College and University Governance

Most discussions of the AAUP's origins and subsequent history focus on the Association's role in defending principles of academic freedom and tenure. From shortly after its beginning a century ago, however, the AAUP has also played a crucial role in advancing the principle that faculty members, by virtue of their professional expertise in scholarship and teaching, ought to be centrally involved in college and university governance. The AAUP's efforts to formulate and implement the principles of what has come to be called "shared governance" have included the issuance of policy statements, formal investigations of institutions where available evidence has indicated major violations of AAUP-recommended governance norms, occasional surveys of colleges and universities to determine the state of actual governance practices in American higher education, sponsorship of conferences and training workshops focusing on the issues of governance, and individual casework by national staff members.