Shared Governance at College of Marin

By James P. Geraghty

Shared governance is one of the most difficult concepts for people to grasp and or agree about. People pullout the regulations and debate the meaning and intent, or use it to support their position. There has been more than one time when a board member pulled out the regulations at a board meeting and began reciting word for word what AB 1725 stated or what our policy says on the subject.

Shared governance is one of the most difficult concepts for people to grasp and or agree about. People pull out the regulations and debate the meaning and intent, or use it to support their position. There has been more than one time when a board member pulled out the regulations at a board meeting and began reciting word for word what AB 1725 stated or what our policy says on the subject. Well, you can pull out those regulations and policy papers till the moon turns blue and you won't solve anything, you'll just perpetuate debate.

We wind up having debate after debate about the meaning of regulation and policy, and how they affect different constituent groups on campus. No one ever agrees. Those rules are subject to interpretation, and referring to them won't settle disputes, it will only further divide the very groups that need to work together. What we need to do with Shared Governance is respect the spirit in which it was developed and design our system to best serve the institution as a whole.

Basically, shared governance is nothing more than academia's response to real world modern management practices, with the intent of breaking down the barriers of antiquated decision making practices. The authors of AB1725 attempted to shift to a more horizontal decision making process, so talent and experience from all areas of an institution could be fully utilized. By eliminating the beaurocratic incompetent, draconian, medieval and hierarchical structure of old academia, the attempt was made to move community colleges into the future. Most of them went kicking and screaming into the new method of decision making.

The same shift in decision-making styles is well documented in the private sector. The top-heavy administrators at General Motors were making all the decisions without input from their line people and almost drove themselves into collaspe because they weren't meeting the needs of their customers and weren't organized for flexibility in the changing market. Their decision processes were revamped and they became more responsive to cutomer and division needs. It took them quite a while to recover from years of mismanagement and systems ingrained into their processes, but look at them now.

The same problem existed at Shell. They were losing market share throughout Europe and Asia, and no matter what the Top executives did to correct these problems they only continued their downward spiral. Sound familiar? As a last ditch effort, Shell brought in a consultant who told them they had a defective decision making process, and that the front line mangers couldn't meet the needs of the customers because of it.

The consultant organized "workout sessions" where top executives, the ones with authority, met with middle mangers to hear about their problems and their proposed solutions. After a few false starts, the top executives finally "got it." Shell soon started regaining market share and kept busy designing their internal process to meet the needs of their customers and the needs of their business divisions.

We need to get down to business and fix our decision-making process.

What benefits are derived from a good shared governance system? One of the main benefits is the ability to get everyone onboard when a decision is made. If the system is designed well it will: allow for wide input, communication will travel in all directions, different viewpoints will be respected, become student focused and come out with a better mousetrap in the end.

Another benefit is that people will be invested in the institutional vision and the institutional decisions, so when we're ready to revitalize IVC or go out for a bond measure we'll work as a team to achieve our goals.

People enjoy and look forward to getting involved at College of Marin. I consistently see our community working together for a common goal when they are given the opportunity and charge.

Let's give ourselves a chance, and honor the spirit of shared governance.