Book Description

Increasingly, elected officials are demanding that public universities demonstrate productivity and efficiency in their use of public funds. New York City is no exception to this trend; Mayor Giuliani has taken the lead in asking that the City University of New York (CUNY) improve its performance (see, e.g., Arenson, 1998a). The performance of a system of higher education depends at least in part on the efficacy of its structure of governance. For the purposes of this report, governance will be defined broadly as including not only the traditional academic decision making procedures related to curriculum, research, and faculty personnel, but also the organizational decisions of administrators, the policy decisions of the university trustees, and the oversight of statewide educational authorities. It includes the structure of authority, accountability, and incentive relationships from the New York State Board of Regents to the employment contracts of individual faculty members. Although effective governance is not sufficient to guarantee ultimate success in achieving positive educational outcomes, it is surely necessary. If CUNY is to satisfy public demands for improvement, it requires a system of governance that promotes both productivity and efficiency in its educational enterprise. The primary objectives of this report are to explain CUNY's governance structure and describe how that structure hinders the achievement of positive educational outcomes. In addition, the report makes tentative suggestions about how governance might be reformed to reduce obstacles to performance.