Governing Boards in Canadian Universities

Glen A. Jones and Michael L. Skolnik

Tables

Introduction

University governing boards occupy a central place in the governance of higher education systems. Situated at the interface between academe and society at large, they provide a means for the external society to exert some influence over the university but in a way that respects the peculiar conventions, norms, and values of the academy. In jurisdictions such as Canada and the United States, where universities enjoy considerable autonomy from direct government oversight of and intervention into their affairs, the institutional governing board may play a crucial role in fostering public confidence in the operation of universities. Yet in spite of the central role that boards play in American higher education, Kerr and Gade (1989) reported that they could find "little useful literature" (p. 2) on such bodies, and this observation would apply even more strongly to boards of Canadian universities.

In an effort to address some of the gaps in our present knowledge about the nature and working of governing boards of Canadian universities, we [End Page 277] undertook a national survey of boards and board members of Canadian universities in 1994-1995. In this paper, the first report from our study, we present some of the highlights from the survey.

The paper is organized into six sections. We begin by establishing the context for the study and by briefly reviewing a number of the themes which underscored our interest in this research project. We then describe the survey objectives, procedures, response rates, and limitations. The following sections present findings about the characteristics of boards and board members, the work of board members, the role of boards and board members, and major differences between university governing boards in Canada and the United States.

Context

The first universities within the territory that was to become Canada emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These early publicly supported institutions were governed by "government boards," largely composed of members of the colonial legislature. Over time, questions began to emerge about the appropriate relationship between the public university and the state and the appropriate structures for institutional self-government. In Ontario, accusations that the government was using the University of Toronto as a forum for petty patronage, coupled with a lack of clarity regarding the formal relationships between elected officials and institutional leaders, led to the creation in 1906 of a Royal Commission, commonly referred to as the Flavelle Commission.

Its members visited numerous American institutions and familiarized themselves with governance arrangements in Great Britain. In their influential report, they argued that the affairs of the university should be divorced from the direct control of the provincial government and that provincial interests should be delegated to a governing board dominated by government-appointed lay members. At the same time, they argued that the University of Toronto Senate should be retained and that the governance structure of the institution should involve a formal division of authority between the board, with responsibility for administrative and financial matters, and the senate, with responsibility for academic matters. While other Canadian universities had already experimented with bicameral governance structures, the Flavelle Commission report clearly articulated the rationale for this approach; and after the new University of Toronto Act was speedily approved by the provincial legislature, this governance structure was immediately adopted in Western Canada and gradually became the dominant governance model within Canadian higher education (Cameron, 1991; Jones, 1996). [End Page 278]

The original development of bicameral governance structures can thus be viewed as a response to demands for external accountability within the context of reaffirming the importance of institutional autonomy. In contrast, the major reforms of Canadian university governance that took place in the 1960s can be viewed as an attempt to provide for greater internal accountability. Faculty and students demanded greater participation on university governing bodies and a more open, "transparent" governance process. National organizations representing universities and university teachers initiated a review of university governance; and the final report of this review team, composed of Sir James Duff and Robert O. Berdahl, was released in 1966.

Duff and Berdahl argued that greater democratization, including increased participation by faculty on governing boards and student participation on university senates, could be accomplished within the framework of bicameralism, a principle that underscored many of the reforms that followed. Between 1960 and the early 1970s, almost every Canadian university reviewed its governance structure, many going beyond the recommendations of the Duff-Berdahl Report to include representation from faculty, students, and other internal constituencies on governing boards. Since the composition, method of appointment of members, and powers and responsibilities of Canadian university governing boards are stipulated in acts of provincial legislatures, which are effectively the chartering documents for these universities, almost all of these reforms required modifications to university acts, usually a separate piece of legislation for each institution, by provincial legislatures.

Since the reform of university governance involved changes to the composition of governing boards, tracking this development was one of the main preoccupations in published literature on university governance in the 1960s and 1970s. Cameron (1991) cites studies which show that the proportion of boards which had faculty members increased from 9% in 1955, to 32% in 1965, and to 92% in 1975. The corresponding figures for student members were 0%, 47%, and 78% (p. 314). On average, faculty and students together comprised 2% of total membership in 1955, compared to 20% in 1975 (p. 315). In our survey, we attempted to update and broaden existing information on the characteristics of boards and board members.

