, internal vs. external, local, regional, or statewide), processes, and typology (e.g., governance as collegial, autocratic, participatory, consultative).

Research on shared governance is categorized by considering structural and functional models (Gerber, 2014; Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011; Tierney, 2004) what Birnbaum (2004) has labeled “hard governance,” those “structures, regulations, and systems of sanctions in an organization that define authority relationships, prescribe certain organizational processes and encourage compliance with enacted policies and procedures” (p. 10). Birnbaum contrasts this with “soft governance,” (p. 10) which expands the focus of governance research to include the sociocultural aspects of governance to encompass individual and cultural variables of relationships, trust, and leadership as critical to effective governance (Gayle, Tewarie, & White, 2003; Kezar, 2004; Kezar & Lester, 2009; Tierney & Lechuga, 2004). The discourse continues amid a sociopolitical environment that projects a decline and revision of the concept of shared governance (Gerber, 2014).

Scholars, institutions, and associations survey faculty for climate and perceived levels of shared governance (Ben-Ruwin, 2010; Emerson College, 2014; Gayle et al., 2003; Piland & Bublitz, 1998) and whether governance is perceived of as, for example, collegial, participatory, or autocratic. Shared governance in the community college has been evaluated structurally, in an analysis of faculty authority across institutional functions (Kater, 2003; Levin, 2000). In an effort to move the discourse beyond the themes of declining faculty involvement in governance and conflict paradigms (Birnbaum, 2004; Gerber, 2014; Mortimer & McConnell, 1978), the purpose of this research is to explain how community college faculty leadership conceptualizes shared governance in the current environment. More specifically, the research question guiding the study was as follows: How (or in what ways) do faculty leaders understand and explain the concept of shared governance? A multi-institution, multistate embedded case study was used to gather and then deconstruct faculty conceptualizations of shared governance.

Theoretical Frameworks

The theoretical frameworks for this research include neoliberalism as a summative theory influencing the community college mission (Levin, 2001) and social capital as integral to trust and cooperation (Tierney, 2006). Community colleges are impacted and influenced by globalization and neoliberalism, with increased emphasis on market-driven behaviors and declining support for the governmental role in social justice initiatives. Neoliberalism has been described as “the ideological complement to the mechanics of globalization” (Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011, p. 27) and calls into question the social contract community colleges have with their communities and the students they serve. Neoliberalism impacts governance models as community colleges evolve in a market-driven environment (Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011)

A consideration of the social capital of faculty informs the research because, as Tierney (2006) suggests, organizations are culturally constructed and “social capital is the scaffolding that makes trust possible” (p. 21). How much social capital community college faculty bring to models of shared governance has not been well developed in the literature. However, “It is the process of shared governance, and not its outcome, that helps to build the dense network of connections that create social capital” (Birnbaum, 2004, p. 15), while it is our institutional structures that inhibit the development of social capital. Tyler (1998) argues that it is the psychology of trust that is “the underlying reason why people defer to authorities” (p. 269). Deference in decision making is an attribute in the governance process.

The community college has been described as an agent of state, local, and increasing international policies, particularly as colleges have become “more overtly connected to the marketplace and to the ideologies of a neoliberal state” (Levin, 2001, p. xxviii). The shifting institutional mission creates tension between the social justice role of the institution, and the economic, workforce development, and more corporate priorities (Harbour, 2015; Levin, 2013). These tensions remain despite the fact that “more recent social theorists have concluded that there is no longer a social contract” (St. John, Daun-Barnett, & Moronski-Chapman, 2013, p. 272). This conflict between the social contract of the community college and neoliberal values is manifested in philosophical challenges to institutional governance, and in particular, the changing role of faculty in institutional decision making. “The influence of the New Economy has isolated individual workers and allowed institutions to increase efficiency and effectiveness in a form of hypercapitalism” (Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2006, p. 82). The corporatization of higher education has implications across institutional types, but community colleges, as resource dependent institutions, are more susceptible to and reliant on external influences.

The community college can no longer be narrowly defined as a college for the community. As Levin, Kater, and Wagoner (2011) remind us, the community college is a new institution, Nouveau College, buffeted and shaped by globalization and neoliberal policies which are shaping faculty work. Faculty are increasingly “managed professionals” as Rhoades (1998) foretold the deprofessionalization of the faculty (Birnbaum, 2004; Gerber, 2014; Kezar & Maxey, 2015; Levin, 2013). In the community college, this is manifested primarily in the adjunctification of the faculty. International markets and periods of instability combined with neoliberal policies have helped shape hiring decisions which favor part-time, less expensive, short-term faculty hires. In 1968, approximately 66% of community college faculty were employed full-time. By 1998, the percentage had dropped to 38%, and by 2009, 30%, representing an institutional and organizational response to not only local but also to global changes (Cohen, Brawer, & Kisker, 2014). With fewer full-time faculty teaching more students and engaging in more administrative functions, their availability, impact, and role in governance are worthy of greater understanding.

