I was thinking about what the scope is for collaborative governance in a school within a university. Often the institutions and norms of shared governance are weakest at the school level. University governance gets a lot of attention, and department governance has a lot of self-interested actors. but school governance tends to be weak, is my prior?

• High level occasional issues where faculty should be leading/equal partners in discussions
  • Refining and reaffirming shared values, purpose, and mission
  • Academic freedom
  • Importance of knowledge production and dissemination
  • Strategic thinking/planning
    • International partnerships
    • Capital projects
    • Non-degree programs
    • TT/NTT ratios
    • Semester vs. quarter
    • Institutes and centers
• Routine generalist academic issues where faculty should be leading
  • Curriculum and new program development
  • Allocation of scholarship resources within school
    • Funding and course releases
    • Similar resources
  • Standard setting and evaluation of teaching and scholarship
    • Oversight and calibration of department practice for TT and NTT faculty
  • Recruitment and retention policies and practices not covered by contract or university-level policy
• Routine but more specialized and occasional issues (i.e. developing capacity for informed analysis takes time/experience) where administration staff usually should be leading
  • Compensation and working conditions (faculty and direct academic support staff)
  • Watchdog function for high-level accountability in expenditures and performance of administration, institutes, centers, etc.
  • Assessment of learning and accreditation