Our study represented an attempt to address a number of contemporary concerns related to university governance in Canada. A major focus of attention in our survey was the role of boards and board members. This interest is related to some of the key themes in higher education policy discussions: concerns about institutional performance; reconciling autonomy and accountability; and the tension between constituency and community. It is not yet clear just where institutional governing boards fit in the [End Page 279] accountability movement which is sweeping North America. Insofar as this movement reflects a real and widespread concern among the lay public about the performance of universities, then a body which includes so many from the lay public and which is formally situated at the top of the organizational pyramid seems to be an obvious candidate to receive a major assignment about accountability. Arguing along these lines, a task force which was established to advise the provincial government of Ontario on how to enhance accountability for universities recommended in 1993 that institutional governing boards be given the major responsibility for ensuring public accountability (Task Force, 1993). Cameron (1992a) also emphasizes the need for boards to play a major role in program and personnel evaluation. He further argues that the combination of institutional autonomy and academic self-government has left higher education rudderless and that boards should fill this vacuum and take initiative in providing institutional leadership, particularly in making difficult choices among programs.

On the other hand, some may feel that boards are too close to the institutions which they oversee to be trusted with these responsibilities or that an oversight role may not combine well with the boards' developmental and advocacy roles. Engel and Achola (1983) observed that the shared authority model can become so bogged down in bureaucratization and routinization that lay trustees may "lose sight of their role as public or constituent spokesperson" (p. 61). Engel and Achola noted that, while there is much prescription, there is a paucity of empirical study of how boards deal with these issues. Hatton (1991) reported on one aspect of the accountability issue based on interviews with a sample of members of governing boards of Ontario universities who had also served on boards of directors in the profit sector. They confided that, while asking "tough, demanding, or potentially embarrassing" questions of management at board meetings is not common in the private sector, it is common in some universities and not in others. It was not common in universities with self-renovating boards but was more common in boards where many appointments were made from specific constituency groups (p. 27). However, little is known more generally about the extent to which boards attempt to play an accountability role and how they feel about that role; consequently, we sought members' perceptions on these matters.

Another development which both motivated and guided the shape of our study is the continued movement toward constituency representation. This is a general trend in North American society which is manifested in, among other forums, governing boards of colleges and universities. In our own province, the government recently published guidelines for broadening and making more explicit the constituency identification of board members (Allen, 1992). In a recent review essay on governing boards and trustees, Floyd (1995) begins her list of future directions for research with the observation [End Page 280] that "further attention should be given to the conflicts between guarding broad and specific interests--the concept of guardianship and the concept of constituency representation" (p. 104). Certain of the items in our questionnaire were designed to obtain data on whether these conflicts exist in Canada.

Research Methods

The study involved two components. In August of 1994, we sent a questionnaire to the secretary of the governing board of every provincially supported Canadian university. We used Cameron's (1992b) list of institutions as a base, updated it to include new institutions in British Columbia and Ontario, and excluded federally supported (military) institutions and private universities. In all, we sent the questionnaire to 59 institutions. The secretary questionnaire focused on the composition, structure, policies, and orientation practices of university governing boards. We also asked board secretaries to provide us with mailing addresses for all board members. A total of 45 institutions responded to the first component of the study for a response rate of 76%.

The second component of the study focused on obtaining information from individual board members. The board member questionnaire included a demographic component as well as questions on the role of individual board members and the role of governing boards. In February 1995, this second questionnaire went to every board member of the 45 institutions participating in the study. Almost all secretaries provided us with a complete list of board members, but several indicated that board policies prevented the release of members names. In these situations, we gave board secretaries sealed questionnaire packages for distribution to all board members. The study's first component had identified 1,212 board members; but board membership vacancies, recent resignations, and incomplete or inadequate address information adjusted this number to 1,191. We received 583 responses for a response rate of 49%.

While there was a high rate of response to both components of the study, several limitations of these data and of our analyses in this paper should be noted. Over three-quarters of provincially supported Canadian universities participated in the study; still there are considerable variations in the structure and composition of governing boards by institution and we have no way of knowing whether the data provided by board secretaries in the first component of the study is also representative of institutions that did not participate. This limitation is especially true regarding Saskatchewan, neither of whose two universities participated. As for limitations associated with the board member data, there were large variations in the rate of response by institution (from 27% to 68%). In this paper we have limited our [End Page 281] analysis of both components of the study to university governance in Canada from a national perspective.