This research also draws from social role theory (Ashford & Mael, 1989; Hogg, Terry, & White, 1995) which helps us consider how faculty are (or are not) socialized into faculty governance. The faculty role in governance is partially socially constructed. Little research has been done on how community college faculty develop and identify with governance and leadership roles. Social role theory suggests that “role identities are self-conceptions, self-referent cognitions, or self-definitions that people apply to themselves as a consequence of the structural role positions they occupy” (Hogg et al., 1995, p. 256).

Faculty have both professional and social identities which are “diverse and complex” (Levin, 2013, p. 244). The faculty’s professional identity in leadership roles is not well understood. Because community college faculty are socialized via their disciplines rather than the profession as a whole, it is important to understand how faculty develop their social roles as senate leaders. Building on the work of Townsend and Twombly (2007) who suggest that there remains “relatively little research on community college faculty members” (p. xi), particularly how faculty are socialized into the role, the current research seeks first to explain how faculty conceptualize shared governance.

Method

This qualitative, embedded multicase study followed an interpretive and inductive approach in gathering faculty leaders’ perceptions of how they understand and explain shared governance (Creswell, 2008; Merriam, 1998; Saldaña, 2013; Yin, 2014). The inductive approach allowed the researcher to build on interpretive data to develop themes and potentially new models or theories. Sources of the data for this study were interviews with full-time and part-time faculty leaders—primarily full-time, current, or former senate presidents as well as three nonsenate leaders to provide an alternate perspective from nine different community colleges in one Midwestern, one Southeastern, and three Western states. In two of the colleges, faculty were represented by collective bargaining agreements. A total of 27 faculty (25 full-time and two part-time) participated in one-on-one interviews over an 11-month period. Building on prior research (Kater, 2003; Kezar, 2004; Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011; Piland & Bublitz, 1998), open-ended interview questions were developed to allow for understanding how faculty conceptualized shared governance. Community college faculty members were the unit of analysis and the embedded cases were faculty in leadership roles at different sized, union and nonunion, and urban and rural institutions.

Nonprobabalistic sampling was utilized to gain access to research sites (Creswell, 2008; Merriam, 2009). Site selection was influenced by contacting colleagues at institutions that had a range of full-time student equivalent enrollments (large, small, medium-sized); institutions in both rural and urban settings; and where faculty were represented by a bargaining unit and where they were not. The intent was not to compare or contrast faculty responses from these different institutions nor from full-time versus part-time but to have a collective response over a variety of institutional types. After obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, endorsement was granted from research sites following local IRB committee (if required) review of the documentation. I requested unfettered access to faculty leaders (i.e., I did not want to interview only faculty who either supported or did not support their current administration.). And while faculty may have self-selected, there was no overt administrative interference in the recruitment process. No attempt was made to select sites based on stable or unstable governance conditions.

Trust was an important aspect in gaining entre. I had the opportunity to study the sensitive topic of governance because colleagues, former research site faculty, or administrators referred me to the appropriate avenues to recruit participants. Governance is political (Birnbaum, 1988; Bowen & Tobin, 2015; Ehrenberg, 2004; Gerber, 2014; Kezar, 2004; Tierney, 2004), and having access to interviewees can be challenging. Although I did not attempt to create a generalizable sample, I sought diversity in my sample participants and obtained gender and ethnic differences. To preserve the anonymity of the faculty, I am not identifying them by gender, ethnicity, or institution. In a neoliberal environment where faculty values may conflict with institutional values (Levin, 2013), discussions of governance, even under promise of anonymity and human subjects’ protection, may be contentious. Baez (2002) reminds us that the concepts of confidentiality and anonymity are related and that “confidentiality often can be achieved by the use of anonymity” (p. 55). Because the faculty interviewed are a vulnerable population in the power structures of community colleges, they could face negative consequences if identified. As a researcher, I acknowledge my ethical commitment to protecting the integrity of the data. Merriam (1998) advises that “ethical practice comes down to the individual researcher’s own values and ethics” (p. 218).

A pilot study of faculty leaders was undertaken to test the research questions for validity and relevance to the purpose of the research, and modifications to the research questions were made as a result. Other participants were then recruited via email, with network sampling as follow-up referrals from individuals interviewed (Merriam, 1998). The faculty have been teaching anywhere from 4 to 35 years. Their disciplines were close to equally matched between vocational and academic (transfer oriented), and they taught courses in nursing, communications, philosophy, developmental education, business, health care, English, biology, math, music, and art. The faculty participated in one-on-one semistructured interviews lasting from 60 to 90 minutes which were audiotaped, and supplemental notes were taken as well to record the participants’ comments. For the analysis, all personally identifying information was removed from the transcripts and a numeric identifier was applied. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and manually coded.

