Speaking with One Voice with Jill Derby

Right now in the time we live in there's enormous scrutiny going on of higher education and the Boards that govern the colleges and universities. And one of the ones that probably concerns me the most is the issue of Boards speaking with one voice. Trustees don't always realize the damage it can do for there to be a public perception that the Board is divisive, the Board's in disarray, they're not agreeing and it's contentious. And the reason is this, and this is a very simple, but important point to make, and that is that the reputation of a college or university is absolutely vital to that institution. And Boards in the way they occur in the public, the public perception of Boards as leadership in universities and colleges really are the face of the institution, along with the President. But if that face of the institution seems to be contentious, in disarray, divisive, it really gives a very bad public perception. And again reputation is so critical to these institutions at a time where they public spotlight is very much on them and at a time where there's competition for students. They want to always occur in their best possible light. One of the things about trusteeship is that trustees are really guardians of the reputation of the university. They're guardians, really they hold the really, the keys to the future. That's what fiduciary responsibility is all about. And if they occur in a negative way it can hurt the reputation of the university. So what I want to say is reputation matters and for Boards to air their dissention outside of the university is not constructive. There have been recently a lot of high profile governance failures where we saw that. But I could look back to one that I encountered and know of personally and that is the case of presidential search happening for a university. At the end of the search process the search committee recommended a particular candidate that had the full support of the university communities and that the Board then had a divided vote to approve. And the majority of approved the recommendation of the search committee and that President was appointed. But those trustees that were on the Board that hadn't supported that President who had supported another candidate who they had gotten to know in the search process, then proceeded to make their dissent public. And it really hurt that President's new tenure coming on board, you know, that's an important time when a new President comes on board with a university that that all go well and smoothly. It's an important transition and the fact that dissenting members spoke publicly about their dissent was just not constructive. Now the good news is that President went onto serve with great distinction for more than 11 years at that university. And it was one of the most successful Presidencies that university has known, that President raised more money than had ever been raised before and made an enormous difference at the university. But it was troubling that whole first year that there was this shadow over trustees that were dissenting. And one of the hard things for, let me add this, one of the hard things for trustees can be to feel passionately about a particular issue and to lose the vote on the Board in support of it. It's always tough. That's human for us to feel strongly as trustees or as regents about a particular policy issue and then to lose a vote. But it's so important for trustees to all rally behind and support the vote and the position that the Board has taken as a whole. It just serves no good purpose for dissenting trustees to make their dissent known. Now that's not to say that spirited discussion and vetting policy issues isn't critical because it is. But it really needs to happen in the Boardroom and more specifically it really should happen in the committees, that's what Board committees are there for.