Characteristics of Boards and Board Members

The governance structure of most Canadian universities can be described as bicameral in that the corporate charter delegates authority over institutional decision making to two legislative bodies: (a) a governing board which usually appoints the president and is responsible for the administrative and financial elements of the university, and (b) an academic senate with responsibility (in some cases of a purely advisory nature but often with specific duties assigned under the charter) for academic matters. Of the 45 universities participating in this study, 39 described their governance structure as bicameral. Five indicated that they have a unicameral governance structure with a single governing body responsible for both administrative and academic matters. ¹

Most Canadian universities have their own unique charter and were incorporated at different times; not surprisingly, there is considerable diversity in the precise composition and methods of appointment of boards. Overall, the three most common ways of being selected to a board, each accounting for about a quarter of the total nationwide, are: (a) appointment by the provincial government, (b) appointment by the board itself, and (b) election by a constituency. The remaining quarter consists of members who are ex-officio (11%), appointed by the academic senate (5%), or appointed by some other organization such as an alumni association (8%).

As shown in Table 1, the largest category of board members is lay members, with faculty, students, and alumni being the next largest categories. Besides lay members, the university president and students are the only categories common to all boards, although faculty and alumni also serve on a very large majority of boards. About a third of board members are "insiders." ²

About three-quarters of the boards reported that they provide an orientation program or workshop for new board members. Only two universities [End Page 282] reported that they provide honoraria to members; one pays only its student members ($75 per meeting). The average number of board meetings per year is eight. The fewest is two, at a small institution where apparently most work is done at the committee level. The most is 21, in the central board of the University of Quebec, the only broad multi-campus university in Canada (not counting those with a few satellite campuses in their own locale). Two-thirds of the boards reported that their meetings are open to the public though certain items of business are conducted in closed sessions. In one case, all meetings are open to the public. In the remaining universities, no meetings are public.

Only 4% of members are 25 years old or younger, all of them insiders and therefore probably students. Two-thirds are between 46 and 65, and 7% are over 65. The five-year age group with the greatest percentage of members is 51-55, which accounts for almost a quarter of members. The gender breakdown is 64% male, 36% female, with virtually no difference between inside and outside members. Over 90% of board members have at least a baccalaureate or professional degree, and almost all of the remainder have some postsecondary education. Just under a quarter list a doctorate as their highest degree and slightly over a quarter list a master's degree. There was almost no difference in the proportions of inside and outside members who have at least a baccalaureate or professional degree. However a much [End Page 283] higher percentage of inside members (53%) than outside members (10%) had a doctorate, but 31% of outside members indicated a master's degree as their highest level of education, compared to 20% for inside members. Not only are board members highly educated, but the majority (59%) have been students at the university on whose boards they currently serve. A higher proportion of outside (64%) than of inside members (49%) have been students at the same institution. Ten per cent have been a member of the board of another university.

The distribution of membership by occupational sector ³ is: business, mainly executives, 26%; education, mainly faculty, administration, and students, 37%; professions, of which law, accounting, and medicine are most prevalent, 13%; retired, 11%; and "other," of which nonprofit enterprise and government constitute the largest subcategories, 11%. Naturally there are substantial differences in occupation between inside and outside members. All the members in the business and retired categories are from outside. Not surprisingly, a large majority of those in the education category are from inside, although nearly a fifth are from outside, including faculty and administrators from other postsecondary institutions and a number of individuals employed in the elementary and secondary school sector.

The Work of Board Members

We asked respondents several questions related to their work as board members. When asked if they were "active" members, the great majority agreed strongly (56%) or moderately (30%), the two highest response categories on a five-point scale. There were slight differences in these responses between inside and outside members. About 4% of outside members, but no inside members, disagreed strongly with the statement that they were active members, and about 7% more of inside (60%) than of outside members (53%) agreed strongly with the statement.

