ABSTRACT
Though American institutions of higher learning vary greatly in terms of their size, complexity, and histories, any college or university professor can utter the phrase “faculty culture” to any another college or university professor, and know that the phrase will be understood. The specifics may differ, but there exists an overarching set of norms – norms of faculty autonomy and solidarity, for example – that are recognizable across the spectrum of institutions. Among those norms is the expectation that faculty play a significant role in governing their institution. Sometimes called “faculty governance,” sometimes “co-governance,” the expectation is that faculty wield influence not only in their courses but in how institutional decisions are made. 1 In any particular institution the culture of co-governance may be thick, its rules robust and considered inviolate or it may be thin, its rules deemed flimsy and processes more “governance theater” than reality, but the cultural expectations are at work in either case. Though faculty will often poke fun at their own culture (“we seem to delight in endless meetings”) and at times find the practices of co-governance to be a source of deep frustration, the processes are upheld by a principled belief that productive outcomes emerge through deliberation, real decision-making authority, and collaboration. And despite the rules of co-governance being a favorite target of ridicule, faculty will be the first to cry foul if those principles and practices are usurped.
