Board of
trustee, who are they?
Every organization as well
as the university needs to be governed by certain amount of people, in order to undertake rational
decision-making and problem-solving actions. Before the Organization and
Governance theory of Higher education classes, I used to think that there is
nobody higher and powerful than President (rector) of university. The president
is the one who usually reports any changes and initiatives, current day-to-day
life of organization to a bunch of people called Board of Trustees.
Any type (public, non-profit, private, for-profit) of universities
are run by the Board of Trustees. Their responsibility lies in overseeing, but not managing or controlling
the organizational management, financial issues, quality of organization, supporting
the president’s leadership, modifying the strategic plan and setting the
direction. They are ought to “ensure the fulfillment of institution’s mission”,
building relationships with other bodies related to university and international
partners, constituting ethical standards and values (Arnwine, 2002). Also they have an authority to fire and hire
the President for the University.
The amount of the board varies from few individuals to
more than fifty people depending on the institution charter or bylaw. The
members of Board are voluntary based body, usually not educators, have some
business background or currently is a business related entrepreneur, alumni of
that university or having other beneficial interests in that particular
university.
The members are elected for certain period or term.
After the termination or self-cancellation, they can be reelected to the post
again. The Board members do not see each other every day, they might have a
meeting twice or three times in a year to discuss particular issues, or future perspectives
and sustainable development of that university. For this job they do not get any
compensation (salary), unless in Western countries.
However, there are some criticism that, some trustees
do not have continuous perspective towards institution existence. Often,
individual trustees affect to the board’s decision with their subjectivity or personal
interest (Hendrickson et al 2013). Such
disregarding actions of trustees to the bylaw and fiduciary responsibilities of
trusteeship might have negative influence and harm to institution.
Each board member is believed to serve the institution
best and taking into consideration the abovementioned responsibilities oversee
the whole institution’s organization and governance structure.
References
Arnwine, D.
L. (2002). Effective governance: the roles and responsibilities of board
members. Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center), 15(1),
19.
Hendrickson, R. M.,
Lane, J. E., Harris, J. T., & Dorman, R. H. (2012).Academic leadership and governance of higher education. Stylus Publishing, LLC.
Dear Meruyert, thank you for shedding the light on the nature of boards of trustees! It is common practice in Kazakhstan (probably in other countries too) to assign an influential person as a trustee of the institution, even if that person does not possesses sufficient experience and knowledge of the issue. From my experience, Kazakhstani model of the Board of Trustees has nothing to do with the initial concept, due to the fact that de jure those people are assigned with the decision-making mandate; de facto they do not have executive power and seem to be just consultative body. However, I cannot generalize, as every institution in Kazakhstan perceives and incorporates this idea differently.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting information to know about the Board of Trustees. I think it is a good idea to have a group of people deciding in cooperation, not making of a person to be responsible. The Kazakhstani universities get used to have one rector who is responsible for the main decisions. Nowadays, one of the examples of the institutions with the Board of Trustees is Nazarbayev University. . In near future, the Kazakhstani universities will be transforming to the autonomous institutions, where the Board of Trustees is needed, I think. The transformation will be with the help of Nazarbayev University, namely the transition of experience.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Meruert for your post about board of trustees? You could show another coin of board of trustees. It is true that there is need to body, who manage the HEIs and make decisions not being from education sphere. However, in Kazakhstan a rector of university combines several functions in him/herself. Obviously, these functions should be shared between board of trustees and administration of university, because the role of board of trustees is to make a contribution in making decision and to facilitate in defining strategy and tactics of development of university. It might work in western countries, but I am not sure about Kazakstan, as our people get used to being controlled from Soviet time. I think, the establishment of board of trustees require time to fully understand their responsibility. However, it has already implemented in our education system.
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