Board members were asked how many hours per month they spend preparing for and attending meetings of the board and board committees. The mean number of hours per month worked by board members was 10.3, with 20% working fewer than five hours and just over 20% working 15 or more hours. Just over 10% worked 20 hours or more. Mean hours were slightly higher for outside members (10.5) than for inside members (9.9). A slightly higher proportion of outside than inside members worked under five hours or over 15 hours. There was a clear tendency for members who described themselves as active to indicate more hours worked. Among those [End Page 284] who agreed strongly with the statement that they were active members, the mean hours worked were 12.2 per month, compared to 8.2 for those who agreed moderately and 6.6 for those who disagreed strongly.

Using the same five-point scale from "disagree strongly" to "agree strongly," a majority (65%) agreed moderately or strongly that they were able to "influence" board decisions, with 26% of outside members as opposed to 19% of inside members agreeing strongly. About three-quarters of members agreed that they receive the information that they need to make decisions. A moderately higher proportion of outside than inside members agreed, perhaps because inside members are more demanding of information. In fact, about 21% of outside members indicated that they received "too much" information, compared to 9% of inside members. On the other hand, almost 80% of inside members agreed strongly with the statement that they "know the organizational structure of the university," twice the proportion for outside members (40%).

Comparisons between Canada and the United States

Most of the comparable data from the United States is from 1985 and 1986 surveys by the Association of Governing Boards (Association of Governing Boards, 1986; Association of Governing Boards, 1988), although Ingram (1993) provides some data for 1991. In contrast, as noted earlier, our survey was conducted in 1995. In addition, the Association of Governing Board (AGB) data is from a survey of universities, while our data comes from both a survey of universities and from a survey of individual board members. ⁴ Since almost all degree-granting institutions in Canada (and all those in our survey) are public, ⁵ our comparisons focus on public universities in the United States--four-year institutions where possible. We found seven major differences and similarities.

1. The multicampus board dominates the public university sector in the United States, but it is a rarity in Canada. Close to 70% of students in the United States attend public colleges and universities with multicampus systems that do not have their own local governing boards (Ingram, 1993, p. 7). There is only one multicampus system in Canada, the University of Quebec, and it accounts for 24% of full-time enrolment and 43% of part-time enrolment in Quebec universities (Statistics Canada, 1994).

2. A large majority of board members in four-year public universities in the United States are appointed by the government, specifically, 77% by the [End Page 285] governor with legislative approval (AGB, 1988, p. 4). In Canada fewer than a quarter are appointed by the government, normally by the provincial cabinet minister responsible for universities under the authority of the lieutenant-governor-in-council. Corresponding to the other major methods of selection of board members in Canada, about a quarter each for appointment or election by constituent groups and self-perpetuation by the board, in the United States only 9% are selected by a constituent group and only 2% by self-perpetuation.

3. Faculty and students comprise more than a quarter of the board members of Canadian universities; about one-third of members are from inside the university. By contrast, faculty and students account for less than 3% of U.S. board members (AGB, 1986, p. 11). AGB reports do not show any breakdowns of membership characteristics between inside and outside members.

4. More women (36%) serve on boards in Canada than in the United States (26%) in 1991 (Ingram, 1993, p. 386).

5. The age distribution of outside members of Canadian boards is comparable to that of members of U.S. boards: approximately a third under 50, a third in their 50s, and a third over 60. However, for Canadian boards as whole, the age distribution is more skewed toward the younger categories, reflecting the ages of inside members.

6. The proportions of board members who have at least a baccalaureate degree are about the same in both countries, though a higher proportion of outside members of Canadian boards (41%) have a postgraduate degree than board members in the United States (25%).

7. Boards in the United States have a much smaller proportion of members from the education sector (10%) than in Canada (37%), and correspondingly higher proportions from business (36%) and professions (23%), compared to Canada (26% for business, 13% for professions). However, when we focus on just the outside members of Canadian boards, many of these differences disappear. The proportions of outside members from education (10%) and business (39%) are virtually identical to U.S. figures. The main differences are that outside members on Canadian boards include a higher proportion of retired members (17% to 12%) and a smaller proportion in the "other" category (15% vs. 19%). Two groups within the "other" category, homemakers and farmers/ranchers, comprise over 10% of the total membership of U.S. public university boards but less than 2% of outside members of Canadian boards.

