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Governing boards and federal interference
American higher education is special because its governance is special. While most other countries have education ministries to oversee their universities, in the United States, ultimate control rests in the hands of lay trustees. It is this governance structure that has rightly been credited with producing a system of higher education that The Economist calls the best in the world.
That's also why some proposed accreditation standards under consideration by a federally empowered accrediting body should give us real pause. As is so often the case, the matter involves a facially winsome goal -- protecting valuable museum assets. But, examined more closely, it opens the door for troubling bureaucratic interference that should make trustees think twice.
So far, the case amounts only to a request by the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries that colleges and universities pledge protection of museum assets for accreditation. At first blush, how could one object? But the more appropriate question is why -- and whether -- federal accreditors who are reviewing the standard should have a right to dictate, or trammel board actions. Sure, boards should have the right to pledge voluntarily to all sorts of things, and they must, of course, at all times obey the law. But if federal accreditors impose a standard on governing boards, it then becomes a veritable mandate since accreditation is a gatekeeper of massive federal funds. Should federal accreditors have the right to interfere with institutional autonomy in this way?
It is rather ironic that the higher ed sector which has, in the past, vigorously opposed efforts by accreditors to measure learning outcomes as unduly intrusive, appears far less concerned about clear interference in matters of governance. What is not acknowledged is the fact that federal accreditors, who tend to be university administrators and faculty members, are often parties whose interests may conflict with that of trustees who, at the end of the day, are expected to safeguard the public interest with their best judgment.
Accreditation was designed to protect the public interest by ensuring federal dollars go only to institutions of educational quality. There is absolutely no indication that Congress ever intended the system to supersede or trammel the authority of governing boards controlled by state statute, charter, and in some states, voters who directly elect trustees.
Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Trustees -- beware!
Posted by Anne D. Neal on July 12, 2010 at July 12, 2010 04:24 PM
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