To enhance the validity of the findings, a random sample of interview transcripts were member checked by the participants. Member checking is an important step in validating qualitative data (Creswell, 2008). Spending prolonged time in the field is another strategy Creswell suggests in supporting the accuracy of the findings. For this study, I spent over a year in visiting sites, interviewing faculty, and analyzing the data, which was supplemented by over a decade of qualitative field research on community college faculty. It is also important to disclose potential researcher bias as “the researcher . . . brings a construction of reality to the research situation” (Merriam, 1998, p. 22). As a community college administrator whose research interest focuses on community college governance and faculty work, I have practical and scholarly understandings of the work of the faculty and acknowledge a bias for the principles of shared governance. The narrow focus of the study—faculty perceptions of the concept of shared governance—rather than the efficacy of, or outcomes of shared governance, helped to mitigate any researcher bias.

Data Analysis

The transcribed interviews were decoded and then encoded (Saldaña, 2013) to better understand faculty leaders’ perceptions of shared governance, following accepted practice for analyzing qualitative data (Creswell, 2008; Merriam, 2009; Saldaña, 2013; Yin, 2014). An inductive approach allowed the researcher to build on interpretive data. Interview transcripts went through multiple rounds of coding following Creswell’s (2008) prescribed methodology for data analysis and interpretation which include organizing and preparing the data, reviewing the data for overall meaning, coding, description and thematic development, narrative development, and interpretation of the data.

Initial coding was done considering a priori themes related to “soft” or “hard” governance (Birnbaum, 2004). Transcript analysis revealed consistent themes related to “soft” governance, as consistent and prevalent themes of trust and communication emerged. In vivo coding followed, with line-by-line analysis of data for subthemes and emerging concepts. Emerging concepts such as apathy and faculty role identity in governance were not part of the initial coding but emerged at this step in the analysis. Triangulation of the data involved validation of the coding to theoretical frameworks, alignment of notes with the transcribed data, and member checking. Transcribed interviews were sent to a sample of participants as member checks, and corrections to errors in fact were made.

In vivo coding also included subcoding—structural coding which yielded information on faculty perceptions of governance expectations, operational nuances, and role identity, as well as historical perspectives such as increasing corporatization of the institution and governance processes (Saldaña, 2013). Finally, theoretical coding was utilized to “progress toward discovering the central/core category that identifies the primary theme or major conflict, obstacle, problem, issue, or concern to participants” (Saldaña, 2013, p. 268) as central to the research question. Theoretical coding resulted in consideration of the effects of neoliberalism in defining the faculty’s role in governance. In a more corporate institutional economy, faculty may be socialized out of governance roles because of a lack of sociopolitical capital. Results of theoretical coding supported prior research which suggests trust and aspects of “soft governance” are central to how faculty conceptualize shared governance (Birnbaum, 2004; Kezar, 2004; Piland & Bublitz, 1998).

Findings

Data analysis revealed three emergent themes which were consistent with the theoretical frameworks and support recent trends in governance research (Kezar, 2004; Tierney & Lechuga, 2004). The prominent themes which emerged from analysis of the data were, the importance of having the professional expertise of the faculty voice heard as part of two-way communication, trust and transparency as central to faculty engagement in governance, and apathy and disengagement. Faculty spoke consistently at length about having the collective faculty voice heard and about issues related to trust as well as transparency. “Shared governance is a framework of governance that respects our individual areas of expertise within a collaborative framework of trust,” said a faculty member at an urban, nonunion institution. The third theme that emerged from the analysis was that of apathy or disenfranchisement. The faculty I spoke with felt passion for their students and their subjects, and for occupational faculty, their continued connection to the workforce. “I’m paying it forward for those in the field” was how one faculty expressed his passion for teaching others who would eventually be working as technicians in his field. But many expressed either the burden of carrying the weight of the faculty role in governance or a sense of frustration at an illusionary governance process.

The term apathy implies intentional indifference, which may be the case for some, but the reality of faculty as managed professionals, increasingly marginalized from key institutional and academic decisions and lacking incentives for governance work would create a culture of apathy (Gerber, 2014). Finally, an important outcome of the analysis of the data was the lack of commentary related to structural aspects of governance (i.e., who votes on what issues, committee structures). This supports governance research which suggests that structural issues have given way to social and cultural issues (Kezar, 2004; Tierney, 2004).

