ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 examines the historical role of US colleges and universities, including consideration of the economic, social, and democratic purposes of higher education. Analysis includes the important partnership between faculty and college presidents that gave birth to the notions of shared governance and the faculty-administrator. The discussion includes consideration of the longstanding tradition of colleges and universities being operated using business principles, and also of the growing and sometimes-contradictory circumstances of their partnerships with corporate entities. The study examines how the market ideology of neoliberalism has impacted these institutions, leading to the decline of the role of the faculty-administrator, the imposed prominence of the professional administrator, and thus to the precipitous decline of shared governance. Analysis will examine the past and present state of university governance structures, taking into account faculty involvement in academic and institutional decisions as well as the dominant impact the new managerialism in higher education has had on such governance structures.
