Inside the Politics of Academic Transformation

Transforming a university is never easy, but Gee argues it’s more necessary than ever. The former President of West Virginia, Ohio State, Vanderbilt, and Brown University examines the intricate politics of shared governance, the tension between tradition and innovation, and the courage required to lead through resistance. Gee explains how successful change requires both internal strategy and external alignment - with faculty, boards, legislators, and communities.

Changing universities is like moving a graveyard. It's really, very difficult. But yet, I think, not only is it necessary, but it's critical and leadership in that regard can only come from the president.

You have to be very [ready], you have to explain, you have to talk, you have to listen. And, you know, so many of our institutions engage in what we call affectionately shared governance. The problem of shared governance is the fact that it in many ways is a speedbump to getting things right and getting things well because we talk ourselves into oblivion.

But I've always felt that, as university president, I'm really an architect, for change. And I'd rather be an architect for change rather than be victimized by not doing something. So I think that, what we need to be doing, is that we need to make sure that university leaders are given that kind of cup of courage and more importantly, that they get the kind of support that they need to have.

I've talked about the fact that unless you have a committed administration with you, unless they see the world the same way you do, you need to have, if you're a public university, you need to make sure you have a good board of governors who understands what you're doing. You need to have the legislature not sniping at you.

So you need to have an internal strategy for change because it's critical, but you need to have an external strategy to allow change to take place. And that is where so many of these change processes have failed. But on the other hand, I always point out that, at the end of the day, I feel good about a lot of the changes I've made because many people still have jobs right now.

So many institutions have failed to recognize where they are, and all of a sudden they're having to just to meet their structural deficit survivor. They're losing a lot of people if they don't need to do that. If they would have thought about the change process and implemented it in a very aggressive but positive way.

I think that the role of faculty and faculty leadership is that they need to have the vision that they need to lead change. And that is the reason I talked about shared responsibility. Right now, the change is coming from the administration and the victimization that is taking place at least is found among the faculty.

What we need to do is we need to have leaders with a shared vision, shared governance, shared vision, shared responsibility. And that's the kind of leaders that we need to have.

Unfortunately. And I think that, we all know this… unfortunately, so many people who are in [the] faculty senate, etcetera are there because of the fact that they have particular views, many of which are about things that they don't like about the institution.

Faculty have an incredibly important role to play, but they need to be constructive in that role rather than, very narrow minded. It's about us. No, it's about the students. It’s about the institution. It's about the state we serve. It's about the people that count on the institution. We need to be very reflective and look outward as faculty members.