The Faculty Voice

“True shared governance is where your voice is heard . . .” a faculty member at a rural, nonunion institution told me. This message resonated throughout the interviews. In the study, language and concepts related to communication and transparency, as an antecedent to trust, were peppered throughout the majority of comments. The faculty interviewed, for the most part, did not talk at length about the work of their senates or of operational plans and initiatives requiring faculty votes—what Birnbaum (2004) labeled “hard governance” (p. 10). They did, however, speak consistently of mutual respect and authoritative deference, and of two-way communication. When thinking about what shared governance means, a faculty who teaches in a transfer program at an urban, nonunion college said, “Both parties [faculty and administration] need to improve communication. Trickle-down communication doesn’t work. Email doesn’t work. Face-to-face works but you don’t have time for it.”

The fact that communication and transparency are important to governance is not surprising. What was unexpected is the apparent void in communication. The research questions were specific to how faculty conceptualized shared governance. It is reasonable to expect that communication and transparency are basic working conditions in effective institutions. Yet the faculty I interviewed attribute them to their aspirations for shared governance. In other words, basic communication has become an aspirational goal. A faculty senate president at a large urban college described the importance of the faculty voice:

Shared governance is active participation in decision-making processes . . . not all of them, but those issues related to student learning and student success, which may or may not be scheduling, or certainly curriculum, and that there are discussions, that stakeholders are at the table. You may not get the outcomes you want, but your voice has been heard . . . There are discussions and stakeholders are at the table and your voice was heard.

A majority of interviewees were not suggesting an equal vote on issues, although a few did mention it, they simply wanted their professional expertise recognized, their voices heard: “I think that in the best of all possible worlds there would be some kind of faculty senate so that faculty can regularly know that they have a voice.” The transcripts were rich with thoughts about the faculty voice. A faculty leader at a rural, union institution expressed, “What I feel shared governance would look like would be that the people that are above me in administration would allow my input to be considered when they make decisions that affect my job.” Another simply said, “More of a faculty voice in decision making.”

The literature suggests that transparency and communication are necessary for trust, and that trust is necessary for effective governance (Birnbaum, 2004; Kezar, 2004; Tierney, 2006). The most consistent messaging for how faculty explain shared governance is that of having their voice heard. A faculty member teaching in a transfer discipline in a union environment suggests that “many people who are complaining about governance are really complaining about bad communication.” That communication is critical to governance is not new. As Birnbaum (2004) reminds us, over 40 years ago Cohen and March found “most people in a college are most of the time less concerned with the content of a decision than they are with eliciting an acknowledgement of their importance within the community” (p. 121). More recently, Tierney (2006) posits that “the critical point here is not whether one or another governance structure is effective, but rather how participants perceive governance structures” (p. 86).

Trust and Transparency

Comments specific to trust and transparency were also prevalent throughout the interviews. A former faculty senate president at an urban, nonunion institution explained “Shared governance systems build trust and relationships through the formal leader showing deference, and thus respect, to the informed decision of others.” Another faculty leader noted, “A lot depends on the personalities at the table. We’ve garnered a lot of trust from administration so a lot more can get done.” In describing her vision of shared governance, a faculty member who teaches in a transfer discipline at an urban institution said:

There is transparency and a lack of an agenda, not a ‘Go Fish!’ type of relationship with administration . . . [W]e need to know that people will play fair. Shared governance looks like employees actually working together to solve problems, acknowledging expertise in the room, coming together and working together…Everyone being open and honest.

Governance is built on networks of social capital (Birnbaum, 2004) and “trust is a vital form of social capital in social systems” (Dee, 2006, p. 150). Another faculty at an urban, nonunion institution said, “We just have to trust each other.”

One of the foundational aspects of trust for faculty was deference to their expertise and professional roles as faculty members. “Shared governance should be that faculty should be included in decisions that affect the classroom instead of basing them on abstract research,” a Communications faculty emphatically noted. The fact that classroom and instructional issues are the purview of the faculty is not new (Birnbaum, 1988; Gerber, 2014; Kater, 2003; Kezar & Maxey, 2015). But faculty in the current study looked for deference to their professional expertise in a collaborative manner. “So I think there should be opportunities that we can have that we know that we have some kind of voice, and that there is a partnership,” is how a rural transfer faculty described it. “Shared governance occurs where the expertise/opinions of each is respected and considered carefully for the good of the entire organization,” noted a long-time faculty member at a rural institution with union representation.

