To the Board of Visitors,
The uncertainty that currently faces public higher education is also an opportunity: Crises invite conversation as much as they court controversy. We seek to forward that conversation in this letter by articulating a vision of shared University governance that will allow the University to continue to grow as a preeminent institution of higher education in the United States and abroad.
Last month, a group of students came together to begin this process. We call ourselves “Hoos University,” and we seek to promote a governing structure in keeping with the principles and practices of a participatory democracy. These principles include a commitment to giving all stakeholders in the University a voice, ensuring that its many, various constituencies have a say on the issues that affect them.
First and foremost, we call for a more diverse and representative Board of Visitors. In keeping with governing boards elsewhere, like Virginia Tech and William and Mary, we believe that ours would benefit from the inclusion of distinguished professionals from many walks of life. We think it is especially key to include the perspectives of individuals who have dedicated their lives to developing an intimate knowledge of the workings of higher education. Along these lines, we support the election of University faculty and staff representatives to serve as voting members of the Board.
We also call on the Board to affirm the core values of higher education: academic freedom, job security and fair compensation for all. The involvement of faculty in articulating and safeguarding these values is crucial. As the American Association of University Professors writes on its website, “We are facing hard times … But it is precisely in these times that faculty should be a central part of the decision making processes in colleges and universities. It is precisely in these times that faculty should have access to the sort of financial information that makes such shared governance meaningful. And it is precisely in these hard financial times that faculty must take the lead in helping to define the academy’s future.”
Our group asks, finally, for a commitment to fair employment practices and adequate compensation for all members of our University community — adjunct as well as full-time faculty, staff as well as professors and administrators, contract as well as direct employees.
As a first step, we invite the Board to join us in forming several focus groups that will bring together the various stakeholders at the University: scholars, students, staff and alumni. We believe that these focus groups would help to foster a closer relationship between the Board and the many men and women who reside and work, day to day, in Mr. Jefferson’s Academical Village. The result, we hope, would be a collaborative process for shaping a twenty-first century University that both reflects our founding values and responds to a changing world.
As an open, student-centered organization dedicated to the future of the University, we invite anyone to attend our meetings, to check out our website hoosuniversity.org, or to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
We look forward to working with you in the future.
Sincerely,
Laura Goldblatt is a member of Hoos University.
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