Roles of Boards and Board Members

One of the ways in which we tried to address the subject of board and board member roles was through a series of paired items with which respondents [End Page 286] were asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement. One item of each pair involved a statement about how respondents felt boards should behave, and the other asked for perceptions of how the board actually behaves on the same matter. The full distribution of responses on the five-point scale is shown in aggregate in Table 2, and the totals for the two highest response categories ("strongly agree" and "moderately agree") are shown for internal and external members in Table 3.

Table 2 shows that the statements with which the highest proportions agreed strongly were the normative statements about the board's role in monitoring performance. More than 70% agreed strongly that the board should ask "tough questions" of senior administration and periodically review the performance of the president and the board. However, in all three areas there was a wide discrepancy between what respondents felt should happen and what they perceived to be happening. The greatest discrepancy was members' perceptions that the board should, but failed to, review its own performance. The next largest discrepancy between the desired and observed behavior was the board's role in lobbying for change in government policy, something a majority felt that boards should do but which fewer than a fifth of respondents agreed strongly that boards actually did. In contrast, there was almost no discrepancy between how the board should relate to academic and administrative matters and how it actually performed.

Table 3 shows that where the discrepancies between the paired statements are substantial, the discrepancies are greater for internal than for external members. This would suggest that internal members are more critical (or less forgiving) of board behaviour than are external members. The two sets of items for which the difference in these discrepancies between the internal and external members are greatest are those about asking tough questions of senior administration and lobbying for change in government policy. Internal members seem to be less deferential of authority in both areas. An area where internal and external members seem to share almost equally in their disappointments is in the perceived failure to review the board's performance. Perhaps the two groups could be regarded as equally responsible for perceived shortcomings in this respect. Table 3 suggests also that there tends to be closer agreement between internal and external members about how boards should behave than about how boards do behave. The exceptions to this generalization pertain to the board role in academic matters, where a slightly higher proportion of external than of internal members believe that the board should exert influence, but the two groups agree on what the board actually does.

While in aggregate there is little difference of opinion between internal and external members about how much influence boards exert over academic matters, there are substantial differences between members of bicameral and unicameral boards about this issue, as shown in Table 4. [End Page 287] [Begin Page 290] Three-fifths of bicameral board respondents agreed strongly that the board confines itself to financial and administrative matters and does not make decisions on academic matters, while about a third of unicameral board members felt the same. On all four of the items in Table 4 which deal with the board's role in academic matters, differences emerge between respondents from bicameral and unicameral boards, following predictable differences in the formal responsibilities of the two types of boards. On the other four items which pertain to more general oversight responsibilities of boards, there are virtually no differences between responses from the two types of boards.

Perceptions of the role of the individual board member, as shown in Table 5, reveal a strong consensus that the member's role is to make decisions that are in the best interest of the university as a whole. Perhaps the surprising part of this response is the 5 or 6% who don't agree with the statement. However, some question might arise as to how the 41% of internal and 22% of external members who believe that their role is to represent the interests of a specific constituency reconcile these two role statements. The difference in percentages of members of the two groups who feel that they have a role in constituency representation is perhaps not surprising when one considers that most of the internal members are selected by constituencies, while a similar situation exists for only a minority of external members.

Though other differences in Table 5 are modest, it is of interest that external members are more sensitive than internal members to the conflict that internal members might experience between constituency and university interests; and internal members are more sensitive to the analogous conflicts that external members might experience. Of course, in either case there is no way of telling if one group is exaggerating the conflicts which they feel others might face, or underplaying their own conflicts. Those who are critical of the idea of placing so much authority for public institutions in the hands of the boards might point to the stronger agreement about a board's role in serving the interests of the university (over 90%) than about its role in serving the interests of society (just over 70%). However, the fact that only about half of the respondents felt that normally it was clear what course of action was best anyway suggests caution in making interpretations as to whose interests board members feel they are serving.