The faculty role in governance is in part socially constructed. Tierney (2006) posits that organizations are “social structures that individuals construct and reconstruct” (p. 181). Faculty repeatedly mentioned how trust is critical to governance processes. Dee (2006) cites Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, and Camerer (1998) in defining trust as “a psychological state comprising of intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another” (p. 396). The findings suggest, as Kezar (2004) notes, that “relationships are critical to effective governance” (p. 43) and that “leadership, relationships, and trust” (p. 37) are the primary conditions that may facilitate effective governance. A faculty member at an urban, nonunion institution succinctly stated, “It [shared governance] requires a degree of trust. We need to figure out how to work together under the new normal.”

If trust is essential in creating social networks which builds social capital, we need to consider the social roles and socialization of the faculty. Social roles may be impacted by cultural influences. New faculty may be socialized into adversarial posturing in governance. The inclusion of new faculty in the study provided some insights. A long-time vocational faculty at a medium-sized urban institution (nonunion) described what he saw as the protective role of some senate leaders:

Where we spare them [new faculty] is the political side of academic governance, the narrow vision. Younger faculty don’t have that jaded view of academe, of us versus them. As time goes on there’s a much more hardened view of us versus them. Young faculty have more of a passion to excel in teaching, to excel in their craft.

In contrast, a new faculty at a different college (and state) provided insights into governance socialization:

In terms of what it [shared governance] means to me here at . . . [college], the only thing I’ve heard about it is that there is a faculty senate, but I don’t know how it works or what roles they have. I don’t really know anything about shared governance or even if it exists. I don’t know that the faculty senate is, but I’ve heard that we don’t really have shared governance.

The significance of viewing governance from a trust framework is supported by how faculty in this study conceptualized shared governance. An experienced faculty member said, “Shared governance. There always has to be a winner. Maybe we should drop the word ‘governance.’ We’re all in the same battle—maybe it should be ‘shared partnership’ instead.” In empirical research on trust, Tyler (1998) finds that “trustworthiness is conceptualized in terms of the benevolence of the motives of the authority” (p. 270). Faculty in the study conceptualized governance via language that supports previous research which describes how trust develops as individuals “communicate cultural meanings rather than rational facts” (Tierney, 2006, p. 182).

Apathy and Disengagement

Finally, woven throughout the narrative were issues of apathy and disengagement. The emergence of apathy as a thematic outcome may be related to the increasingly corporate culture which dissuades collaborative thinking and action. With 70% of the faculty hired on a part-time basis, this leaves a small pool of full-time faculty for institutional service, including governance. Those who are full-time and engaged are overextended:

At our college, faculty are spread so thin. They teach heavy course loads and are required to participate in institutional service, which is mostly fulfilled through committee work, as well. However, we have too many committees and not enough full time faculty to serve representatively on them that it often times ends up being the same 20% of our total full time faculty who serve on the various committees and help with the decision making at the campus. There is a large group of full time faculty who remain uninvolved in the committees at all.

The challenge for meaningful participation becomes even more difficult for the vast numbers of part-time faculty, as a faculty member teaching in a transfer discipline expressed,

[Our] adjuncts could be joining with this group to begin pressuring, but again they feel disempowered, they don’t have any rights, but they could join a group that would help them push this forward because by now full-time faculty/adjuncts are divided because everyone wants more pay.

Another faculty leader suggested that “faculty apathy is part of the problem” and many told me they were serving or had served in leadership roles because no one else would. This was recognized by another vocational faculty at a nonunion institution who said, “Faculty have to become engaged outside the classroom.”

The messaging of apathy throughout the interviews suggests a lessening of interest in governance: a lessening of interest, intentional dissuasion from participation due to deprofessionalization, lack of social obligation to governance, or a combination of factors. An occupational faculty in a union institution said that “much time has to be spent on locating and recruiting individuals to serve on committees with shared governance is extremely difficult . . . faculty are spread so thin” and this was a consistent statement across large and small, rural and urban colleges, and in both union and nonunion environments. A faculty member teaching in a vocational program told me, “At our college sometimes the notion of shared governance is a ‘fantasy.’ Often times we work for a long time to put processes together that often is, as some faculty have expressed ‘pointless.’” She went on to describe a specific example of feigned involvement that resonated through many of the interviews:

Much time and energy was exhausted as the group worked together, collected information . . . Then, after all that work, the committee suddenly dissolved and the administrators made the decision . . . The climate seems to be ‘I don’t know why I’m here or why I’m doing this, my opinion won’t matter anyway.’

Faculty apathy may be the result of a corporate culture which disinvests the faculty role in governance and institutional decision making. In discussing leadership of a curriculum committee, a liberal arts faculty leader explained:

. . . it was a kangaroo committee. The two administrators who were in charge would come in, throw down the agenda, they would submit a great number of documents the night before so no one had time to read them, they’d ask if anyone had any comments, and then the minutes would come out to say that the committee unanimously approved.

