Periodically we consult with universities abroad about issues of academic governance because together we bring scholarship on governance and experience in national and institutional policy to bear on questions about academic freedom, mission, and regulation. In the midst of this work, we sometimes are asked questions that require us to go back to the basic tenets of how higher education works. A colleague in Central Asia who is steering the creation of a university that hopes to become a world-class research institution recently asked us why any college president would want to share power with a board of trustees. Why would he or she give up the freedom of action enjoyed under a distant ministry of education, which, in some cases, offers presidents or rectors broad authority?
Office of Strategic Communication