دانلود رایگان مقاله بررسی اصلاحات حکومتی اخیر پن استیت

Abstract

By 2017, higher education is expected to be a $2 trillion industry worldwide. Within this huge economic engine, the boards of trustees that provide governance to universities and colleges face a complex challenge in that they must serve a variety of stakeholders. Without effective governance, an academic institution’s performance is likely to suffer. Penn State University is plagued by an ineffective board of trustees. As a complement to past work that has documented this board’s unwise and costly decisions, we examine how five design issues–—board size, board composition, fiduciary responsibility, term limits, and transparency–—helped create a culture in which poor choices were more likely to occur. We discuss why the board’s recent self-imposed reforms are inadequate. We then offer more substantive reforms that could fix the Penn State board’s flaws. In particular, we recommend that academic boardsshould be (1) small enough to allow full participation of all members, (2) composed such that no one stakeholder group can dominate decision making, (3) designed to eliminate actual and perceived conflicts of interest, (4) governed by term limits, and (5) appropriately transparent in their strategic decision making and communications. We leverage these principles to propose a reduction of the Penn State board from 30 voting members to 19. More broadly, other academic boards might benefit from undergoing a self-analysis based on the Penn State case.

3. Final thoughts

The first line of Penn State’s school song is: ‘‘For the glory of old State.’’ Unfortunately, the last few years for Penn State have been filled with anything but glory. Despite the poor performance of the university’s board oftrustees, however, Penn State’s faculty and students have continued to excel at research, teaching, and learning. And therein lies reason for hope. If meaningful governance reforms are enacted, and Penn State’s board begins to operate collaboratively, the glory of old State can be restored. More generally, the Penn State story offers a cautionary tale to other university boards. We recommend that university boards carefully examine and, where needed, adjust their approach to board size, board composition, fiduciary responsibility, term limits, and transparency.