Abstract
Academic governance is an important dimension of institutional self-governance. This paper reports on the findings of a new study of university senates (academic councils) in Canadian universities in order to analyze changes in structure and in senate members’ perceptions of the structure and role of senates over the last decade. Following the basic design of a similar study in 2000, this study reveals that there have been modest changes to the structure and organizational arrangements of many Canadian university senates over the last 10 years, including the rationalization and reform of the committee structures at many institutions. Findings of the study suggest the importance of senate orientation programming, the need for better oversight and assessment of academic quality, some confusion or ambiguity about the respective roles of board, senate and the administration, and continuing controversy about the proper role of the senate in strategic planning, financial, research, and fund-raising issues and activities.
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Notes
This report was commissioned and sponsored by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC).
The ISGUG report was commissioned and sponsored by CAUT.
The previous study was conducted by Glen Jones, with the assistance of Theresa Shanahan and Paul Goyan (see Jones et al. 2004) and with financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The questionnaire for that study was developed in 1998, and survey data were obtained in the 1999–2000 academic year. We will refer to this project as the 2000 study throughout this paper.
This study focused on all 84 institutions in Canada that offer university degrees under their legislative authority. Federated and affiliated institutions, which typically have the legal authority to offer degrees but who hold this authority in abeyance under an agreement with another degree-granting institution, were excluded from the study.
One of the four universities that have unicameral governance structures has a senior academic committee, which is considered equivalent to a traditional senate. Therefore, this university is included in data for bicameral institutions in the paper.
In our survey, this constituency excluded faculty members who held an administrative rank such as dean, department head, vice president, or president.
In contrast, all three secretaries from the unicameral institutions reported that they have institutional documents or bylaws that further clarify the membership and roles of their faculty councils in addition to their University Act or provincial legislation.
The boards of all three unicameral universities participating in this study play a formal role in the institution’s budgeting and strategic planning processes. Two of them also play a role relating to decisions on university advancement. Only one board has a role in decisions related to research, while another board approves the broad research objectives of the university.
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The authors are grateful for the financial support provided by the University of Saskatchewan and the Ontario Research Chair in Postsecondary Education Policy and Measurement.
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Pennock, L., Jones, G.A., Leclerc, J.M. et al. Assessing the role and structure of academic senates in Canadian universities, 2000–2012. High Educ 70, 503–518 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9852-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9852-8