Many of the respondents suggested that they were senate presidents because they were recruited, coerced, and pleaded to take on the role, often because no one else would do it. The lack of institutional reward, recognition, and support for participation in governance “help to explain the widespread lack of interest in governance activities” (Gerber, 2014, p. 169). It would be noteworthy that the reward, recognition, and support structures are determined by administrative decisions.

As parallel to apathy, comments came which described a neoliberal, corporate environment, “Faculty get things pushed on them without explanation.” Another faculty said, “We are very businesslike. We are streamlining educational systems . . . all the austerity rules are coming into place. Very businesslike.” At an urban, nonunion institution a faculty member expressed, “There has been a fallout of engagement due to corporatization.” Another faculty lamented,

I’ve never heard them [administration] talk one time about the quality of our education. Ever. They talk about numbers of graduates, certificates, completers. Never the quality of education . . . When they look at our numbers, they’re like ‘why don’t you have more people passing your classes?’

Discussion

Nearly a third of all higher education faculty in the United States are community college faculty, teaching 43% of all undergraduate students (Levin & Kater, 2013). It is the spirit and intent of the practice of shared governance that in part frame their roles as professionals. Although earlier research on shared governance in the community college focused more on structural and functional models (Birnbaum, 1988; Kater, 2003; Miller & Miles, 2008), scholars are increasingly exploring the importance of sociocultural aspects of governance, but the research continues to focus primarily on university faculty. The current research focuses on community college faculty, suggesting a sociopolitical perspective of the concept of governance in a neoliberal environment.

Effects of globalization and economizing behaviors are shaping shared governance in the community college (Levin, 2001). Neoliberal philosophies, fueling increased corporatization and market-driven behaviors have accelerated the deprofessionalization of the faculty. The increase in adjunct faculty leaves fewer full-time faculty to engage in governance work, to participate in collegial activities, and to develop collective faculty agency. Because approximately 70% of faculty in community colleges are adjunct faculty, there are fewer full-time faculty who are teaching larger number of students while performing other institutional service work (e.g., committee work, advising, marketing programs) (Cohen et al., 2014; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2015). A more corporate environment may put upward pressure on the culture for accountability and efficiency, which impacts shared governance as a co-constructed, sociopolitical process. Corporate and higher education cultures may conflict creating challenges to the need for relationships built on trust and mutual respect that enhance institutional shared governance (Kezar, 2004). The focus of this research is narrowly constructed to understand how faculty conceptualization shared governance.

The context of shared governance in the community college presents unique considerations influenced by a number of factors which negatively impact the faculty role, including history (i.e., vestiges of community colleges’ development as extension of high schools), unionization, adjunctification of the faculty, and increasingly market-driven, corporate behaviors (Gerber, 2014; Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011) Foundational developments supporting faculty influence in institutional governance came from “highly regarded senior professors at the nation’s most prestigious institutions” which coalesced in the creation of the AAUP (Gerber, 2014, p. 6). Over time, the AAUP has endorsed involvement in institutional governance for more junior faculty, and more recently adjunct faculty (see Gerber, 2014, for a more detailed history). A consistent variable for credible participation in governance has been the professional role as researcher, which is an impediment for community college faculty.

Perhaps nothing has affected shared governance in the community college and indeed, all of higher education more than the deprofessionalization of the faculty with a key indicator the sizeable increase in the percentage of part-time faculty (Cohen et al., 2014; Gerber, 2014; Levin, 2013). The percentage of full-time faculty teaching in community colleges grew from just over 50% in the 1950s to what is now nearly 70% (Cohen et al., 2014; NCES, 2015).

The unionization of community college faculty is another factor influencing shared governance. Gerber (2014) reports, “In 2011, 60 percent of full-time faculty members at two-year institutions were represented by a union, so that approximately half of all unionized faculty members in the United States were at community colleges” (p. 135). Collective bargaining adds another (often adversarial) layer to governance and may inhibit institutional flexibility and responsiveness to issues. The presence of a bargaining unit may result in conflict “between the union and the senate, resulting in a relatively unsteady and sometimes inconsistent faculty voice in governance” (Garfield, 2008, p. 28). An inconsistent faculty voice in an increasing corporate environment hinders the development of trust in governance decisions.

Levi and Braithwaite (1998) ask, “It may be intuitively obvious that good governance requires trust, but is this in fact the case? Is the social trust that among individuals the cause or effect of good government?” (p. 1). Research is expanding our understanding of the significance of individual and cultural issues of relationships, trust, and leadership in enhancing effective governance (Birnbaum, 2004; Kezar, 2004; Tierney, 2006; Tierney & Lechuga, 2004). Tierney and Minor (2004) note that “studies of academic decision making frequently describe faculty governance in either-or terms: either an institution has an effective faculty senate or its system of faculty governance is a sham” (p. 88). Emerging research continues to suggest a more nuanced finding.

