Transcript Slide 1

Student as Governor
Students at the ‘Top Table’
Jim Dickinson
Director of Policy and Delivery,
National Union of Students
This Session
• Examine purposes and meanings of Governance
in HE
• Examine implications of the white paper for
Governance
• Examine the challenges that creates for you
• Examine some behavioural strategies for
overcoming the challenges
Just to say…
• Most of the make up of Governing Bodies is
“received wisdom”.
• I think your role (and mine here) is partly to
question “received wisdom”
• These are not necc views of NUS- but they
are from an NUS/Student “perspective”
• Governance is exciting principally because it is
about power
• Power is supposed to be moving into the
hands of the student consumer.
STUDENT POWER!
• You are partly a member of the academic
community
• You are partly a paying customer
• The first implies “Voice Power”
• The second implies “Exit power”
• There is a problem with exit (or complaint) in
HE
Student as Governor
• Current university governance arrangements are “ramshackle” and should
be replaced with a two-tier system in which separate “courts” represent
staff and student interests.
• That is the view of Roger Brown, professor of higher education policy at
Liverpool Hope University. In a speech… the corporate model of
governance that has been promoted by the Government since the 1980s
“will not do” for higher education.
• Under the corporate model, governing boards are as small as possible,
have a lay majority (ideally with business expertise), limited staff and
student representation and are distanced from universities’ work.
• The drive towards this structure has resulted in unaccountable governing
bodies that are “on the one hand, not small, expert or time-committed
enough to be able to take effective decisions, but are, on the other hand,
not large and democratic enough to be properly representative of the
institution and its stakeholders”, Professor Brown will say.
Two Traditions
• Two traditions
―Self help/mutualism and
―Charity
• Charity- Philanthropy by the well to do
• Mutuality- Centred on working class traditionscredit unions etc
• Unincorporated associations
• Mutuality dies out across 20C, Charity grows
Two Traditions
• The two traditions are accompanied by different
forms of Governance
• Mutuals are run by members (sometimes with
external input)
• Charities are run by “the great and the good”
(sometimes with beneficiary input)
• HEIs mix the two
Two Traditions
• The academic “stuff” is run as a mutual (of
academics)
• The infrastructure is run as a charity to
empower the above (TGATG)
• You are not an academic
• You are not member of the TGATG
• You are also not great
• You are also not good
So why are you there
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(Coproduction with academics)
Symbolism
To end occupations of the 1970s
Insights (as opposed to evidence)
Other Governors like you
• Also: You can test link between macro and
micro
Classic Student Challenges
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“What’s the students’ view on X or Y”
Students’ Union Scrutiny
The tyranny of politeness
The focus on Scrutiny, Performance and
Compliance (to the detriment of EC&M)
Multiple hat role syndrome
The legitimacy of an opinion tends to be linked
to the age of its deliverer
Same old brand new you
The whole process in a single paper
The white paper
• The most important issues in the White Paper
for Governors are Markets and Places
― Greater competition for student numbers
will be stimulated
― New entrants supported to enter the market
for higher education provision
― “Punish” the “Greedy”, “Cause” some
managed “Failure”, “Reward” the “Bright”
• Governance is about governing institutional
behaviour
Institutional behaviour
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How is the institution run and managed?
Fee setting
Market positioning
Provision choices
Batten down the hatches?
Take risks and secure competitive advantage?
Uniquely you can offer a view on Institutional
behaviour from both a strategic
(moral/political) viewpoint and a day to day
viewpoint (did this really affect us)
Governance Paradox
Who Governs?
Representative v Professional Boards
“But there is, and will continue to be, a tension between the management driven
and output related approach which is central to many recent changes, and the
need for organisations providing public services to involve, respond to, and reflect
the concerns of the communities which they serve”
Nolan 1996
Representative/Professional
• The accountable board
―Transparency & openness
―External audit and evaluation
―Benchmarking
―Forums for consultation
―The replicating “board” classes
―Celebrating diversity
Performance/Conformance
•Conformance (Compliance)
―H&S, Law, Regulation
―Attention to detail, exercise of care, skills in
monitoring, evaluation reporting
•Performance
―Setting mission & character, vision
―Vision, Strategic Thinking, Risk Taking, Pro
Activity
Control/Partner
Controlling/Partnering Management
Consent, Difference, Dissensus
CEO’s- level of support they get
Setting agendas, deciding how issues
presented, controlling information
• Professional status- definitions of “expertise”
External support and careful analysis
• Codes of standards
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Student as Governor
“Staff and student
participation (and that
of parents in sixth form
colleges) in governance
may work best within
this approach”
Interest Definitions
The Board resolves competing interests
• “The interests of Students / Academics /
University”
• “The interests of the public expressed through
regulators”
• “The interests of the funder”
• Negative take - manipulable by the funder
• Medium take - range of interests defined by
the funder
• Positive take- charity donation to an
autonomous self help group
• Role of students’ money- student as
consumer/diversity profile of spender/involver
• Boards having multiple accountabilities
Some other thoughts
• We tend to be inducted into “norms”
• Unless your SLT is “perfect” something has to
change as a result of your scrutiny
• Confidentiality and reserved business can be
amorphous
• We can tend to be process and culture victims
(structure, paper, customs, culture, jargon)
Student as Governor
• We tend to be told that the interests of students
are mutually exclusive of the interests of the HEI
• It’s not that you have a tough job.
• It’s that if a clerk and a chair create the
conditions for you to feel confident then
governance will succeed.
• If not, a culture of professional politeness will
ensure that you blame the system and lay
trustees blame themselves for shallow
participation.
Voice and Exit
• ECM has previously been seen as being about “class”
and “looking up”, League tables and memories, mission
statements
• It’s also about the nature of the relationship between the
state, the student, the academic, the community and the
university SMT
• That means a critical examination of (for example)
student rights and power, entitlements and
responsibilities
• As the nature of the financial transactions change, so
should culture internally
• And remember to be wary about autonomy. It is not a
legal requirement to believe in it (just to exercise it)
Student as Governor