Concluding Observations

Bicameralism has been the dominant model for university governance in Canada since the early 1900s. Most Canadian universities continue to have a bicameral governance structure with both a governing board and an academic senate, though roughly 10% of institutions in our study reported [End Page 290] the existence of a single governing board with responsibility for both academic and administrative matters. Given these different structural arrangements, it is not surprising to learn that members of bicameral boards appear to be somewhat more reluctant to become involved in academic decision making than their peers at unicameral institutions. Aside from this difference, however, board members from both types of structures have remarkably similar characteristics and attitudes. In particular, the data suggest that unicameral boards perform an oversight role to about the same extent as do bicameral boards. [End Page 291]

The composition of Canadian university boards includes representation from constituent groups within the university (especially faculty and students) and representatives of the broader society as appointed by government, the board itself, alumni, and, in some cases, specific interest groups. While the representation of internal estates on governing boards can be traced back to the democratization movement of the 1960s, it is interesting that a greater number of universities included faculty and student representatives in 1995 than in 1975, suggesting that the changes in board composition which began around the time of the Duff-Berdahl Report in the mid-1960s have continued to the present, albeit more slowly. Whether the current composition of boards represents an appropriate balance is impossible to determine, but it is clear that Canadian universities have placed a high value on attempting to ensure that both internal and external interests are taken into consideration.

The existence of this large internal cadre is the factor that most differentiates [End Page 292] Canadian boards from their American counterparts. While there have been concerns about the potential effects of having so many insiders on university boards, this study revealed only limited differences between the two groups. Both internal and external members appear to share similar perceptions about the role that governing boards should play, though internal board members seem somewhat more critical, believing to a greater extent that the board is not achieving the ideal level of involvement. Both groups agree that the role of the board member is to make decisions that are in the best interests of the university as a whole, though internal members also have a stronger tendency to view at least part of their role as representing the interests of a specific constituency.

One might argue that the conflict between guardianship and constituency representation to which Floyd (1995) drew attention is manifested mainly in sporadic incidents rather than as a continuous phenomenon. While our survey data provide broad structural and attitudinal data bearing on this issue, institutional case studies would be necessary to provide further illumination.

The data from our study suggest that the majority of board members believe that they influence board decisions and that they have the information necessary to make decisions. These findings thus contradict a not-uncommon observation that boards are fundamentally weak or impotent. In fact, most board members describe themselves as active contributors, individuals who know the organizational structure of the institution and who volunteer, on average, over ten hours a month of their time to further the interests of the institution. Rather than confirming any sort of fundamental weakness, our findings suggest that board members are relatively satisfied with the current performance of these bodies but would like to improve boards' evaluations of their own performance and their effectiveness in lobbying government. These conclusions do not necessarily mean that boards are functioning well; it could well be that board members are not the most objective observers, and we have not collected data that would allow us to comment on the quality of decisions that boards make. We have, however, contributed to a shift in research in the study of university boards from a narrow focus on board composition to a broader range of issues related to the role of boards and board members. Given the central place of university governing boards in the governance of higher education systems and the increasing complexity of the issues and problems that these systems face, it is important to learn more about the capacities, limitations, and possible ways of improving these important decision-making bodies.

Glen A. Jones is Associate Professor and Michael L. Skolnik is Professor in the Higher Education Group, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. The authors are grateful for the financial support provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, November 1995, Orlando, Florida. The authors also appreciatively acknowledge the assistance provided by Saeed Abrahim, John G. Dimond, Tony DiPetta, Diane Dyson, Ellen Foster, Evelyn Janke, Yongling Lu, Robert Raeburn, and Denise Stockley.

Notes

1. One board indicated that it has a "tricameral" governance structure. For a more detailed discussion of the evolution of the structure of Canadian university governing boards, see Cameron (1991) and Jones (1996).

2. The total for faculty, students, support staff, and administrators, including the president, in Table 1 is 38.4%. These figures were obtained from the board secretaries. In the members' survey, the proportion of respondents who indicated that their "primary occupation" was "student, faculty, or staff" was 32.5%. Since the data reported here on demographic characteristics and attitudes and perceptions of board members are from the member survey, the breakdown of 32.5% insiders and 67.5% outsiders will be used.

3. We used the same occupational categorizations as that used by the Association of Governing Boards, so that we could compare our results to theirs (Association of Governing Boards, 1986).

4. Kerr and Gade (1989) surveyed board chairs, along with presidents and heads of faculty, about board performance.

5. For descriptions and analyses of differences in American and Canadian higher education, see Skolnik (1990) and Skolnik and Jones (1992).

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