The current research supports findings (e.g., Birnbaum, 2004; Bowen & Tobin, 2015; Kezar & Maxey, 2015) which suggest that social and cultural aspects of “soft governance”—relationship building and trust—are important to faculty as they conceptualize shared governance. The findings also support the empirical movement toward more humanistic organizational theories and the significance of relationships to organizational effectiveness. Kezar (2004) posits that we are seeing “consultation as a proxy for relationships” (p. 40) and indeed consultation, or two-way communication and understanding that their voice was heard emerged in how faculty conceptualized shared governance. “Shared governance should be viewed not so much in ‘who owns what’ but as embracing a commitment to a genuine sharing of perspectives . . .” (Bowen & Tobin, 2015, p. 211). However, effective communication requires an environment where trust abides.

Shared Governance in a Neoliberal Environment

Neoliberal philosophies, fueling increased corporatization and market-driven behaviors in community colleges may have crowded out space for social activism and collegiality as well as the service role of governance leadership. “In recent years the greatest threat to the practice of shared governance has come from those administrators, governing board members, and public officials who seek to corporatize American higher education” (Gerber, 2014, p. 8). Corporate-style leadership and a focus on efficiency have resulted in increased workloads for faculty—more students, more outcomes assessment and mandated reporting, less time to completion for students, fewer full-time colleagues, and less administrative support—suggest that administration is disempowering faculty’s role in institutional governance. The latent result being apathy and a lack of sociopolitical role development by faculty. Community college faculty are connected by their disciplines but work in isolation (Levin, 2013). With neoliberal policies creating more production work for faculty, less time is available for the collegial work of faculty and for engaging in practices which would promote the social role development of the significance of faculty participation in governance. The findings support Tierney’s (2006) conclusion that “if faculty find their role is less, then presumably they will have fewer avenues to social capital and be less willing to participate in a process that they perceive no longer considers their voice as worthwhile” (p. 86).

Given the development and lifecycles of community college faculty—most with subdoctoral credentials which are discipline specific, many occupational in nature, hired for a specific teaching role—it is not clear where (or indeed if) the socialization to the service/professional role of faculty in shared governance happens. Deprofessionalization of the faculty, a market economy that encourages individualism and rewards, particularly for research faculty, diminishes collegial experiences, has resulted in some faculty who have “failed to identify with the broader purposes of education and the obligations and responsibilities of their profession” (Gerber, 2014, p. 166). And Gerber goes on to point out that “current graduate training too often fails to teach future faculty members about the importance of academic traditions such as shared governance and academic freedom” (p. 169). For indeed, if faculty are not socialized into understanding the conceptual underpinnings of the role of an academic professional (i.e., shared governance, academic freedom, peer review), (Clark, 1987; Gerber, 2014; Rhoades, 1998) then it is likely that the power structures will continue to favor administrative personnel who have more political capital. Community college faculty would benefit from enhanced political skills as “organizational actors need to adopt political skills to bring about change” (Hardy, 1996, p. 8).

Governance Co-Constructed (Trust and Social Capital)

Shared governance is a co-constructed, sociopolitical process. The internal, faculty and administrative roles in shared governance require relationships built on trust and mutual respect (Kezar, 2004). The literature on trust is extensive (see, for instance, Barber, 1983; Braithwaite & Levi, 1998; Dee, 2006; Gambetta, 1998; Hardin, 2002; Massey, 2003; Tierney, 2006). In the interviews, transparency and two-way communication were antecedents to trust. This finding is supported by research which suggests that “the credibility of a communicator or communication is strongly affected by the degree to which those experiencing the communication trust the motives of the communicator” (Tyler, 1998, p. 278). When faculty consider the importance of two-way communication in conceptualizing shared governance, they are building on the concept of trust as important to the end goal of effective governance.

Trust augments the development of social networks, which enhances social capital. Birnbaum (2004) posits that “faculty autonomy, loose-coupling, and the anarchical nature of academic institutions often means that colleges and universities are impoverished in terms of social capital” (p. 14). A lack of social capital negatively impacts conditions necessary for effective governance. Trends in research on authoritative relationships suggest “an alternate perspective, [from calculative or instrumental models] which has been labeled the ‘relational perspective on authority’” (Tyler, 1998, p. 281) where individuals’ identities in relation to authorities have trust as a basis.

