The Seizing Initiative for Quality Education

The trustees of colleges and universities are charged not only with keeping their institution solvent, choosing its leaders, and defending it from intrusive outside forces, but are also supposed to convey to the faculty and administration the legitimate needs and concerns of important constituencies, such as students, alumni, and the public at large. Unfortunately, the latter responsibility has been somewhat neglected in favor of the former--in particular, most boards have done very little to represent the learning needs of society or to ensure that faculties achieve the highest attainable quality of education. While there are some legitimate fears about the potential results of greater trustee involvement in an institution's educational functions, a lack of board oversight can create an environment in which flawed pedagogy thrives. To avoid this situation, boards should take steps to ensure that they are well informed regarding how teaching performance is measured at their institutions and how this information is used once it is collected. This type of involvement on the board's part encourages administrators to seek change, rather than succumb to inertia.