The faculty I interviewed frequently spoke about the need for two-way communication, for trust, and at the same time shared concerns over apathy or indifference that they saw in themselves or colleagues regarding shared governance. Collaborative partnerships with administration in supporting student learning was a way faculty reconceptualized shared governance. Perhaps we are looking in the wrong places. As Birnbaum (2004) suggests, “It is the process of shared governance, and not its outcome, that helps to build the dense network of connections that create social capital” (p. 15). This is consistent with organizational research which suggests that “more rational analysis somehow means less politics—that there is a right answer out there, if only we knew where to find it. As many writers have pointed out however, what is considered to be ‘right,’ ‘rational,’ or ‘true,’ is socially constructed” (Hardy, 1996, p. 7). Maybe we are looking for a model, and instead should be more intentional in encouraging a collaborative process.

Woodworth and Meek (1995) have argued for increasing labor-management cooperative relationships for effectiveness in the global economy. A major assumption of labor-management behavior is that conflict is inherent and should be managed through an adversarial system. However, a historical look at U.S. labor relations indicates that there have been times where “waves of labor-management cooperation spread across the national economy” (Woodworth & Meek, 1995, p. 2). Movements to increase cooperative relationships within higher education should be bolstered by the fact that in public institutions, both labor and management are agents of the state and hence both parties may share the same “community of interest” (J. S. Levin, personal communication, April 12, 2002). However, the results also suggest that faculty lack the political capital which would support their effective participation in governance beyond typical classroom and curricular authority. “Administrators and faculty must mutually acknowledge that the conflict model has been played out, making essential a new partnership as a prelude to a strategic, shared vision” (Boris, 2013, p. 4).

Future Research

The study suggests the need for further research in understanding differences in how both faculty and administration conceptualize shared governance. Neoliberal policies and state, national, and global politics and economies impact administrative decision making (Kisker & Kater, 2013; Levin, 2001). More research is needed to understand how pressures related to globalization, corporatization, and external operational influences (i.e., accountability, accreditation oversight, gainful employment, disinvestment in higher education) affect shared governance in the community college (Hellmich, 2007; Levin, Kater, & Wagoner, 2011)

Further research could address some of the limitations of the current study. For example, though I interviewed faculty from union and nonunion institutions, this was not factored into the analysis, nor was urban versus rural, or full-time versus part-time. Faculty are not a homogenous group, and our understandings need to continue beyond the dichotomy of full-time or part-time. Levin, Haberler, Walker, and Jackson-Boothby (2014) note that “faculty at community colleges are not one homogeneous body but comprised of those with diverse interests and values and individuals and groups that manifest highly differentiated behaviors with ambiguous meanings” (p. 70).

To not address the impact of faculty unions at community colleges was a significant limitation of the study. Community college faculty remain the most unionized sector of higher education (Berry & Savarese, 2012; Gerber, 2014; Rhoades, 1998). An opportunity exists to expand our understandings of governance in a union environment. In public institutions, both unions and management are functioning as agents of the state, and more research is needed on how to successfully balance collective bargaining and inherent adversarial relations with labor-management collaboration (Woodworth & Meek, 1995). Rhoades (2015) and others have considered alternative models such as public interest bargaining, interest-based negotiation, and interest-based bargaining (Boris, 2013; Klingel, 2003; Kochan & Lipsky, 2003). We need to better understand how these collaborative models function given the ascendance of neoliberal ideology in the community college. Corporate models of governance may be counterproductive in building collaboration and trust because as professionals, faculty are educated and socialized to be autonomous and critical actors (Clark, 1987; Levin, 2001; Tierney, 2004).

Another limitation is that no attempt was made to understand the perceptions of faculty of the state of shared governance at their institutions. When the discussion began to turn to specifics of frustration over managerial behaviors, lack of governance, apprehension over the interview for fear of being identified, or other discourse related to their level of satisfaction with the governance of their institution, I steered the discussion back to their perception of what the concept of governance meant to them. An understanding of perception of shared governance (efficacy) in the community college would add to the literature.

The current study also suggests the need for further research on how shared governance is (or is not) sociopolitically constructed in community colleges. Townsend and Twombly (2007) recommend the need for better understandings of how faculty “are socialized into and learn the values, roles, and responsibilities of community college faculty members” (p. xi). We also know that “Current graduate training too often fails to teach future faculty members about the importance of academic traditions such as shared governance and academic freedom” (Gerber, 2014, p. 169). If faculty are not socialized into understanding the conceptual underpinnings of the role of an academic professional (shared governance, academic freedom, peer review), (Clark, 1987; Gerber, 2014; Rhoades, 1998) then it is likely that the power structures might continue to favor administrative personnel who may have more sociopolitical capital. An opportunity exists for further research to better understand how community college faculty are socialized into governance roles, if indeed they are.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Susan T. Kater is the Associate Vice Chancellor, Institutional Strategy, Research, & Effectiveness for the Maricopa Community Colleges and adjunct faculty at Northern Arizona University. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author.

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